I had thought to put this in Dreamer's thread, but this doesn't properly fit there because that thread is about overloaded straight trucks. Finding the threads about vans towing trailers could take awhile and this doesn't properly fit there because it's about a seriously overloaded rig--- well, baby rig, anyway.
The other day, I hauled a mold-block from South Elgin, IL to Prairieville, MO. This block is about 2,500 lbs, so I had it loaded slightly ahead of my rear axle to balance the load better. It's within my legal limits, but pushing it. When I got to the delivery, the dock man talked to me about loading heavy stuff on CVs, and told me of a recent happening there. A guy had a van like mine, towing a cargo trailer. The guy insisted he could do the run they had, involving transport of three of these molds. Two on the trailer, one in the van. They loaded it, and-- the driver was back two hours later, he had barely been able to keep it on the road. Gee, I wonder why.
Overloaded, probably tail-heavy-- certainly the van was tail-heavy according to what the dock guy told me-- how could any safe outcome have happened? I'm surprised the driver got as far as he did and made it back to get the molds off of his "rig".
So-- I'm putting this out here for anybody else who thinks he might like to try it. Don't. Loading a set-up like this isn't as easy as it looks, and once you throw the front-end geometry off-- incredibly easy to do when you're as tail-heavy as this set-up undoubtedly was--your van-and-trailer becomes almost impossible to manage. Throw in the fact that this plant is near the Ozarks, and the destination-- if the guy had made it-- was in Mississippi, --- mountain driving in an out-of balance and overweight "rig" is no fun, even if it could be done. My wild guess is that it couldn't, since even a blind state trooper would have seen that coming and pulled him for a weight check amongst other things.
I wonder if some of these guys are even conscious when they come up with ideas like this.
The other day, I hauled a mold-block from South Elgin, IL to Prairieville, MO. This block is about 2,500 lbs, so I had it loaded slightly ahead of my rear axle to balance the load better. It's within my legal limits, but pushing it. When I got to the delivery, the dock man talked to me about loading heavy stuff on CVs, and told me of a recent happening there. A guy had a van like mine, towing a cargo trailer. The guy insisted he could do the run they had, involving transport of three of these molds. Two on the trailer, one in the van. They loaded it, and-- the driver was back two hours later, he had barely been able to keep it on the road. Gee, I wonder why.
Overloaded, probably tail-heavy-- certainly the van was tail-heavy according to what the dock guy told me-- how could any safe outcome have happened? I'm surprised the driver got as far as he did and made it back to get the molds off of his "rig".
So-- I'm putting this out here for anybody else who thinks he might like to try it. Don't. Loading a set-up like this isn't as easy as it looks, and once you throw the front-end geometry off-- incredibly easy to do when you're as tail-heavy as this set-up undoubtedly was--your van-and-trailer becomes almost impossible to manage. Throw in the fact that this plant is near the Ozarks, and the destination-- if the guy had made it-- was in Mississippi, --- mountain driving in an out-of balance and overweight "rig" is no fun, even if it could be done. My wild guess is that it couldn't, since even a blind state trooper would have seen that coming and pulled him for a weight check amongst other things.
I wonder if some of these guys are even conscious when they come up with ideas like this.
