Finally, somebody gets it right... thank you! Yes, you can make a generalization about 250lbs or 400lbs per hole, and that is enough MUCH of the time, but NOT always. It all depends on how the load is loaded. What if it just happens that 10k of the weight is concentrated right over the tandems? One hole will have a much larger effect than if there is only 2k lbs in that same spot. Of course the spacing of the holes also plays a big part. And while I don’t scale a load that I know is under 42k lbs (I’m pretty good at using my tractor air bag pressure gauge), I would have definitely have paid the extra couple of bucks to re-weigh the load and save the $120 overweight ticket.

 

Thank ya, Musicman! I agree 100% with everything you said!

 

Nope it seems most on here don't get it...you can load the trailer any way you want that only determines where the weight is distributed if it will be legal or can be made legal ...for example if you scale a load that weighs like this


12000
35000
33000


it don't matter how it's stacked staggered or what not inside this is the weight on your axles ,and when you slide your tandems it moves the fulcrum a given number of inches per hole the bigger the distance between holes the more weight moved per hole , so with the axle weights i just listed above with a typical trailer 4 holes moves about 1000lbs everytime ,and it don't matter how it's loaded you will move 1000lbs as you will move 250lbs per hole between trailer and drives...Man it seems 99% that responded ...DO NOT ...know how a fulcrum works and therfore don't understand what happend when sliding a tabdem or the fifth wheel , and have an idea that some magic is involved ...LOL so if you're moving more than roughly 250lbs per hole you're trailer will have very large gaps between the slots unlike most trailers ...My truck/trailer is at the T?A in Wheatridge ,Colorado if any of you are in the area I'll gladly prove you I"M right and the other side of the fence is dense in the skull .


As for the reweigh saving me a ticket the sapp bross has a certified scale I should not need a reweigh after weighing and observing where my weights were , but even if I did why would this have saved me a ticket since the scale was notcorrect the first time why would it decide to start accurately weighing the second ?


And I could not move 2 many holes forward the trailer only had 5 holes left for forward slide , so 1250lbs is all I could move ...pretty much fool proof ...unless you're weighing on a POS scale , But that 1250 based on the weights given by sapp bros scale would have been legal .


I guess my point is you can still get a weight ticket even if you weigh your load if the scale you weigh it on is ...FU@#ED .

 

On a side not I had a driver at current company tell me he had a drive weight of 36,000lbs and he slide the tandems all the way up and on his re-weigh it still weighed 36,00 lbs...BULL SH#T ...I've had loads that were heavy and only loaded in the first half of the trailer , and while it could not be made to axle out legal it still moved the 250lbs per hole for the given number of holes I slid it ...And Like I said Im willing to meet you when you roll through the Denver area to prove ..ME RIGHT ...LOL ...I'll pay for the scale tickets , but if I'm right ,And you are arguing that I'm wrong you will owe me the scale money back ,because you argued out of ignorance .

I'll take any one comming through Denver in the next 4 days with a load ,and pay for you to weigh it then you can move it as mony holes as you want and I guarantee every time I can accurately give the weights you get on your reweigh just with simple math based on the what weight gets moved per hole ...Come on "experts" put your money where your mouth is...WINK

 

NO ***** ...This proves your point ...HOW ? obviously if you have more weight on an axle than you have adjustment for you are not going to get it legal , But you will still observe about 250 lbs of weight shift on the axles per hole you slide it for the adjustment you do have ....More if you have the trailers with big gap slots I've never pulled any of those in 4 years , so If I got one I would have to reweigh it to see how much it was doing per hole ,but only once .


And my adjustments were based on the weights the scale popped out , which consisted of 5 holes forward...the only 5 holes left to move forward , so it was not possibe to over slide the trailer ...After my ticket I stopped in YORK , NE and reweighed load to see what it weighed on a cat scale and I got exactly what the DOT scale showed , and then I adjusted it based on my 250lbs per hole and reweighed it just for giggles and my 250lbs per hole put me legal moving exactly what you can expect to move with 5 holes....Conclusion SAPP bROS scale was not correct , SO it would not matter if I weighed it 100X the scale is in need of calibration ,and will be off every weigh not just the first...WINK .

 

Very amazing that you tell everyone else that they are wrong yet you yourself are the one that came out wrong in the end. Saying you dont need a re-weigh because you understand fulcrums and know exactly where your weight went after you slid is one of the absolute most asinine things i have ever read on here. You have topped Kevin's tales in many ways on this one. And yes,for once Kevin is spot on in what he is saying in this one.
I am just completely dumbfounded by your reply to everyone on this. And the fact that you say this is your second one in a year makes it even more laughable that you tell everyone else they dont know how it works and that only you have it figured out and know how it works.

 

Them Nebraska boys were probably laughing their hides off when you finally left. They got you overweight, your produce a certified scale ticket that shows your overweight and try to tell them your all good.........that's friggin funny right there. If you had checked your weight at least once more, you'd be $118-119 richer. You would have found you had made an error in your sliding. No matter who's right or wrong in how the weight changes when sliding everything, you still should always re-weigh no matter how good you believe you are at doing it unless of course your a SuperTrucker.

 

Again... spacing of the holes...

 

Okay...actually what does a fulcrum have to do with sliding the tandems?? A fulcrum is a support about which a lever turns.....there is nothing 'turning' on tandems (aside from the wheels). So understanding what a fulcrum is, Ethan Hunt, really dont matter when sliding tandems. And he actually wouldn't be $119 'richer', he'd be $1 moore poor since thats what he should have spent to re-weigh the rig. getting a ticket, puts you in a hole.

 

Seriously - whoever told you that trailer tandems are 250 lbs per hole was smoking a fat doobie. 400 - 600 per hole, depending on how the weight is laid out in the trailer. The scale wasn't wrong - you were.

Besides, even if the scale WAS wrong, reweighing it would have shown how much weight you moved, plus it would have given you the ammunition you needed to fight the citation. But you didn't even bother to do that, making yourself extra wrong.