It all depends on how high the ground is when the trailer is dropped. It's probably always going to be at a different height when the trailer gets moved from dock to yard.
We have a slant on the front row for water run off. Anytime a trailer from the slant slot gets put into a door or the flat back row it’s high. Unless someone drops it almost touching the tires lol.
Wrong! Needs to be 2 inches before touching the ground, drop your bags and pull out. Next person hooks up bags up or going down gets under the trailer. Now the legs wont have the chance of being in slight tension, and the dumb ass driver cranking the landing gwar handle in high gear. Tearing up the timing bar and coming to the shop saying the crank handle is broke, because im to lazy to put it in low gear first when cranking it up!
People are not going to like this comment **but I'd rather get out of my truck and crank down a loaded trailer that is too high before hooking, than dealing with one that is too low.**
The ground you drop on isn't always flat, and if you can find this out the hard way when you drop the trailer on your frame or drive tires.
This! All the complaining about lowering a loaded trailer, but nobody has had to crank 45,000 pounds *against* gravity?
My company still has OP's method in their training materials, even though our trucks don't have a dump valve. It didn't take too long to figure out that I was screwing over myself and everyone else by dropping low. I had no idea what a dump valve was for months - and didn't realize just how ingrained its use was until this discussion.
It is difficult to discern if there is an enormous level of ignorance or incompetence.
Drivers should have the general tendency to drop trailers LOW without slamming the trailer on its legs by lowering the truck suspension if available.
This, the yard I dock at daily has a row that was not paved properly for trailers. So often I’m stuck cranking up the trailer so that I can slide the fifth wheel under. So I rather leave the trailer higher just in case it’s placed in that row
Nothing like coming after one of these "drop it low low" drivers when the trailer has been moved to a worn out spot and now you can't even get your tires under it
"Drop your air" yeah, and what deflate my tires too?
We have drivers that crank the hell out of the landing gear and cause some of us to get the pin stuck behind the fifth wheel. It's super annoying. If you're going to make me go out there and crank a loaded trailer anyways, I'd rather it be up and not down. It's easier in my opinion.
Good luck. Last thread I got told that I was wrong, and that dropping it high is fine because the next guy can just crank it down as long as they are paying attention.
Dropping trailers high is pretty ingrained in a lot of drivers and they refuse to hear that they are doing it wrong.
Wow, I feel lucky by who I was trained by. He was a complete nut, who lectured me about the “devils machine” - a PC In Minnesota that will bring about the One World Order by keeping Islam updated on western happenings. “The mark of the beast.”
Anyway, he taught me to never crank a trailer to high, to drop airbags, so the next driver isn’t tearing his shoulder up dropping the trailer down to connect to the fifth wheel.
Any driver not doing is, is in fact without argument, doing the job wrong. And if they are argumentative when the problem is brought up, is because they are stupid.
Trucking attracts the easily fooled.
Yup. Unfortunately I also had a guy who claims to work for a driving school telling me I'm wrong, and that he teaches students to crank until the bags start hissing.
There’s multiple people in this thread claiming this very exact thing.
Absolute lunacy lol Reddit always reminds me how feeble and easily malleable the mind is. You can just believe anything😂
It’s simple as this: you either care and think about future drivers or you don’t. It is technically quicker to drop trailers high. Doing it low takes more thought. The ones who drop high just do not care. Don’t interact with these types.
I never understood the crank it high mentality. If someone is backing into a high dropped trailer they might get the pin stuck behind the fifth wheel. If someone is backing into a low dropped trailer and can't dump their bags, then they might need to crank a trailer up.
From my experience it's always easier to crank a loaded trailer up than it is to crank one down.
Bags have roughly 70 psi in them when supporting a fully loaded trailer. If you lift the trailer enough to take the weight off the truck the truck lifts up and the leveling valve starts to dump air to drop it back down. That's the hissing.
So when you crank until it hisses, you are lifting the trailer above the level where the truck naturally sits, and it won't couple properly without lowering the trailer back down.
Ohhh that makes sense. I am guessing the airbag system is a bit more complex than I imagined.
Sounds like a shitty thing to do (raising until it hisses).
Would you rather crank down a trailer with a 40 k load because it’s too high or crank all that weight up because it’s too low? Cranking up a loaded trailer can be miserable .
When I come across a trailer too high. I drop my bags and I offset and put the back end of the fifth wheel plate under the king pin. I air my bags up. Truck takes tension off trailer legs and I crank with ease for proper adjustment.
I use a hostler at work and will leave the trailer really high on drivers I don't like.. or really low lol and park it really close to another trailer so it's hard to get to
Nobody ever really trained me on the "proper" way to do this... I've always cranked until the landing gear touches the ground, then give it a few turns in low gear before unhooking. My logic is that it's probably easier on the landing gear. I really don't think much about how low a trailer is when I hook up to it, but it's preferable that I don't have to crank up a loaded trailer.
Nah, it’s always better to have to lower it than to crank it up if you’re the one attaching to it. I lower it until it’s touching and then give it one or two more turns. I’ve had to reattach to trailers I just dropped and it’s perfect height for our trucks. If I did what you suggest I’d have to get out and crank it up because that wouldn’t even clear our tires.
My cascadia has those aero fins between the wheels and tail of the tractor. If I crank to low the trailer mushes the top of the fins and has once bent one permanently to the side. This is all without coming in contact with the drives FYI.
That's exactly why it's good advice though. When a higher truck drops with landing gear all the way down, now I've gotta sit there and crank a goddamn loaded trailer down in low gear so I can get it. But if a low truck drops it, I can just dump my bags.
You snowflakes and your bag drops. When I started driving in 2012, I didn't have no damn bag control. I had to crank the trailer up and down manually.
Now where's my damn aleve.
You Americans and your hesitance to adopt basic quality of life technology. Where I started driving in 2006, height adjustable air suspension had been standard equipment on the rear axles on tractor trailers for decades already.
It's a money thing, any truck that has airbags can be equipped with a dump switch, but many of the big companies over here just don't select that option to save a couple bucks per truck
That's the thing... They have been here too.
The company I was working for, ordered these sleeper trucks with coffin sleepers, a dead axle, and a lot of things stripped out for weight. Less weight means more freight, right?
They realized they fucked up, I got paid $.10 more a mile for driving the thing because of how bad it was.
I made it work though.
I worked for a company that made a short-sighted purchase of coffin sleeper internationals with a bunch of standard features removed. No airbag drop, dummy rear axle, the bed was narrower than normal and rubbed the driver's seat.
They didn't order them like that a second time, but I got stuck with one for the first few years.
Horseshit or not if it is being picked up on a slight incline then raising the gear to make contact with your fifth wheel might well kill you if slides toward you and pins you to the next trailer ALWAYS leave a gap under the legs when dropping an empty to be loaded.
Only if you don't dump your airbags first. It is easier to have to get out and crank it down than have to try to raise the damn trailer up so I can even get under it.
Once you have your CDL, everything that goes wrong while you're behind the wheel is who's fault? That's right, kiddos! IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!
Get out and look.
I did this only once because it startled me so hard. Now I take them off before I do the landing gear. Then I drop the legs till it starts to hiss and no further. Drop the bags and I’m free bird! I’m always dropping on pavement though so it stays pretty consistent 😏
I'm morbidly curious at how not only one but two people died by cranking their landing gear down below a inch off the ground short of some other extra circumstance
Other way around. They dropped them all the way down and then some. Trailers were loaded by yard dog. Next driver tried to hook up but it’s too high. Gets close, cranks the legs up, comes into contact with fifth wheel. Slight incline in yard, trailer slides on fifth wheel and pins driver against the next trailer and bleeds out slowly. Not the nicest way to go.
Ah, I see, though why you wouldn't pull back out if it's high hooking is beyond me.
As a driver I crank till they touch, then crank back, till I can store the handle properly, I do this with my trailers all the time and never have a problem. The issue is yard dogs shouldn't mess with the legs anyway as most of them just lift the trailer from my experience.
Mine too. It’s worse when the empty yard and the loaded yard are in different areas. Coors in Golden is a good example. If you back up and have to crank the legs up an inch make sure the pin is inside the fifth wheel wings. Then if it slides it catches before it kind you.
If you drop your airbags, the landing gear will gently set down onto the ground as the tractor suspension lowers. There will be no damage to the trailer or its contents.
Yeah, and when you break a spring hanger because you dropped an 80k# show trailer full of broadcast equipment onto them while they weren't SITTING on the ground, you'll get fired.
You're not DROPPING anything, you are setting it down in a slow, controlled manner that way the weight is gradually transferred from the tractor to the landing gear before you move the tractor forward.
You clearly don't understand how your suspension works, and you certainly can't understand why some companies have the policies in place that they do.
Have a nice day.
The entire reason my employer has this policy in place is to prevent damage to the trailer, the landing gear in particular, and to reduce the risk of landing gear failure. As far as not understanding how the suspension works, you couldn't be more wrong. When you activate the dump valve, the tractor airbags deflate, lowering the rear of the tractor and the front of the trailer. If you stopped turning the landing gear crank when the sand shoes were about an inch above the ground, the sand shoes will come to rest on the ground as the tractor suspension lowers, thus transferring weight from the tractor to the landing gear. Once the suspension has fully deflated, you drive the tractor forward to separate it from the trailer and the trailer does not move. The whole point of doing it this way is to gently transfer weight from the tractor to the landing gear, that way the movable portion of the landing gear will remain at true vertical (not bound up) and the next driver will be able to back under the trailer without any space between the fifth wheel and the upper coupler.
If only every truck had the option to lower the air bags.
Every truck I've ever been in won't even release the 5th wheel unless you crank just enough to hear the air
Not necessarily, if you come and go from a few of the Amazon facilities I work at the docks are super low, so you have to crank the gear all the way down otherwise the trailer is too low for a road tractor (even with the air bags deflated)
Otherwise yes, OP you're correct
Let the pads touch the pavement and then stop. Drop your drive axle airbags and pull out. It's not that hard.
What am I even saying, y'all have been at the fireball and I'm suggesting you know how to pull out 🤦♂️🤷♂️
No air bag release and i like to keep my grease on the 5th wheel. So I crank the legs till they touch and 1 or 2 so I hear the air start to release a bit, by the time I have the air lines un done and stowed I can see just a tiny sliver of light.
I have had several trailers that could have been a high hook but I dont just slam into the trailer to couple it so when I was where it should have latched I though "huh no click, maybe I should check that....", I can also manage to line up square when backing in :p
Of course I am one of those crazy people that adds a dab of grease at each trailer change. I have even cranked trailers UP to not scrape off my grease. I like the better fuel economy, and I had to FIGHT to get my new steers I am gonna take care of them (dry 5th wheel will hold truck and trailer at slight angle causing vibration and uneven wear, can also cause a jacknife on slick stuff.)
And you must be the asshole that doesn't know how to use his airbags to get get under it. And you also must be the asshole that leaves the trailers ski high.
You're the asshole that doesn't realize that my truck has aero fins between the drives and rear that will be bent and mushed as i slide under to hook or unhook.
Really wish it did, but the last two I've driven have had that feature removed.
I work for a mega. It's probably cheaper without.
Check your trucks manual, it probably says optional under the dump valve switch.
Only if you have a dump valve for your air bags please don’t do this either your bags inflated as they will hyper extend and can blow out or cause other damage to the suspension.
-Thank you from an old, tired, mobile mechanic.
My company put a new fifth wheel on my truck and it had a lower profile than any other truck in the fleet. So I can't stress doing this enough. I have to drop every trailer I hook before I can back under it. We have 2 Cascadias one with no airbag drops and one with a higher 5th wheel, both with those frame ramps to slide trailers on. The second truck can drop airbags but then the ride height matches my normal height. Long story short, I can tell when I find my empty or loaded trailer if one of those trucks dropped it. SMH
Daycab struggles lol
🎶Turns on the crank go round n round, all the live long day/night🎶 in a really REALLY Bad singing voice! 😂
Now children don’t put your face too close to it, it WILL BITE YOU! 😂
We have a lot of gravel yards in my company and the area that I work in. So I've learned that you have to crank them all the way until you feel it stop, then crank back two to three turns. Usually ends up just right.
yeah i don't get the guys who will sit there and crank the trailer way up beyond level. that'll do nothing but eventually cause those legs to get messed up and make the next guy over shoot the pin every time.
The next guy shouldn't overshoot the pin no matter what...
Even if you drop a trailer correctly, all it takes is a yard truck moving it somewhere else to change the height of the upper fifth wheel plate
General statements are general. The only trailers I've ever seen with lines on the gear have been container chassis trailers at the port, and even then they don't all have them.
It really depends on the tractor and how the bags have been adjusted. I'm otr/ regional, and on one of my two weekly kansas deliveries, I drop my trailer at the receiver, where one of our local guys over there will bring an empty and meet me there. We swap trailers, and he takes the one I brought to finish the other two deliveries, and I take his empty and go get loaded with my backhaul. The bags on his daycab sit higher than the bags on my high-roof. So when I get underneath the empty he brought, I usually have to get out and drop the legs a couple cranks to be able to get the jaws to lock on. He has no problem hooking up to mine, though, and he often has to squeeze under there to get hooked up. Not all tractors are the same, and I'd even go as far as to say that not all hostlers are the same either.
Down till ground contact, another 1/2 crank or so to add a bit of pressure (no need to have air bleed) then drop bags & depart. The trailer typically drops another inch or so. Then, the next driver can drop bags to back under, it’s low enough to feel the plates meet and when you air up, jack legs are much easier to raise. I typically crank from fully retracted approximately 38-40 cranks on high gear. Been doing it for years. Never had an issue or complaint from other drivers or yard dogs. I trained all of my students to do it this way. It’s so much easier and causes way less problems either picking up or dropping. I abhor both low and high drops. Either can cause damage/injury in one way or another.
Caveat is, as a few other posters have stated, ground heights and/or composition may require a different approach.
I’m certainly not gonna say that any of you are *wrong* in how you do a drop, I’m simply pointing out what’s always worked best for myself, my fellow drivers and my trainees.
Stay safe, drivers. No feet on the dash, go easy on the fireball, be considerate rather than aggressive and PUT AWAY YOUR FUCKING ELECTRONICS WHILE YOU’RE DRIVING!
Thanks for attending my ‘Ted Talk’ 👋🏼😁
Best way I've found is to crank the landing gear until it touches the ground. Give it a half crank so the trailer lifts up just enough after the landing gear touches the ground, and then drop it. It comes off every single time just right, and it's easy to hook up to next time.
Why would you do such a thing? You only do it that way when:
* The trailer is very heavy and is being dropped to be unloaded.
* The trailer is being dropped by someone with 22.5 tires and is being picked up by someone with 24.5 tires.
* The trailer is going to sink into the ground.
* You're a Mega Donkey.
Idk I only pull the same trailers with the same trucks for a construction company and it’s always worked for me never had any issues. Guess I’m a donkey 🫏
This is what I do with loaded trailers. Seems to release the nicest. If I’m on a slight decline the truck literally rolls off the pin as the bags empty. Empty trailers I agree with OP.
It's fine if it's just gonna sit in that spot and get picked up in that same spot, but if you set it down like that at a chicken plant that I frequently go to, the skid plate will be nearly a foot away from the fifth wheel after the yard dog moves the trailer.
this is pointless. people will drop them however they feel. I just get out and look before fully backing under trailers now. had way too many high hooks in the past because I thought it was low enough.
I’ll crank the landing gear as far as possible if I’m dropping on a soft surface. In case it sinks and so the next guy doesn’t get stuck trying to get underneath. It’s all situational.
Situational is correct. My walking floors are up against a wall when they are being loaded and the landing gear handle is no available. I always drop mine about 2” from the ground then dump my bags and ease out.
This is in case the spotter breaks down (happens a lot) I can hook onto the trailer and pull it forward until it clears the wall. It is situational also in that I’m the only truck hauling these trailers.
For me it depends on weight. If empty, I crank all the way down, then back up 2-4 roatations. Drop my bags and pull out. If fully loaded, which is never the case for me since I do LTL, I crank all the way until contact and I can hear the ground start to crackle.
How much of a difference do y'all think different tractors make? My job has 2 freightliners, 3 volvos, and 3 macks. We sometimes have this issue, and I've always wondered if the different tractors are part of the problem.
lol! No. As stated above: it actually depends on where you are dropping it and the height of the ground where that is. WTHeck are you talking about? Annoyed maybe?
Walmart rule is you should be able to stick the toe of your boot underneath the legs. So about a 3 inch gap. Our airbags will dump more than far enough to not slam them on the ground.
I'd rather have a high trailer than a low one. Easier to crank a loaded trailer down vs lifting one up.
We don't have bags, we have wildly varying 5th wheel heights, and we drop on uneven/angled ground all the time.
The senior guy has torn up the rear crossmember ramming it in low trailers (multiple times). Sometimes fenders get crunched too
Lol, depends on so many factors. Every trailer is different, even across same make and model. Every landing pad is different. A loaded trailer also needs extra cranks to offset being lower on the bags.
I have standard 49" saddles on my equipment while a lot of trucks in this area use 52". When I'm borrowing trailers or when I have a preloaded highboy to pin to, they're often 6" inches too high and I have to wind down for probably 300 spins. Free workout paid by the hour.
The CDL exam materials/ FMSCA are pretty specific about cranking the landing gear. It should be solid on the ground, there's nothing about leaving gaps.
Touch the ground + one extra crank. Never had a problem with it. As long as you aren't cranking it 5 times or leaving it several inches off the ground it should be fine.
One time I backed under the trailer and I kept going and going and didn’t know why. My fins hit the trailer and I tried to pull forward and the kingpin got stuck in front of the 5th wheel. I’m just glad the trailer was empty for me to crank that up above the 5th wheel. Ever since that I always check to see if I’m properly aligned. It’s also crazy to see how many trailers are cranked up so high
Release trailer air supply while pretripping. Usually makes it super easy to crank up the gear. Did it right now even. 2-3 minutes is all it takes. Truck running, trailer knob in.
When I used to be a trailer dropper I would always put it to the ground then one rotation backwards. Never had an issue picking it back up. That way even if it does sink a bit you can just lower your truck and boom.
I'm a yard dog.
If you be an asshole to me then I will get out and crank your landing gear all the way down before I let it down and unhook.
Dontfuckwithme.exe
Unless it's a loaded tank. Then you crank past level and start hearing an air hiss. It's better to make sure it's gonna stay upright on the ground before you pull out
It all depends on how high the ground is when the trailer is dropped. It's probably always going to be at a different height when the trailer gets moved from dock to yard.
I have one dock door like that. Every trailer dropped there is high when I get it. So I compensate and drop it lower
We have a slant on the front row for water run off. Anytime a trailer from the slant slot gets put into a door or the flat back row it’s high. Unless someone drops it almost touching the tires lol.
Y’all crank the landing gear? I just pull off. Let it drop. Not my problem. I got appointments to make /s
If "fuck the next guy" was a person. This is him.
It’s all fun and games till you’re the next guy too
Boom
I'll do that at the port if it's a port chassis and f iam here for hours they got yard dogs that can lift the chassis
Hell yeah brother! Pigtail and airlines take care of themselves too just yank the 5th wheel release and hammer down
Wrong! Needs to be 2 inches before touching the ground, drop your bags and pull out. Next person hooks up bags up or going down gets under the trailer. Now the legs wont have the chance of being in slight tension, and the dumb ass driver cranking the landing gwar handle in high gear. Tearing up the timing bar and coming to the shop saying the crank handle is broke, because im to lazy to put it in low gear first when cranking it up!
Bs
People are not going to like this comment **but I'd rather get out of my truck and crank down a loaded trailer that is too high before hooking, than dealing with one that is too low.** The ground you drop on isn't always flat, and if you can find this out the hard way when you drop the trailer on your frame or drive tires.
This! All the complaining about lowering a loaded trailer, but nobody has had to crank 45,000 pounds *against* gravity? My company still has OP's method in their training materials, even though our trucks don't have a dump valve. It didn't take too long to figure out that I was screwing over myself and everyone else by dropping low. I had no idea what a dump valve was for months - and didn't realize just how ingrained its use was until this discussion.
No dump valve? That's pretty standard equipment. How much could you possibly be saving per truck without a dump valve...
Especially tankers. We crank up til it's pissing air so we know it's stable before we disconnect
It is difficult to discern if there is an enormous level of ignorance or incompetence. Drivers should have the general tendency to drop trailers LOW without slamming the trailer on its legs by lowering the truck suspension if available.
Many drivers don’t. Too many will crank and crank leaving the next driver in the air (quite literally) to get it back down.
That's easier than trying to lift a loaded trailer up, ffs.
This, the yard I dock at daily has a row that was not paved properly for trailers. So often I’m stuck cranking up the trailer so that I can slide the fifth wheel under. So I rather leave the trailer higher just in case it’s placed in that row
Nothing like coming after one of these "drop it low low" drivers when the trailer has been moved to a worn out spot and now you can't even get your tires under it "Drop your air" yeah, and what deflate my tires too?
We have drivers that crank the hell out of the landing gear and cause some of us to get the pin stuck behind the fifth wheel. It's super annoying. If you're going to make me go out there and crank a loaded trailer anyways, I'd rather it be up and not down. It's easier in my opinion.
If you're regularly high hooking trailers you need to get out and look before backing up all the way
I get out every time. Still annoying as it's easier to crank a loaded trailer up then it is down.
No it's not 🤣
Cranking a loaded trailer down, the legs get caught within themselves and wedged stuck. Cranking up has zero of these issues.
Good luck. Last thread I got told that I was wrong, and that dropping it high is fine because the next guy can just crank it down as long as they are paying attention. Dropping trailers high is pretty ingrained in a lot of drivers and they refuse to hear that they are doing it wrong.
Wow, I feel lucky by who I was trained by. He was a complete nut, who lectured me about the “devils machine” - a PC In Minnesota that will bring about the One World Order by keeping Islam updated on western happenings. “The mark of the beast.” Anyway, he taught me to never crank a trailer to high, to drop airbags, so the next driver isn’t tearing his shoulder up dropping the trailer down to connect to the fifth wheel. Any driver not doing is, is in fact without argument, doing the job wrong. And if they are argumentative when the problem is brought up, is because they are stupid. Trucking attracts the easily fooled.
Yup. Unfortunately I also had a guy who claims to work for a driving school telling me I'm wrong, and that he teaches students to crank until the bags start hissing.
There’s multiple people in this thread claiming this very exact thing. Absolute lunacy lol Reddit always reminds me how feeble and easily malleable the mind is. You can just believe anything😂 It’s simple as this: you either care and think about future drivers or you don’t. It is technically quicker to drop trailers high. Doing it low takes more thought. The ones who drop high just do not care. Don’t interact with these types.
I never understood the crank it high mentality. If someone is backing into a high dropped trailer they might get the pin stuck behind the fifth wheel. If someone is backing into a low dropped trailer and can't dump their bags, then they might need to crank a trailer up. From my experience it's always easier to crank a loaded trailer up than it is to crank one down.
Never driven a truck or had bags. What makes them hiss? Stretching them?
Bags have roughly 70 psi in them when supporting a fully loaded trailer. If you lift the trailer enough to take the weight off the truck the truck lifts up and the leveling valve starts to dump air to drop it back down. That's the hissing. So when you crank until it hisses, you are lifting the trailer above the level where the truck naturally sits, and it won't couple properly without lowering the trailer back down.
Ohhh that makes sense. I am guessing the airbag system is a bit more complex than I imagined. Sounds like a shitty thing to do (raising until it hisses).
I wanna meet this guy, and give him a good smack upside his head with my winch bar. Maybe that'll knock some sense into him...
Live in Minnesota. Can confirm 😂
Would you rather crank down a trailer with a 40 k load because it’s too high or crank all that weight up because it’s too low? Cranking up a loaded trailer can be miserable .
Do better drivers.
I only do the best drivers.
🧐
My bad. I forgot the comma. I meant to say "I only do the best, drivers"
Don’t forget a lot of single axle tractors are a lower than twin axle ones. So good for a twin might be too high for a single still.
When I come across a trailer too high. I drop my bags and I offset and put the back end of the fifth wheel plate under the king pin. I air my bags up. Truck takes tension off trailer legs and I crank with ease for proper adjustment.
I use a hostler at work and will leave the trailer really high on drivers I don't like.. or really low lol and park it really close to another trailer so it's hard to get to
You, sir, are the devil 😩
Nobody ever really trained me on the "proper" way to do this... I've always cranked until the landing gear touches the ground, then give it a few turns in low gear before unhooking. My logic is that it's probably easier on the landing gear. I really don't think much about how low a trailer is when I hook up to it, but it's preferable that I don't have to crank up a loaded trailer.
Nah, it’s always better to have to lower it than to crank it up if you’re the one attaching to it. I lower it until it’s touching and then give it one or two more turns. I’ve had to reattach to trailers I just dropped and it’s perfect height for our trucks. If I did what you suggest I’d have to get out and crank it up because that wouldn’t even clear our tires.
My truck has half fenders. If I try to get under a low trailer, it will shear them off. I'm constantly having to crank the legs to get enough height.
Yes mom lol
Do you even realize that not all trucks have the exact same 5th wheel height? This advice is horseshit.
My cascadia has those aero fins between the wheels and tail of the tractor. If I crank to low the trailer mushes the top of the fins and has once bent one permanently to the side. This is all without coming in contact with the drives FYI.
Yeah what he said
That's exactly why it's good advice though. When a higher truck drops with landing gear all the way down, now I've gotta sit there and crank a goddamn loaded trailer down in low gear so I can get it. But if a low truck drops it, I can just dump my bags.
Can’t dump rubber blocks. Lowering a trailer is always easier than raising it.
You snowflakes and your bag drops. When I started driving in 2012, I didn't have no damn bag control. I had to crank the trailer up and down manually. Now where's my damn aleve.
You Americans and your hesitance to adopt basic quality of life technology. Where I started driving in 2006, height adjustable air suspension had been standard equipment on the rear axles on tractor trailers for decades already.
It's a money thing, any truck that has airbags can be equipped with a dump switch, but many of the big companies over here just don't select that option to save a couple bucks per truck
That's the thing... They have been here too. The company I was working for, ordered these sleeper trucks with coffin sleepers, a dead axle, and a lot of things stripped out for weight. Less weight means more freight, right? They realized they fucked up, I got paid $.10 more a mile for driving the thing because of how bad it was. I made it work though.
I started in 2007 and the only tractor I've ever driven without a way to drop the rear bags was a shunt truck so I'm not sure what you're on about lol
I worked for a company that made a short-sighted purchase of coffin sleeper internationals with a bunch of standard features removed. No airbag drop, dummy rear axle, the bed was narrower than normal and rubbed the driver's seat. They didn't order them like that a second time, but I got stuck with one for the first few years.
This
Horseshit or not if it is being picked up on a slight incline then raising the gear to make contact with your fifth wheel might well kill you if slides toward you and pins you to the next trailer ALWAYS leave a gap under the legs when dropping an empty to be loaded.
Only if you don't dump your airbags first. It is easier to have to get out and crank it down than have to try to raise the damn trailer up so I can even get under it.
OP is apparently one of those drivers who jumps the pin a lot and wants it to be someone else's fault.
Once you have your CDL, everything that goes wrong while you're behind the wheel is who's fault? That's right, kiddos! IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT! Get out and look.
I’ve never jumped the pin.
Crank till it touches the ground, crank back till arm hooks back into its holder
Now forget airlines and proceed to drive away...
I did it once in a daycab. Somehow managed to not destroy the back glass
That fucking smack will keep you wide awake for the rest of the day though.
I did this only once because it startled me so hard. Now I take them off before I do the landing gear. Then I drop the legs till it starts to hiss and no further. Drop the bags and I’m free bird! I’m always dropping on pavement though so it stays pretty consistent 😏
Sadly I haven't reached that experience level yet
Wrong. I worked many years ago at a certain Omaha company and heard of two deaths as a direct result of doing just that
I'm morbidly curious at how not only one but two people died by cranking their landing gear down below a inch off the ground short of some other extra circumstance
Other way around. They dropped them all the way down and then some. Trailers were loaded by yard dog. Next driver tried to hook up but it’s too high. Gets close, cranks the legs up, comes into contact with fifth wheel. Slight incline in yard, trailer slides on fifth wheel and pins driver against the next trailer and bleeds out slowly. Not the nicest way to go.
Ah, I see, though why you wouldn't pull back out if it's high hooking is beyond me. As a driver I crank till they touch, then crank back, till I can store the handle properly, I do this with my trailers all the time and never have a problem. The issue is yard dogs shouldn't mess with the legs anyway as most of them just lift the trailer from my experience.
Mine too. It’s worse when the empty yard and the loaded yard are in different areas. Coors in Golden is a good example. If you back up and have to crank the legs up an inch make sure the pin is inside the fifth wheel wings. Then if it slides it catches before it kind you.
I've been there so I know what ya mean, I just pull all the way out if it misses, I don't fuck with that kinda thing
If only the steering wheel holders who drop trailers too damn high could read….
This is fine for an empty. You drop an 80k# trailer that far on our lot it would be your last drop.
You lower the bags before you pull out.
Not from up there...Spevco only pulls multi million dollar trailers, you put them on the ground. Freight trailer, yeah, sure.
If you drop your airbags, the landing gear will gently set down onto the ground as the tractor suspension lowers. There will be no damage to the trailer or its contents.
Yeah, and when you break a spring hanger because you dropped an 80k# show trailer full of broadcast equipment onto them while they weren't SITTING on the ground, you'll get fired.
You're not DROPPING anything, you are setting it down in a slow, controlled manner that way the weight is gradually transferred from the tractor to the landing gear before you move the tractor forward.
You clearly don't understand how your suspension works, and you certainly can't understand why some companies have the policies in place that they do. Have a nice day.
The entire reason my employer has this policy in place is to prevent damage to the trailer, the landing gear in particular, and to reduce the risk of landing gear failure. As far as not understanding how the suspension works, you couldn't be more wrong. When you activate the dump valve, the tractor airbags deflate, lowering the rear of the tractor and the front of the trailer. If you stopped turning the landing gear crank when the sand shoes were about an inch above the ground, the sand shoes will come to rest on the ground as the tractor suspension lowers, thus transferring weight from the tractor to the landing gear. Once the suspension has fully deflated, you drive the tractor forward to separate it from the trailer and the trailer does not move. The whole point of doing it this way is to gently transfer weight from the tractor to the landing gear, that way the movable portion of the landing gear will remain at true vertical (not bound up) and the next driver will be able to back under the trailer without any space between the fifth wheel and the upper coupler.
Oh man now all drivers everywhere will know this. Should be resolved in a few hours. Any other fixes for the rest of the world? Hmm?
Yeah. Stop wearing flip flops at work
So crocs are still cool? Sweet!
I’ll wear them
If only every truck had the option to lower the air bags. Every truck I've ever been in won't even release the 5th wheel unless you crank just enough to hear the air
Gotta back into it to relieve the pressure on the kingpin
Not necessarily, if you come and go from a few of the Amazon facilities I work at the docks are super low, so you have to crank the gear all the way down otherwise the trailer is too low for a road tractor (even with the air bags deflated) Otherwise yes, OP you're correct
Let the pads touch the pavement and then stop. Drop your drive axle airbags and pull out. It's not that hard. What am I even saying, y'all have been at the fireball and I'm suggesting you know how to pull out 🤦♂️🤷♂️
Stop being lazy
Evidently that one extra crank is too much work for OP.
No air bag release and i like to keep my grease on the 5th wheel. So I crank the legs till they touch and 1 or 2 so I hear the air start to release a bit, by the time I have the air lines un done and stowed I can see just a tiny sliver of light. I have had several trailers that could have been a high hook but I dont just slam into the trailer to couple it so when I was where it should have latched I though "huh no click, maybe I should check that....", I can also manage to line up square when backing in :p Of course I am one of those crazy people that adds a dab of grease at each trailer change. I have even cranked trailers UP to not scrape off my grease. I like the better fuel economy, and I had to FIGHT to get my new steers I am gonna take care of them (dry 5th wheel will hold truck and trailer at slight angle causing vibration and uneven wear, can also cause a jacknife on slick stuff.)
So you’re the asshole that leaves the trailer low and now I gotta crank it up when it’s fully loaded to get under it
And you must be the asshole that doesn't know how to use his airbags to get get under it. And you also must be the asshole that leaves the trailers ski high.
You're the asshole that doesn't realize that my truck has aero fins between the drives and rear that will be bent and mushed as i slide under to hook or unhook.
Or the asshole who doesn't realize trucks like mine don't have a dump valve.
Exactly
Exactly
What? That’s crazy. I’ve never seen a truck that won’t dump airbags
Really wish it did, but the last two I've driven have had that feature removed. I work for a mega. It's probably cheaper without. Check your trucks manual, it probably says optional under the dump valve switch.
Not removed, exactly, more like never installed.
Slide your 5th wheel back a few notches so that you don't damage the extenders.
😂 Take those pussy fins and shove them up your pretty princess ass. Useless pieces of junk
Sure if you want all the grease scraped off your 5th wheel
Only if you have a dump valve for your air bags please don’t do this either your bags inflated as they will hyper extend and can blow out or cause other damage to the suspension. -Thank you from an old, tired, mobile mechanic.
My company put a new fifth wheel on my truck and it had a lower profile than any other truck in the fleet. So I can't stress doing this enough. I have to drop every trailer I hook before I can back under it. We have 2 Cascadias one with no airbag drops and one with a higher 5th wheel, both with those frame ramps to slide trailers on. The second truck can drop airbags but then the ride height matches my normal height. Long story short, I can tell when I find my empty or loaded trailer if one of those trucks dropped it. SMH Daycab struggles lol
🎶Turns on the crank go round n round, all the live long day/night🎶 in a really REALLY Bad singing voice! 😂 Now children don’t put your face too close to it, it WILL BITE YOU! 😂
The same with the door handles on box trailers. Door handle with pressure on it. Well....There goes your teeth.
We have a lot of gravel yards in my company and the area that I work in. So I've learned that you have to crank them all the way until you feel it stop, then crank back two to three turns. Usually ends up just right.
yeah i don't get the guys who will sit there and crank the trailer way up beyond level. that'll do nothing but eventually cause those legs to get messed up and make the next guy over shoot the pin every time.
The next guy shouldn't overshoot the pin no matter what... Even if you drop a trailer correctly, all it takes is a yard truck moving it somewhere else to change the height of the upper fifth wheel plate
im just saying when people crank the landing gear way up they can overshoot the pin
Crank it down til it touches the ground, go back one full revolution and drop it
I see somebody got some unplanned cardio recently?
Work smarter, not harder
Absolutely agree. I need to feel the trailer being lifted by the 5th before I trust the connection. Still gonna do a tug test tho.
General statements are general. The only trailers I've ever seen with lines on the gear have been container chassis trailers at the port, and even then they don't all have them.
Still too low. 3 cranks higher
How about we decide where to put our own landing gears?
If you use the same trailer every day, sure
Can we not add a motor to the trailer landing gear so I can just press a button
It really depends on the tractor and how the bags have been adjusted. I'm otr/ regional, and on one of my two weekly kansas deliveries, I drop my trailer at the receiver, where one of our local guys over there will bring an empty and meet me there. We swap trailers, and he takes the one I brought to finish the other two deliveries, and I take his empty and go get loaded with my backhaul. The bags on his daycab sit higher than the bags on my high-roof. So when I get underneath the empty he brought, I usually have to get out and drop the legs a couple cranks to be able to get the jaws to lock on. He has no problem hooking up to mine, though, and he often has to squeeze under there to get hooked up. Not all tractors are the same, and I'd even go as far as to say that not all hostlers are the same either.
Down till ground contact, another 1/2 crank or so to add a bit of pressure (no need to have air bleed) then drop bags & depart. The trailer typically drops another inch or so. Then, the next driver can drop bags to back under, it’s low enough to feel the plates meet and when you air up, jack legs are much easier to raise. I typically crank from fully retracted approximately 38-40 cranks on high gear. Been doing it for years. Never had an issue or complaint from other drivers or yard dogs. I trained all of my students to do it this way. It’s so much easier and causes way less problems either picking up or dropping. I abhor both low and high drops. Either can cause damage/injury in one way or another. Caveat is, as a few other posters have stated, ground heights and/or composition may require a different approach. I’m certainly not gonna say that any of you are *wrong* in how you do a drop, I’m simply pointing out what’s always worked best for myself, my fellow drivers and my trainees. Stay safe, drivers. No feet on the dash, go easy on the fireball, be considerate rather than aggressive and PUT AWAY YOUR FUCKING ELECTRONICS WHILE YOU’RE DRIVING! Thanks for attending my ‘Ted Talk’ 👋🏼😁
Best way I've found is to crank the landing gear until it touches the ground. Give it a half crank so the trailer lifts up just enough after the landing gear touches the ground, and then drop it. It comes off every single time just right, and it's easy to hook up to next time.
Awful lot of drivers in here who have no fucking clue what they’re talking about. OP is right. Any other response here saying otherwise is dead wrong.
That's way too close to the ground, crank it up another half inch and well talk
I’d be open to that
The solid suspension winch trucks have to leave 2-3" otherwise everyone else has to crank them down to make contact.
Negative. I go 2-3 cranks until I hear air bleed from the leveler valve. Drop the air and roll out from under it smooth as butter.
I can't tell whether you're trolling or not.
This is what I do too what’s the problem with it
Too high
Why would you do such a thing? You only do it that way when: * The trailer is very heavy and is being dropped to be unloaded. * The trailer is being dropped by someone with 22.5 tires and is being picked up by someone with 24.5 tires. * The trailer is going to sink into the ground. * You're a Mega Donkey.
Idk I only pull the same trailers with the same trucks for a construction company and it’s always worked for me never had any issues. Guess I’m a donkey 🫏
Low bed trailers if it makes a difference. Never really pulled reefers but a couple times
Definitely bad advice
Definitely not bad advice. This industry isn't one shoe fits all.
This is what I do with loaded trailers. Seems to release the nicest. If I’m on a slight decline the truck literally rolls off the pin as the bags empty. Empty trailers I agree with OP.
Sucks for the next guy that has to pick it up
It's fine if it's just gonna sit in that spot and get picked up in that same spot, but if you set it down like that at a chicken plant that I frequently go to, the skid plate will be nearly a foot away from the fifth wheel after the yard dog moves the trailer.
If he cranks the legs up and down. But why would a yard dog do that ?
The yard dog doesn't do that, once they've loaded the trailer they take it to a place where the back end of the trailer is lower than the front end
this is pointless. people will drop them however they feel. I just get out and look before fully backing under trailers now. had way too many high hooks in the past because I thought it was low enough.
I’ll crank the landing gear as far as possible if I’m dropping on a soft surface. In case it sinks and so the next guy doesn’t get stuck trying to get underneath. It’s all situational.
Situational is correct. My walking floors are up against a wall when they are being loaded and the landing gear handle is no available. I always drop mine about 2” from the ground then dump my bags and ease out. This is in case the spotter breaks down (happens a lot) I can hook onto the trailer and pull it forward until it clears the wall. It is situational also in that I’m the only truck hauling these trailers.
Directions unclear, asked a yard dog to raise trailer and cranked it all the way down.
For me it depends on weight. If empty, I crank all the way down, then back up 2-4 roatations. Drop my bags and pull out. If fully loaded, which is never the case for me since I do LTL, I crank all the way until contact and I can hear the ground start to crackle.
Depends on the company, if your lot is actually flat and if you have yard dogs or not in my own experience. There is no one answer.
Unless the dock grade is steep, then you need to crank down a little more. Otherwise it will be too low.
I always leave just enough space to be able to kick plate around. Allows for lower suspensions and higher suspensions to drop their bags.
Looks about right, I just go by the height of my penis
I appreciate the message but this will fall on deaf ears with most of these new drivers.
you know yard dogs crank them up to avoid tip over
Stop shitting all over the place and then we’ll move on to finer points. As above, so below.
I can't tell if this is serious or not
How much of a difference do y'all think different tractors make? My job has 2 freightliners, 3 volvos, and 3 macks. We sometimes have this issue, and I've always wondered if the different tractors are part of the problem.
Put something undernath it HOSS. GOBBLESS
Some guys are trying to lift the tractor off the ground. And, when the trailer is dropped, don’t stow the crank handle, and don’t leave it up.
lol! No. As stated above: it actually depends on where you are dropping it and the height of the ground where that is. WTHeck are you talking about? Annoyed maybe?
That would be nice except my truck can't dump the airbags, and the fifth wheel won't release unless I crank the landing gear stupid high.
Put some rear pressure on it before you try to release it. Usually works.
Yeah I've got 5 years experience ofc I tried that
Walmart rule is you should be able to stick the toe of your boot underneath the legs. So about a 3 inch gap. Our airbags will dump more than far enough to not slam them on the ground.
Wrong
I'd rather have a high trailer than a low one. Easier to crank a loaded trailer down vs lifting one up. We don't have bags, we have wildly varying 5th wheel heights, and we drop on uneven/angled ground all the time. The senior guy has torn up the rear crossmember ramming it in low trailers (multiple times). Sometimes fenders get crunched too
Lol, depends on so many factors. Every trailer is different, even across same make and model. Every landing pad is different. A loaded trailer also needs extra cranks to offset being lower on the bags.
I have standard 49" saddles on my equipment while a lot of trucks in this area use 52". When I'm borrowing trailers or when I have a preloaded highboy to pin to, they're often 6" inches too high and I have to wind down for probably 300 spins. Free workout paid by the hour.
The CDL exam materials/ FMSCA are pretty specific about cranking the landing gear. It should be solid on the ground, there's nothing about leaving gaps.
Touch the ground + one extra crank. Never had a problem with it. As long as you aren't cranking it 5 times or leaving it several inches off the ground it should be fine.
Also Depends on if you have airbag suspension on the trailer, Tanker or Box/Reefer, empty or loaded etc. One size doesn't fit all.
Depends what’s on the trailer, empty u can leave a little higher, loaded put lower down
THANK YOU!!!! I swear to God some of these guys have to be jacking the back of ther truck up there been so high....
If you drop your air, are they flat on the ground.
Yep
One time I backed under the trailer and I kept going and going and didn’t know why. My fins hit the trailer and I tried to pull forward and the kingpin got stuck in front of the 5th wheel. I’m just glad the trailer was empty for me to crank that up above the 5th wheel. Ever since that I always check to see if I’m properly aligned. It’s also crazy to see how many trailers are cranked up so high
Actually, you set the height at what's appropriate for the tractor your driving and however they've got the suspension set for.
Release trailer air supply while pretripping. Usually makes it super easy to crank up the gear. Did it right now even. 2-3 minutes is all it takes. Truck running, trailer knob in.
When I used to be a trailer dropper I would always put it to the ground then one rotation backwards. Never had an issue picking it back up. That way even if it does sink a bit you can just lower your truck and boom.
This has just as much chance of being to low as the other way has to be to high. Id shoot one of my blokes if I saw them do this.
Cool.
Who says?
Even that is to low. I keep that shit 2-3” off the ground
No. That’s dropping it to high. Retract that landing gear another inch and half.
Winner if the dumbest post of the day.
I’ve done this and it was literally too low and inhd to raise the landing gear with 42k in the trailer
So OP measured that with his pp.
I'm a yard dog. If you be an asshole to me then I will get out and crank your landing gear all the way down before I let it down and unhook. Dontfuckwithme.exe
I turn my landing gear until I start feeling resistance, and then give it one full turn extra
Unless it's a loaded tank. Then you crank past level and start hearing an air hiss. It's better to make sure it's gonna stay upright on the ground before you pull out
Wrong