Long post.
Going to detail the average day and a little about how things work.
Start from last night.
Delivered load in York Pa, after delivery was sent a pre-plan.
Pre-plan:
A prep-plan is an offer of a load. As an o/o i can reject it for any reason. Company drivers must accept unless they cannot legally do the load.
Preplan gives:
Pick up location date and time
Delivery location date and time
Before accepting plan ask two questions.
Can I make both the pick up and delivery on time?
Do I have enough hours left in my pool to complete the trip?
Yes accept the load
Next day:
Day begins with a pre-trip inspection of the unit. Check tires, lights fluids, connections. Spotted a problem with my unit this morning and was able to fix it. Had i not done the pre-trip i would of missed it.
My 5th wheel pins didnt lock back in.
I am now considered on the clock or on the book. MY 14 hour window to complete my day is now ticking down.
Pick up:
Arrived to pick up at 7:45, was in a door at 8:30.
While being loaded trip plan the route from the shipper to the receiver.
Ran the trip through a gps and got 12 hours to complete the route.
Add in variables: These are learned with time experience.
For this trip I know I76 in pa is under construction so I'll add an hour. I also know their are some large hills to climb so I'll add another hour.
So 14 hours total.
Load needs to be in WI on friday at 7am. No problem. I like loads like this where I dont have to rush. So long as that delivery is made on time I can run the route in a manner of my choosing.
Ran 4 hours off today bringing it down to 8. Tomorrow I'll push into WI and get as close to customer as possible preferably within an hour or less. This sets me up nicely for the delivery friday morning and will preserve as much of that 14 hour clock as possible.
Trailers loaded now its time to find a scale to scale out the load.
5 axle semis are limited to:
80,000 pounds gross weight that weight must then be divided over the axles
12,000lbs on steers
34,000lbs on drives
34,000lbs on tandem.
Their is a dot scale on I83 north of york thankfully I dont get pulled in and I make it to carlise.
First weigh:
Steer 12,260
Drive 29040
Trailer 36840
Gross 78,140
Thankfully I made it past that dot scale. I am over on my trailer axle and on my steer axle.
How do you fix it?
We need to fix it my moving the trailer axle and fifth wheel to shift the weight around. First we need to shift weight off the trailer axle to the tractors drive axle.
We do this by moving the axle of the trailer back away from the tractor and towards the end of the trailer. We also need to shift that weight off the steer. To take weight off the steer we move the fifth wheel all the way back from the front.
Second weigh:
steer 11,300
drive 33,080
trailer 33,780
Success we are now legal
Fuel:
know how much fuel your tanks hold. Fuel will add weight to the truck. I have two 100 gallon tanks, diesel fuel weights about 7lbs per gallon. I have 1,860 pounds of play in my gross weight, plus some wiggle room on my axles. I'll be able to fill my tanks, but won’t just to be safe I’ll go a little above half. On some loads you may have to keep your tanks at half, its sucks and is a pain in the ass.
Moving the 5th wheel back as well as the trailer axle has also increased our length a little and decreased maneuverability. Corners must now be taken wider and extra care must be applied in town and cities.
Know the length laws of the states you will be traveling. Some states restrict where your tandems can be.
Ct is 42' and ny is 41' you must account for this in your scaling if you cant scale out with the axle in a legal position you will need to have the load reworked.
The average long haul truck is
73 feet long
13ft 6in tall
8.5ft wide