The War Path


They probably do it for traction.

I've ridden the rumble strip before but at much lower speeds, when the rest of the pavement is covered in ice and I'm trying to get to the next suitable parking location to call it a day. I had to do that quite often when I had super singles.
I ride the rumble strip when I can't see where the road is. I know I am as far left as I can be when I come blasting through.

Yes, I am the excuse me, pardon me, watch your toes, please stay to the right I am coming through crowd.
 
Wuss. :toothpick:

Get yourself a set of autosocks this year while you can still write them off on your taxes. They go on real quick. Productive-like.

:thumbsup:

I've considered buying a set of those in various sizes to load the lowboy.
I've heard guys say that it took them more than a day to get a load of can n chassis on in crap weather.
I'm thinking the ramps and risers would tear the hell out of them in no time but I don't know if they would hold up or not...
 
Here is one for you. It's an old roadhouse alongside the George Parks Highway about midway between Nenana and Fairbanks. It's still operating; it even has a website where you can get a T-shirt for your favorite site administratette. Now it's mostly a bar but when Dick himself had it, he threw down some darn good burgers. Heading towards Anchorage, that hill is a mother. One time I burned out near the top (my lead 45 might have grossed 40K but the tail (a 40' can) was another 30K lbs. I remember cursing that heavy tail trailer before I left the Fairbanks yard. The highway had been sanded up to the hill before that hill (known to the truckers as "Skinney's -- what else?). There was not much room at the bottom of the hill to hang iron. ("Iron" being one of the two worst trucker 4-letter words, the other being "tarp".) Anyway, mostly courtesy of that heavy tail trailer, I slid down the hill about the length of the set (about 115' overall) and got the tail trailer into the snowbank likely more by luck than by skill -- is there any trucker skill on ice? I was lucky as the tractor and lead trailer stayed roughly in line with the highway. Thank the Good Lord that I had a set of those 8mm studs. I hung them and regular set on the rear drivers. I locked up (gotta love lockers) and yanked the set to the top of the hill. Nowadays I remember that hill a lot better than the burgers.
View attachment 42722


Big Dick's...
Lake of the Ozarks, halfway between Truman dam and Bagnell dam....
damn...

One of their billboards used to read;
"Liquor in the front, poker in the rear"

1514146729505.webp
 
Last edited:
I've considered buying a set of those in various sizes to load the lowboy.
I've heard guys say that it took them more than a day to get a load of can n chassis on in crap weather.
I'm thinking the ramps and risers would tear the hell out of them in no time but I don't know if they would hold up or not...
Depends on the surface. For gettin' th' Padawan movin' in his furshlugginer tag axle..

:thumbsup:

Fer goin' down th' road? Great way to make some expensive rags.
 
:mad:

I reported you...
to Homeland security.
:harumph:
AND...
I tweeted Trump.
:smile:

prink
Too late. I just got my hazmat letter. As for Trump, he's got his hands full. Nobodies like me are way under his radar.

It's like I mentioned when referring to Injun doing wet work, I'm guessing that my scalp is too cheap for her to consider. Maybe its sole virtue is that I have more hair than Trump so she could hang it up in her collection of trading stock instead of her regular collection.

A trucker always needs some trading stock. Mine's down to a couple of oversize winch bars and a couple of 6 inch HID moose lights -- the lights are probably not worth much. The big strappers running Anchorage/Fairbanks and up to the Slope prefer the LED bars for moose lights.
 
I'm one of those guys that just happens to drive a truck because...... F Chains ;)

I mean, I would do it, if the pay was worth it, but it never is. If I can book loads to run on fairly flat lands for x/mile, I better be able to book loads for far above that rate if there is potential for meandering along at 30mph on a snow covered mountain or the possible hit of hanging chains.

Now, if I lived in the area, that would be a different story. I would simply have to get used to winters sucking, and throwing chains. Instead, I spend my winters elsewhere.

As for the situation with @dchawk81 , I'm gonna back him up. The setup that Schneider has on their 6X2 is stupid, at best. Any 6X2 setup needs to be liftable, you would think a big mega carrier like Schneider would have understood that when they invested in these things. Instead, they started out without even having a deflate capability, the tag simply road there 100% of the time and drivers were always getting stuck in the stupidest of places.
 
Huh uh. Or they would have them. :p

spending money wisely is not their strong suit. These jokers buy new trailers, with auto inflation systems, vented mud flaps, and low rolling resistance tires. Tires get replaced with messed up drive tires, mud flaps get replaced with heavy air drag flaps, and the first time the inflation system messes up, they just turn it off, although they leave everything hooked up so the drivers think the air inflation is correct.
 
I'm one of those guys that just happens to drive a truck because...... F Chains ;)

I mean, I would do it, if the pay was worth it, but it never is. If I can book loads to run on fairly flat lands for x/mile, I better be able to book loads for far above that rate if there is potential for meandering along at 30mph on a snow covered mountain or the possible hit of hanging chains.

Now, if I lived in the area, that would be a different story. I would simply have to get used to winters sucking, and throwing chains. Instead, I spend my winters elsewhere.

As for the situation with @dchawk81 , I'm gonna back him up. The setup that Schneider has on their 6X2 is stupid, at best. Any 6X2 setup needs to be liftable, you would think a big mega carrier like Schneider would have understood that when they invested in these things. Instead, they started out without even having a deflate capability, the tag simply road there 100% of the time and drivers were always getting stuck in the stupidest of places.
Yeah we get traction control lights flashing every time we hit bumps.

Perfectly good drives aren't perfectly good about halfway through their service life because the less wearing trailer tires on the rear axle are preventing the tread of the bitey driven axle from touching the ground.
 
In the mid 1960s, I drove casual for B&B Transport. B&B was owned by the Barkhousen brothers who owned the Blueberry Hill Truck Stop on Highway 99 in Livingston, CA and a few other gas stations. The fleet consisted of two Freightliner (COE -- that's all the Freightliner made in those days) truck and trailer rigs. B&B supplied gas and diesel Blueberry Hill and a bunch of independent gas stations, e.g. Al's that was next to the now forlorn Jimco in Ripon. (In those days, Jimco was new and cool but Al's a quarter mile away had far better food.) Those rigs were light. We could haul at least 200 more gallons of gas than any other truck and trailer (5-axle) rig. One of the reasons therefor was that they had rubber band drive -- hefty V-belts running on a pulley between the duals and between the drive axle and what amounted to a tag axle. They weren't as good as having 2 differentials and a power divider; however they were better than a single driver and an undriven or tag axle. A few years later I drove for Powerine out of its terminal in the Port of Oakland. Powerine used Binder COE truck and trailer rigs (5 axles, just like fuel tankers use in CA to this day). Those rigs had rubber band drives like the B&B rigs that I noted. If the front (driven) axle could be locked, it seems that such an arrangement might be a decent but ultimately inadequate compromise between weight and traction. If Gilmer belts can handle the hundreds of HP consumed by superchargers for today's drag racing rigs, it seems that they could drive the wheels of a ten-wheeler pulling a trailer. I haven't seen that setup in years. But I don't look for it either. Are rubber band drives still on the scene?
 

Back
Top