I have been looking for a truck and today i saw a IH cabover single axle around a 1979 seting along the road. It wasnt exactly what i want but i like trucks so i stoped. It had been used i think to pull doubles. It had something that i had never seen before and that was a quick hitch pintle just forwards under the fifthwheel with its own set of trailer hookups.Was this used to spot the back trailer without unhooking the dolley or was it to make the tractor in to a tandem?
I believe its for the dolly.
There was a system for adding a dolly to the back of a tractor to make a tandem with a rear tag axle. You could unhook it and use it as a dolly, too. It's way back in my memory banks, but it seems like the name had something to do with "eagle"
Plus you could pull a dolly back to the warehouse without a trailer.
Yep, most of these were pretty light duty, just for towing the dolly around looking for a set to hook up to or heading back to the barn, as ScottAr sez.
Guys, notice he said the pintle hitch was under the fifth wheel. The dolly wouldn't be able to turn that way, they hitched to that hook, the frames butted together, and you slid the fifth wheel on the dolly forward until it was right behind the one on the truck. Voila, tandem tractor.
I never have seen one, anybody got pics? How does it draw tight, pintle has play in it.
jifflox converter dolly look here http://hankstruckforum.com/htforum/index.php?topic=25601.0
also this page http://www.hankstruckpictures.com/jifflox.htm
Oh, okay.... I must have killed the brain cells that remember seeing those back when, LOL
Awesome, I love the cartoon, video would be sweet, thanks. Overworked
Thats what it was. I think this would have been alot better if the truck or dolly was air ride. There is a older lady told me that her ex had a truck that must have been like this. She tryed to tell me about it and said it could pull long and short trailers by altering the frame and axles.
I have heard about those, but never seen one before. I once worked for an out fit that used "Jo dog" dollies that slid over the 5th wheel to make a tandem tractor. They used a quick connect air line to equalize the air bags on the dolly and truck. We actually stretched the frame on one dolly to make a 3 axle tridem setup, it was a so/so success we couldn't get the axle loadings to match up, no matter what we tried. But the DOT never caught it.
I worked at a place that need a to haul one big load so the boss had us take a dolly and cut the tong off and put plates to bolt it to plates we weld to the trucks end of frame. It was very long and we did it in the side of the shop were it was about 75 feet from a ditch. The second it was finished the boss backs it out of the shop and after trying to turn it to get away from the shop he pulls it back in and tells us to unbolt it and weld the frame ends back on. I then built a axle to go under the truck.That axle saved me from a ticket one time i was driveing it and got stoped by the DOT.He ask me repeatedly about if i could lift that axle going down the road i told him no and showed him that we undid the air lines and caped them off when we didnt need it. He was only worried about that and never found out that i didnt have a CDL.