On the subject of trailer tandems. I recently had a trailer that suddenly the rear locking pins refused to retract anymore. Usually wacking them with my hammer fixed the problem but these would just pop right back out. I crawled underneath and found that back behind the frame, the bar that pulls the pins back had lost its bolt connecting it to the pin. So as the air pressure sucked the bar in, it had nothing to pull on and the pins just stayed locked in place.
I had an extra cable seal laying around so I used it to reconnect the bar and be able to slide the tandems again.
This worked perfectly and I was fortunate to be able to run the trailer through our terminal in SLC the next day to get it secured properly.
Funny thing was the "quick fix" worked so well that the mechanics didn't think anything was wrong with the trailer and kicked it back out to the yard as "fixed".
I dragged the trailer back to them and crawled under with a mechanic to show them the problem.
Terminal:
A facility where trucking companies operate out of, or their "home base" if you will. A lot of major companies have multiple terminals around the country which usually consist of the main office building, a drop lot for trailers, and sometimes a repair shop and wash facilities.
Tandems:
Tandem Axles
A set of axles spaced close together, legally defined as more than 40 and less than 96 inches apart by the USDOT. Drivers tend to refer to the tandem axles on their trailer as just "tandems". You might hear a driver say, "I'm 400 pounds overweight on my tandems", referring to his trailer tandems, not his tractor tandems. Tractor tandems are generally just referred to as "drives" which is short for "drive axles".
Tandem:
Tandem Axles
A set of axles spaced close together, legally defined as more than 40 and less than 96 inches apart by the USDOT. Drivers tend to refer to the tandem axles on their trailer as just "tandems". You might hear a driver say, "I'm 400 pounds overweight on my tandems", referring to his trailer tandems, not his tractor tandems. Tractor tandems are generally just referred to as "drives" which is short for "drive axles".
On the subject of trailer tandems. I recently had a trailer that suddenly the rear locking pins refused to retract anymore. Usually wacking them with my hammer fixed the problem but these would just pop right back out. I crawled underneath and found that back behind the frame, the bar that pulls the pins back had lost its bolt connecting it to the pin. So as the air pressure sucked the bar in, it had nothing to pull on and the pins just stayed locked in place.
I had an extra cable seal laying around so I used it to reconnect the bar and be able to slide the tandems again.
This worked perfectly and I was fortunate to be able to run the trailer through our terminal in SLC the next day to get it secured properly.
Funny thing was the "quick fix" worked so well that the mechanics didn't think anything was wrong with the trailer and kicked it back out to the yard as "fixed". I dragged the trailer back to them and crawled under with a mechanic to show them the problem.
Terminal:
A facility where trucking companies operate out of, or their "home base" if you will. A lot of major companies have multiple terminals around the country which usually consist of the main office building, a drop lot for trailers, and sometimes a repair shop and wash facilities.
Tandems:
Tandem Axles
A set of axles spaced close together, legally defined as more than 40 and less than 96 inches apart by the USDOT. Drivers tend to refer to the tandem axles on their trailer as just "tandems". You might hear a driver say, "I'm 400 pounds overweight on my tandems", referring to his trailer tandems, not his tractor tandems. Tractor tandems are generally just referred to as "drives" which is short for "drive axles".
Tandem:
Tandem Axles
A set of axles spaced close together, legally defined as more than 40 and less than 96 inches apart by the USDOT. Drivers tend to refer to the tandem axles on their trailer as just "tandems". You might hear a driver say, "I'm 400 pounds overweight on my tandems", referring to his trailer tandems, not his tractor tandems. Tractor tandems are generally just referred to as "drives" which is short for "drive axles".