OT trucks/rigs/semi's

Todd

But man do those long nose tractors look big. I delivered one couple weeks back, equiped with GPS, satilite TV, computer, radio and phone, add to that fridge, microwave, hot water oil furnace that heated the coolant when not running. I drove that thing a 100 miles before I figured out what all the switches were for. They don't look so good when backing in to a tight city dock.

CFR 658.13 (Federal Code of Regulations)

(b) (3) No state shall impose an overall length

limintation on commercial vehicles operating in truck tractor- SEMI TRAILER or truck tractor-SEMITRAILER-trailer combinations.

It's generally accepted now you can go 85' total length on multi lane highways. No one wants to do city or county road deliveries with 85' rigs. The problem on deliveries in not the long trailer but the long tractor. A lot of companies today do the long haul with long tractors, depot to depot, then deliver with short day cabs. Technically the way a lot of these companies are operating today are using those trailers as warehouses. The long haul guy pulls them to a lot on the outskirts, then day cabs deliver when it suits. That might involve just backing them to a dock.

Generally speaking the standard single trailer today is 53', trains usually involve two 30' to 36' trailers. Length of tractor does get close on those trains. However when you split them in the city and use single axle tractors for delivery, they are very manuverable and agile. I once had a guy ask how I got by some construction with s/a tractor and 36' trailer. My responce, " This rig is close to a Honda civic around town."

My Chevy C-70 had air brakes and a 23,000 lb rear end and 9,000 lb front end. The wheel base was a wee bit longer than my 78 Chevy C-20, but overall the pickup was longer by about 4". In 75 you could buy the C-70 truck as light as 15,500 rear and 6,000 front or your could buy it 12,000 front and 40,000 rear tandem. IH was the same. It's no different today, one can still buy light duty highway tractors. The basic difference today is they all use the same rear end, same transmission and very likely same engine.

• Dodge Pickup to Big Rig Conversion

• Dodge 3500 + Peterbilt

Something closer to this.

• this

Your question at hand, small tractor trailers. Back in the 1970 I had a rig on my farm, Chevy C-70 single axle tractor, very little difference in wheel base from a pickup, yet air brakes. I had 2 trailers; a drop deck 40' (includes both decks) and a 32' flat bed. Both these trailers were tandem axles. At grain time I rented a tanden axle aluminum dump trailer only 20'. There were a lot of like outfits on the road back then, and most of the manufacturers of single axle tractors were IH, GM and Ford, many of them were diesel and air brakes.

By todays standards those would look close to 1/2 size, many of them were, although most were closer to 5/8 size. They were very efficient little trucks, most could haul payloads of 20 ton, and get 8-9 mpg doing it. I have heard of some of the newer diesels making 10 mpg. I could haul both my 1066 and 656 together on that drop deck trailer.

They made those things for the winter snow-birds to haul their fifth-wheel campers south in the winter time.

Cute little outfits.

Allan

• CXT