Hey Guys I'm thinking of buying a tri drive long wheelbase, high cap, dump truck. Please any opinion, info, or experience would be greatly appreciated.
The tri drive i owned was a winch tractor speced heavy for hauling large iron. I found even with full lockers it got stuck alot tandem drives would actually drive around it and wave to the driver. and the extra cost of tires those two things are the only draw backs to them i found hope this helps
Yeah it does. 2 very good points. Thanks.
Running excavator on one particular job once with a couple of tri-drives and they were a problem to dump where the material was needed. They just need too much room to get around, and most attempt's to get there seems to result in getting stuck. Another issue is with longer boxes you need a lot more overhead clearance to dump were as a tandem with the normal length box you can sneak up to wire's ect. and usually slip a load off. I think they have a place when hauling to stock pile's or redi-mix plant's ect. but for construction site's I have seen them cut off job's and sent away by site super's.
Very interesting points "Two-Books" thanks for the input. I guess a tandem on it's own is best for tight job sites and then a pup as needed for large sites.
Up here where I am , about 90% of the trucks are either tandem with 3 or 4 axle transfer's and have been for several yr's now. Tandem's with 2 and 3 axle pony's generally work the excavation end of thing's and the transfer's handle the majority of sand & gravel hauling as well as the paving end of thing's. Once in a while there is the odd job that use 5 and 6 axle belly dump's but it is usually hi-way work. Tandem or tridem end dump's behind tractor's are very rare due to stability when dumping, a guy once told me there were two kinds of end dump's behind tractor's and that was, those that had been on their side's and those soon to be.