Re: How Not To Pull Your Yacht Out of the Water
Wow, 97,000lbs on a tractor that short and a trailer less than 45' long? That's like the 1940's in the US! Scary.
We've got EGR issues in the States as well. And at least on "light duty" pickups we've got urea injection.
Either way, when a trailer tire is in a hole, the boat ain't coming out!
Yeah,You do almost all your braking when loaded on the trailer anyway, so its as good as the axle and brakes.Your guys have it easy ...better rigs, better trailers,but you've got the better roads they need- though I don't like your lack of under-run bars on most of the trailers.
There's not enough room here to make the roads any wider. Remember our road network is based on the old horse and cart roads, and so are most of our towns. They weren't built for any bigger. Once you go to the EU proper (UK really is anti-EU and the damn government won't hold a referendum) there's a 13'6"ish height restriction as well. We can go to 16'6"in the UK.
The new trucks 2008 and up have a particulate filter that collects the soot and requires a regeneration to clean out. Now if you have a truck that is 2010 or newer it has the regen plus a urea tank that you put DEF into. Same stuff you guys use it sounds like. Just a different name. My heavy haul tractor was three axles, 22,000 FA and 50,000 RA. Legal load is 80,000 on 5 axles. However with a purple weight permit in California I can run 127,000 pounds on 5 axles. 22FA 47,650 drives and 60,000 on my trailer with it expanded to 10'6" with it having 16 tires. The more axles I went the more I can haul.
Back to that pull if he was in a hole or over the end of the ramp he was screwed. Only low rpm high torque, low gears and floating the boat were going to save him.
Also I'm amazed that the Emissions Nazi's hit the EU too. They are irritating the living heck out of us. Our 90's models need to be retrofitted with the regen system and our 80's models must be replaced with 2010 or newer by next year. It sucks because money is tight due to economic issues.
Cummins couldnt get as far as the Euro 5 (I think-it's an old standard, so may have been Euro 6) emissions regs so MAN dropped the entire ERF brand.They used Cummins exclusively, but now Cummins aren't imported to go in road vehicles. We now can't take a truck into London unless it's been retrofitted and tested (too expensive as it's an engine change) or it's under 3 years old. Saying that, London with a 45' trailer on the weight limit is NO fun. Most lanes are narrower than the truck so you have to take 2 les or cars are running an inch from each side of the trailer.
We can run 97,000lbs/44,000kg on 5 axles (tractor+trailer) but you can have any number of lift axles. Your purple permit sounds a bit like our STGO system-it's basically govt. approval where we can run right up to the plated weights of any bridges we have to cross. However, it's rarely used-it's mostly for one-piece loads and mobile crane vehicles. It's not that long since we were regularly pulling that 97,000lbs on 380hp. Round Cornwall it's no fun at all when you're in crawler and 1st/2nd gear every time you get to a hill.
To give you an idea, have a look at this, which is a normal road in the UK.
Google Maps
