Saturday, September 12th, 2009
Perry, MI, USA

What happened in the previous installment:

I picked up a load of lumber in St. Catharine's, ON and delivered it to Chicago, IL without losing a single bundle. No deers or pedestrians were injured and no traffic tickets were issued by MTO in Canada or DOT in the USA.

Short version of the current installment:

I picked up my first LTL load in and around Chicago, IL; got to use a load leveler for the first time; picked up a free tarp at Tarp Stop (Lake Station, IN) and got stuck at a Perry, MI truck stop till Monday because I didn't have a customs invoice for one of the loads.

Long version for people with lots of free time on their hands

As I was driving on Thursday Sept-10-2009 to my drop-off destination in Chicago, IL to get rid of the lumber, Dispatch told me I had 4 (four) pickup stops to make for the return load to Canada. I told them my ETA to the drop-off point would be around 2 pm and I can be at the first pickup around 4 pm (Stop 1 in Carol Stream, IL on the map). They said as long as I'm there before 6 I'll get loaded and then I can pick up the other 3 loads on Friday.

This was my first LTL with the stepdeck. I asked Dispatch how heavy the loads were and what exactly I was picking up, but the responses I got via satellite were not much help. All I knew was that the load in Henry, IL (Stop 3 on the map) was a big agricultural machine which weighed ... 24,000 lbs. As I was picking up Load #1 in Carol Stream which turned out to be a single steel plate, looking to be about 10' by 8' and 4" thick, Dispatch recommended I put it on the upper deck. I talked about this to the loader but he said it was over 130" long and it wouldn't fit on my upper deck and that it was best I put it on the lower deck. I didn't want to argue and the ceiling crane with a magnet attachment picked up the 6,000 lb piece of steel and lowered it on my stepdeck. I tarped it, put a few straps on it and then measured it out of curiosity: it was less than 11 ft! But the crane guy was gone and I didn't want to unstrap and untarp everything, so I left the steel plate where it was.

I didn't have to go to Stop 2 in Lemont, IL till the next morning and it was already 6 pm. I decided to drive in the general direction of Stop 2 hoping to find a place where to park for the night. Well, there was nothing in terms of parking on I-355 and I ended up going all the way to Stop 2 in the middle of nowhere and shut down there till 7 am. The only convenience available was a soda machine that stood outside the shipping office so I bought a bottle of Diet Pepsi and killed time by browsing Internet from my truck. A railroad line ran close by and a few times during the night I got awakened by loud train horns which reminded me of a 1992 funny movie called "My Cousin Vinnie", starring Joe Pesci and gorgeous Marisa Tomei.

Early next morning I went into the shipping office and got the first surprise of the day: the bill of lading number I was given by MacKinnon didn't work with the shipper. It took a couple of satellite emails/cell calls to get the right ones from MacKinnon Dispatch and then I got loaded with two 20-foot long steel bars that the loader picked up from the ground outside of the office. The bars were all rusty and looked they had been sitting in the open air for ever. As I came back to the office to pick up the paperwork I noticed the bill of lading said in big bold letters at the bottom: ALL LOADS HAVE TO BE TARPED. What a bunch of b******t! A few trucks with big aluminum pieces on their flatbeds stood nearby waiting to be unloaded and not a single load was tarped. I talked to one driver if they ever tarped aluminum here and he said no. So, I secured the bars in the back of the lower deck with straps and drove off without tarping.

As I punched the address for Stop 3 into my GPS I learned the distance from Lemont, IL to Henry, IL was ... over 100 miles. I'd better hurry because I still needed to get to Stop 4 in downtown Chicago on the way back to Canada. I took 55 south to 80 west, and then went south on 35 and west on Hwy 18. Read Bros is a farm equipment dealer/repair shop in Henry, IL (population: 2,591 people) and the first thing I did when I got there was to ask them to show me the machines. Turned out they only weighed 5000 lbs (not 24,000) but the size was impressive (see the pictures). We had to move the steel bars from the rear of the lower deck to the upper deck in order to find space for the two "corn heads". I got to use one of the load levelers for the first time and they fitted everything beautifully: the lower parts went into the stake pockets and the height was right, so after putting them in place I wrapped chains around the hooks on the sides of the leveler and the shipper lowered the steel bars onto them (the front part sat on the upper deck). So, actually putting the steel plate from Stop 1 on the lower deck turned to be an advantage not a mistake....

The shipper had a big forklift - one of those huge types with off-road tires - but it was evidently struggling with the 6,000 lb steel bars. I saw its rear wheels go briefly in the air a couple of times which didn't make much sense considering the size of the machine! The shipper didn't have any trouble moving the corn heads as they were only 2,500 lbs each. He loaded them one by one on the lower deck and pushed them against each other to make the load more stable. When I measured the things they were almost 23 feet long, 9.5 feet tall and as you can see from the picture they took the entire width of the trailer.

By the time I put on 2 chains on each side, threw over 2 straps, and then added a small ratchet strap at the back (plus the time I spent moving the tarps on the upper deck, unstrapping, restrapping, and securing the load leveler/s, waiting for the shipper to lift the bars and move them to the upper deck) all of a sudden it was ... 1:30 EST! As I was downing my second bottle of water that I filled it from the fountain in the shipper's shop, I suddenly remembered I still had one more pickup to make!

I typed in the address for Stop 4 in the GPS, and it showed the distance from Henry, IL to be ... 125 miles! Jeez ... I wondered what time they closed on Fridays ... I called the phone number from the load offer as I was driving towards I-80 east and someone in the shipping office at Stop 4 said in a happy voice, "Today we close at ... 3:30 pm." Wow ... I was 125 miles away and it was already close to 2 pm. No way I'd make it to downtown Chicago by 3:30 pm on a Friday. I explained my situation and the lady said to give them a call at 3:30 pm and they'd see - depending how far I was - if anyone could stay to load me.

Well ... 3:30 pm came and I was still over 60 miles away. I called their office again and the shipper put me on hold while she was consulting with the management. After a while she came back on the line saying she was sorry but the management said they wouldn't be able to load me so late because they'd have to have at least 2 people in place (a forklift/crane guy to load me and an office clerk to do the paper work). Which meant I was screwed - I just missed Stop #4 on my LTL!

This being Friday, I'd have to wait till 7:30 am on Monday for them to reopen ... When I sent an email to Dispatch the first thing they asked was why I haven't picked up the stuff from Stop #4 in Chicago BEFORE going to Henry, IL! Always looking to place the blame ... I said it didn't make sense to me to go from Lemont, IL to Chicago, IL and then back to Henry, IL ... I later checked it on the Microsoft Streets and Trips and my way turned out to be 35 miles shorter than the Lemont-Chicago-Henry route.

I offered to stay in Chicago area till Monday but she called the customer who ordered the steel bars and they said they needed the stuff on Monday. The customer was angry I missed the pickup and Dispatch hinted I'd hear more about this on Monday when David the mighty load planner with a quick temper showed up for work (he was off on Friday)...

I am not happy myself as I hate to let people down so I'm driving towards Chicago at a reduced speed thinking how I could've screwed up so badly. My satellite beeps all of sudden 10 minutes later and Dispatch writes the Customer changed their mind and they want me to hang tight near Chicago and then go back to Stop #4 on Monday ... At the end of the message Cindy, the thoughtful dispatcher ... sorry ... "fleet manager" adds, "This load of steel bars is 20 feet long and weighs 26,000 lbs. Pls make sure you're legal and your axles are not overloaded."

I look at my fifth wheel gauge and with the 6,000 lb bars and the 6,000 lb steel plate close to the truck's drives it already shows some weight. Judging from where the needle is I could probably add another 15,000 lbs MAX to the drives. The problem is the only place where I could put these new bars would be on the upper deck plus the load leveler and I'm thinking, "There's no way I can do that without overloading the drives." That big machine in the back screwed up everything ... so I call/email/call Cindy and it is 5 pm on Friday and she's gone. I leave voice messages and then reach the night dispatcher who says Cindy should be back in half an hour. Surprisingly she shows up later and emails me it's OK to go back to Canada if I'm sure I'd be overweight with the bars from Stop #4, and that she'd talk to David the Planner on Monday on how he had planned this entire LTL trip.

So, I'm not picking up anything in Chicago, IL after all and I just park for the night at the Lake Station, IN Flying J. I take the truck to their shop and ask them to change the oil in the differentials and transmissions and $350 and 1 hour later all's done (I learned only recently that it has to be done at least once a year). I end the crazy day by faxing my customs paperwork to three different brokers (3 PARS stickers, one for each load)

On the next morning, Saturday, Sept-12th, I drove to the Tarp Stop near the Flying J and bought some needed accessories for my stepdeck operation:

- another box of 21" bungee cords
- 10 tarp protectors
- 2 more load blankets

I asked Andrew the Tarp Stop guy to give me a small piece of blue tarp so that I can fix a micro hole in my steel tarp made by a bungee cord hook on the first trip. He went inside the shop and came back holding a ... roll of blue tarp, probably 8" by 8". He said, "You spent a lot of money here. Take it." I asked him if he was sure when he said he was I took it with gratitude. I love Tarp Stop! (the pictures were taken in the plaza where the Tarp Stop is located; you can see their sign on the post in the background).

So I started driving and got to Te-Khi truck stop in Battle Creek, MI where I had breakfast. I decided to cross the border and get to Sarnia so that I could be closer to the first drop in ("corn heads"). However only 1 load out of 3 was ready for crossing ("borderconnect" sends text messages to our cell phones when PARS is ready and they have an entry number in the system).

I started calling customs' brokers and the load of corn heads took a while to figure out who the right broker was and who had the customs invoice but eventually - after a ton of phone calls and 4 faxes at $2 each (I must buy a scanner to email these instead!) - I had the green light to take the monstrous corn heads across the border.

That left only the load from Stop 2 - the two 20-ft steel bars - that still hung in the air. The shipping office didn't give my any customs invoices but at least the broker was the right one (DHL). This being Saturday both the shipper in IL and the consignee in Ontario were already closed, and the ever-helpful broker said they cannot do anything unless they have the invoice, which they didn't.

So, I"m stuck at this Perry, MI truck stop till Monday when I can start calling the shipper when they reopen for business at 7 am central time. Well, at least I'll be able to reset my hours and come Monday I'll be ready for another 70 hours of fun.

What comes in the next installment

I'll describe Load #5 and then take a recess till I get the first pay-slip for these five stepdeck loads. I'll post the financials for each of the 5 trips and that will conclude my "Stepping Ahead" thread. Honk if you see a yellow International with a red Wilson stepdeck on the road

 

Tracer if you run synthetic lube in the trans and rear end you can go 3 years (500,000 KM)doing tandem work. Even with traditional lube you can two years(250-300 km) between changes. Heavy haul guys change lube once a year but thats overkill for your kind of work.

 

Yes, I use synthetic oil because they say it's a must with newer trucks (mine is a 2004). But are you sure about 3 years? I don't want to pay US$350 in vain but my diff oil this time was pretty dirty. Since I bought the truck in April 2007 I've never changed the oil. Initially I did PM at CAT and those guys don't care about diffs and trannies, wouldn't give me any advice on "International" parts. Then I started using TA and Flying J for oil change and sometimes I ran into knowledgeable mechanics who gave me good tips. The CAT manual by the way that I have for the truck has nothing about diffs and tranny oil change in it (naturally) and I very rarely go to an International dealers for PM because they are so much more expensive than TA or Pilot (Pilot in Beaverdam took only 13 bucks to check tire pressure on the truck; everywhere else it's 25).

What I"m going to do I"ll give a call to the International dealer in Woodstock, ON and ask them a simple question: how often do I have to change oil in the tranny and diffs if I pull a tandem stepdeck and my gross weight never exceeds 80,000 lbs.

I'm tired by the way of CAT telling me "it's an International part" and International saying "It's a CAT part." I think it'd be great if everything in the truck was made by one manufacturer as with a Volvo truck with a Volvo engine, or an International truck with a MaxxForce (International) engine. You just go to one place to service everything and mechanics don't pass you over to one another.

It's like with computers: Apple makes both hardware and software and they claim that makes their computers superior to Win machines where 100 companies are involved. I used a Mac for a couple years but then traded the $1,600 machine for a $399 Christmas sale Toshiba! It's not as fancy as the Mac I had before but it does the job (and there's no monthly payments!).

Which shows that when one company makes everything it can be a better quality product but then the manufacturer will inflate the price because no one competes with them. So, I guess I'll keep my truck for now and keep running from CAT to International to TA to Pilot to Flying J and back to CAT to service all the truck systems

 

It use to be 250,000 miles for sintetics, now i believe it's up to 500,000 miles. So once a year is definatly going to be overkill!

 

Love hearing your stories here about your progress with your own trailer. GREAT STUFF...

I'd call the MANUFACTURER OF THE DIFF (Meritor, Eaton, ?) and go with THEIR RECOMMENDATION for maintenance intervals and lubricant type. The only thing truck manufacturers today seem to actually MANUFACTURE is the EMBLEMS (and even they are made in CHINA) and the design of their cabs (hint: diamond tuck is SO 70's) - everything else seems to be off-the-shelf and interchangeable from one brand truck to any other. Kinda like Harley taking a part off the shelf that was NEVER ON a particular model, putting it on, and call it a NEW MODEL (even though it's 100% HD off-the-shelf parts it's assembled with).

The Apple/PC analogy is a bad one - especially nowadays if you have some patience and computer skills you can make Apple OSX run on regular PC hardware (I RARELY use my PC anymore) - I'm at an advantage at this because I've been a computer geek for decades - a company called Psystar makes PC/Mac clones (as they battle Apple in court) for way less than an Apple branded box.

I personally change major lubricants on ANYTHING I DRIVE - 15-25% SOONER than manufacturers spec, and try to use better than "bottom-of-the-spec" quality lubricants.

Rick

 

I got my first FLATBED payslip today. All work was done with the company trailers and they paid me 70% of the gross and 100% of the FSC (fuel surcharge). The FSC seems larger than what I was getting on the Dry Van side, and it was interesting to see what each load paid. These are the loads I wrote about at the beginning of the thread. Here's info about 3 loads going from Canada to US, and 3 loads going back. "Charge" is what MacKinnon got from the shipper for the load; "amount" is what they paid me.

Canada to USA (Paid in US funds)

Weston ON to Allyns Point, CT
Miles: 570
Load: insulation, smoke tarp
Charge: $1180
Percentage: 70
Amount: $826.21
FSC: $116.60
Percentage: 100
Amount: $116.60
My revenue: $942.81

Weston, ON to Hanging Rock, OH
Miles: 542
Load: insulation, smoke tarp
Charge: $1292.08
Percentage: 70
Amount: $904.46
FSC: $119.83
Percentage: 100
Amount: $119.83
My revenue: $1024.29

Weston, ON to Channahon, IL
Miles: 532
Load: insulation, smoke tarp
Charge: $1091.80
Percentage: 70
Amount: $764.25
FSC: $123.60
Percentage: 100
Amount: $123.60
My revenue: $887.85

BACKHAUL, USA to Canada (Paid in Cnd Funds)

Allyns Point, CT to Weston, ON
Miles: 570
Load: insulation, smoke tarp
Charge: $695.65
Percentage: 70
Amount: $486.96
FSC: $104.35
Percentage: 100
Amount: $104.35
My revenue: $591.31

Wurtland, KY to Milton, ON
Load: steel, tarped
Miles: 522
Charge: $856.52
Percentage: 70
Amount: $599.56
FSC: $128.48
Percentage: 100
Amount: $128.48
My revenue: $728.04

Youngwood, PA to Hamilton, ON
Load: insulation, smoke tarp
Miles: 321
Charge: $675
Percentage: 70
Amount: $472.5
FSC: $101.25
Percentage: 100
Amount: $101.25
My revenue: $573.75

For this pay period, the US exchange rate was 1.12; and Canadian exchange rate was: 0.89.

 

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009
Fort Erie, ON, Canada

I spent Monday, Sept-14, delivering those 3 LTLs I had ... First I dropped off the two corn heads in Seaforth, ON. From there I headed to Etobicoke, ON and then Mississauga, ON. I was curious if the receiver/crane operator would say something about the rusty steel bars that I hadn't tarped ... but the overworked guy just signed the bill at the "x" and was happy to get back to his regular task of moving steel bars from one shelf to another.

I called MacKinnon Shop from the road and asked if they replace my exhaust stack with a shorter one covered in chrome. I was still driving around with a 10 ft long exhaust from my dry van days and the truck looked like a submarine with a periscope. On top of that the most visible part of the stack (the one facing the front) had rusted and spoiled the entire appearance of the truck. The Shop said they could do that and so now my truck doesn't look like a warship anymore and the new stack shines like a 1000 w bulb when it's hit with sunlight.

While they were working on the truck, I got into my car and drove to Downtown Guelph to see how much those small scanners were going for at Staples and Future Shop. The Saturday/Sunday faxing at $2 per page left me resolved to try emailing instead of faxing. I already have Internat access in the truck: thru Verizon Wireless in U.S. (US$165/mo for a cell phone and Internet USB modem), and Bell Mobility in Canada ($75/mo). So I thought I got a scanner I can scan my PARS pages and EMAIL them to customs brokers essentially paying nothing for each page.

I found what I was looking for at Staples: lightweight Canon machine, with only one (1) cable for both data and power, and easy access buttons on the front, including - important! - the PDF button. So now I can scan the customs invoice with my PARS on it, save it as a PDF document and then attach it to an email going out to the broker! I tested the machine and the scanned images looked pretty good - much better than those from a stand-along fax machine. In case someone is interested, the model I bought is called "CanoScan LiDE 200". It went for $100 Cnd, and there was also a cheaper model (model name ending with "100") but it had lower resolution and it needed 24 seconds to scan one page (Model "200" that I bought does one page in 14 seconds).

Before the end of the day I sent Dispatch a message saying I'd be ready to start again tomorrow, Tuesday... Load offers aren't sent out before 9 am most of the time, so I decided to do something about the stepdeck: Wilson recommends to check torque on all the suspension fasteners and generally check all the fasteners on the trailer within the first month of operation. So, I got up at 7 am on Tuesday and took the trailer to Trailers Canada 10 min away, in Breslau, ON. I backed the trailer in the shop and they got to work. Besides retorqueing I also asked them to check air bag fittings for air leaks (I heard air hissing between the trailer axles).

Bruce, the trailer sales guy took me to breakfast while the trailer was being worked on and also presented me with a free winter jacket. It looked pretty nice and was a very timely present - I was about to replace my 3 year old one with something new for this coming winter. The front of the jacket carries the logo of this trailer dealer - "Trailers Canada", but other than that it looks like any other pretty decent (and warm) jacket you could buy at Mark's WorkWearhouse or Walmart.

When I got back from the shop I parked the rig in a plaza with a movie theater and Chapters bookstore (Starbucks inside) in Kitchener, right next to Hwy 401. The theater was closed till 6 pm so parking was plentiful. I waited till 4 o'clock killing time by browsing books at Chapters, drinking Americano coffee, checking out the new computers at the Staples store across the street, and taking pictures of the truck and trailer.

Finally just before the end of her shift, Cindy the Dispatcher sent me a quick note saying I was to load on the next day (Wednesday) near Fort Erie, ON and the load was 10 ft wide. After I received the load offer by satellite, I waited a bit till the rush hour traffic settled down and then headed towards the U.S. border via Hwy 6 south from Guelph and then east on QEW past Hamilton, ON towards the town of Fort Erie, ON (Buffalo, NY is on the other side of the river).

I spent the night at a truck stop off QEW (Exit 5) just 5 km or 3 mi away from the border and at 6:45 am on Wednesday I pulled in the driveway of a plant in Stevensville, ON. My load offer said I was picking up 47,000 lbs of steel bars and that it was a double blind load: the shipper didn't know where I was taking the load, and the consignee was supposed to be kept in the dark about the freight origin.

I checked in with Security and was told to drive in, park the truck and wait. While waiting I watched 5 story high "forklifts" move "pipes" some 20 ft in diameter. I learned later these "pipes" were sections of wind generators' bodies. Each "pipe" was moved by 2 forklifts that held the top part of the "pipe" with huge hooks hanging down from their crane beams. I asked one operator later on how much such a forklift could lift and he said, "55 tons."

A stern-miilitary-style-no-nonsense (and handsome) middle-aged lady in a hard hat and with a 2-way radio on her shoulder came out to the truck. After I told her I was picking up "steel bars" she raised her eyebrows and said they didn't have steel bars, but on this day they had some shipments of steel plate. "This must be it," I said. "I don't trust the info in our load offers too much." She said something into her military style radio and went into the office and then came back and directed me towards the excavator-turned-crane in the corner of the lot. Instead of a bucket, this huge machine had a long beam at the end of the main steel cable and there were 3 round magnets attached to the beam - a perfect setup to move plates of steel. Plates were stacked right here on the ground next to the machine, and the entire operation was manned by 3 guys: 1 older dude operated the excavator, and the 2 younger ones hang on to the ropes attached to the ends of the beam and helped the operator to position the plate on the trailer deck. They had 2-way radios and because of the engine noise they used these to communicate with the excavator operator.

As it's been my custom the past week, I asked the guys to be gentle with the trailer as I "just bought it last week". They suggested I removed the load levelers from the front to make the job easier for them which I did.

During the next half an hour they dropped 9 plates on the trailer, with the total weight of about 45,000 lbs. The lower one was the OD - 10 ft wide and 25 ft long - and the other 8 were normal size: 8' by 35'. Miraculously they didn't damage the trailer and none of the plates was dropped and the 2 guys working on the ground walked off without any injuries

It was around 9 am when I drove off and found a spot where I could secure and tarp the load without being in the way of the 55 ton forklifts (you don't want to mess with that kind of size). As I was about to get out of the truck and start exercising with chains, my satellite terminal beeped. I clicked on the "Read the new message" button, and David the Important Load Planner informed me the customer might need to "hold off" and advised me to wait some 5 minutes before doing anything to the load. What the ... ?

The load wasn't going far - I was offloading in New Jersey, just south of Philly, PA but I still hadn't seen the permits ... and had no idea what roads I"d be driving on, and now this delay ... I knew that if they wanted me to be in New Jersey early next morning, I'd have to keep the left door closed and drive till I ran out of hours

Some 15 minutes later David sent another message, "Pls ask them to offload you. I'll send you a new load offer in a little bit. You'll get $150 cancellation fee. Sorry for the screw-up".

So, I got to talk to the "military" lady one more time and when she heard I was told to unload the plates because the customer had changed his mind, she said, "Freak off!" Which I understand was directed not at me but at the customer and my Dispatch

So, I backed up to the excavator again and the 3-man ace team took the 9 plates off two and three plates at a time. They didn't mind too much because they were on an hourly pay.

When I got back to the truck after returning all the paperwork to the shipping office, there was a new load offer on my satellite: I was picking up aluminum logs 100 mi away in Brampton, ON and delivering them to Youngstown, OH. I now know these pay quite well, so I sent the "load offer accepted" message back to the Dispatch and headed towards Toronto on QEW and then 403.

I hit the shipper about 2 pm and the first thing you do when you pull in is to go through their scale. Because I had filled only 1 tank the day before (I was getting ready to pick up the 47,000 lb load in Stevensville!), my empty weight was 30,800 lbs (the display above the shipper's window shows the weights). When I went into the office, the shipper asked me how much fuel I had in the truck. I said "1 tank" and "why?". He replied he could put 49,000 lbs on my trailer, if I didn't need fuel. I said I needed room for at least a partial fill-up and we agreed upon just over 48,300 lbs (!) which - according to the shipper - should still give me enough breathing room to get 75 gal of fuel. Out of curiosity I asked the guy if a 48,300 lb load paid any better to MacKinnon than - say - a 45,000 lb load (I"m on percentage, right?). To my surprise, the shipper said, "No. We pay in 20k lb increments." Which means, whether it's 41k lb or 59k lb load, the freight rate is still the same. So, I'm not sure what my motivation is supposed to be while pulling ... 48, 571 lbs of aluminum instead of - say - "normal" 45,000 lbs. Next time, I'm going to fill up both tanks. As Gman once said in one of his earlier posts something to the effect that "Heavy loads don't usually pay as good as lighter loads". I consider this one of the many paradoxes of the trucking industry ...

Surprisingly, with 48,571 lbs on the deck (and only 1 tank full), my axle weights were pretty much normal:

steers: 12,020 lbs
drives: 33,700 lbs
tandems: 33,580 lbs.

My fifth wheel was 1 hole forward of the center between the drive axles, and the loading guy put all the logs in the exact middle of the trailer using the side turn signal as a guide. This is probably the heaviest load I ever pulled on a tandem flat/step so far and I'm happy that my 61" spread Wilson RoadBrute was able to swing it!

I put 5 straps across the top of the load, and then used one steel tarp to cover it (I threw one $7 blanket on each side under the tarp to protect it from the sharp edges of the logs)... It took me awhile to get through the rush hour traffic on QEW and then 403 but I did it without losing any aluminum logs and I didn't have to stop to adjust the tarp. The day ended in the Duty Free parking in Fort Erie, ON, 3 min from the U.S. border ... and I now only have 3 hours worth of driving to do tomorrow, Thursday, to reach the consignee in Youngstown, OH.

One thing I noticed today with such a heavy load is that because this is a stepdeck and it is low, the truck handles much better than with a heavy load in a dry van or even flatbed trailer.

 

Quick question, 5 straps for that much weight does not seem like enough. Is it? The WLL on the 4" straps I have is 5400# Seems a load like that would require chains. When it comes to securing, I always opt for overkill.

Glad to hear (read) your new adventure is going well. The new trailer looks good.

-scott

 

Good interesting thread you have going on here, I love reading what people are getting into from day to day. Keep it going with the good details.

 

The rule of thumb I always use is 9,000lb per chain (5/16 grade 7) and 8,000lb per strap or 1 strap every ten feet if its light and bulky. I'd have probably used chains just because but the nice thing about straps is you can check/tighten them without disturbing the tarp.