Advice On Heavy Load Please

Picked up today in Dublin, tx. After sliding my tandems finally got the load legal. 11,440-steers 33960-drives and 33860-tandems. When I'm trying to come to a stop or slow down in having to get on the breaks like I never have before. Am I worrying too much? Gross weight is 79260

That's completely normal. You'll get used to it. That's a lot of weight to slow down.

By the way, you really should slide your fifth wheel forward one hole. Your Steers are way too light at 11,440. If you slide it one hole forward it'll look like this:

S- 11940 D-33460 T-33860

That's completely normal. You'll get used to it. That's a lot of weight to slow down.

By the way, you really should slide your fifth wheel forward one hole. Your Steers are way too light at 11,440. If you slide it one hole forward it'll look like this:

S- 11940 D-33460 T-33860

Your awesome. I tend to over think and worry alot lol. I'll slide my 5th wheel when I do my pretrip. Never had a load over 40,000, feels like I can't get enough following distance

Yeah Nick, you'll be just fine. Just remember that you have to anticipate things a bit more and do some things a bit earlier than you would with a heavier load. I haul more water and paper loads than anything and they come in at 45-46000 on a regular basis. I just tend to go a bit easier when pulling them and realize too that it takes longer to get up to speed. The real suckfest is the climb up 470 out of Wheeling WV with a water or Gatorade load, it doesn't seem like the top of that hill is ever going to come lol.

Yeah Nick, you'll be just fine. Just remember that you have to anticipate things a bit more and do some things a bit earlier than you would with a heavier load. I haul more water and paper loads than anything and they come in at 45-46000 on a regular basis. I just tend to go a bit easier when pulling them and realize too that it takes longer to get up to speed. The real suckfest is the climb up 470 out of Wheeling WV with a water or Gatorade load, it doesn't seem like the top of that hill is ever going to come lol.

I appreciate the advice. I can only imagine going up a decent pass with this much weight. Or even better going down.

Going down isn't that bad. Just respect the fact that it's heavy but use the tools you have available. Use the proper gear, use the engine brake when you can and use your brakes properly. These trucks are designed to do these things and are more than capable of doing them safely as long as we, the drivers, do our part. Don't be afraid of it but do respect it and don't get complacent. You'll do great.

Just pulled 45k pounds of raisins,through the grape vine..I think

46920 in the box now gotta love general mills and the lightweight trucks, lightest I've had in 3 weeks was 42400, it def. Feels different when you aren't used to it.

Best advice is pay attention I tend to worry about working the brakes too much so I tend to use the snub braking method almost all the time when I'm really heavy the Jake is your friend. Just remember when coming to an off ramp or curve the extra weight behind you will push/pull you and you have to compensate for that some slow earlier and remember to let the truck work for you not you working the truck

Nick, when you're heavy, just triple all the distances. Three times the stopping distance, three times the acceleration distance, waaay slower on those on & of ramps.

You're in a big truck. The 4-wheelers can wait for you, or drive around.

Nick, when you're heavy, just triple all the distances. Three times the stopping distance, three times the acceleration distance, waaay slower on those on & of ramps.

Let me clarify a bit. In your own car, you expect to take a certain distance to stop. You can look out the truck's windshield at that same distance, but then look 3x farther out. That's more like what a heavy truck needs to make a stop.