Geoff Weeks

sooo, where does that put North Korea, Russia, China...... All are nuclear and have ballistic missile systems, and would seam a greater "threat" if using the above criteria.

It would do little to the price and would crash the economy. During Covid, there was a world wide slow down in demand and the price dropped, beacuse there was no place that was using it at the old rate. Today, there is world wide demand, and that is what sets the price. If we cut demand here, it would just be sold to the highest bidder on the open market, which is, in other words, market price. We would hurt ourselves and the overseas buyers would see the benefit. The "downside" of free market economies.

Found a slightly better pic.

When I was doing O/D I was based out of the Chicago area. Only place that would be worse would be NYC. This one was just shy of 16', 20 cyl EMD gen set 168,000 lbs, 14' wide

Done a few 16'+ loads myself and they wear you out more than anything. As I said, never seen something like your Drake, looks interesting.

My grandfather had a '27 or '28 back in the day. The one thing he always talked about was the "central lube" system. You pulled a lever under the dash, and it sent grease to all the lube points. quite a car.

It does sound like it would work for you and as I said, that is one of the best condition of that type trailers I have seen. The only time I have seen cut axles is with LP tank trailers, but they carry much less weight. That is the 1st on a low boy I have seen. Tire wear could be helped by flipping the inside to outside at regular intervals, to even out the wear.

Different deal than we have here. Haven't seen a trailer like that in N/A. He could just re-bush but I think it would be a short term fix, which was why that trailer didn't see a lot of use.

I agree, just add some tubing where it is cut. I'm not sure what Swishy is referring to? this is what I mean by trunnion axles. Kinda hard to see, but short stub axle supported on hyd suspension with 8 tires across. Low deck trailer on triple axle flatbed. as to what happens when one axle on one side goes in a hole, the walking beam hits its stop on the other axle. It doesn't change much if the axles are solid, torques the tubes a bit and the 3 wheels not in a hole all carry some of the load. There are many "single point" suspensions, I haven't seen one with a cut axle before. Cozad:

I suppose you could remove one side of the walking beam, clean out the tube on the other side, and press in a tube that just fits the ID of the axle stub, then slid into the other side, when everything is bolted back up and in position weld the smaller inner tube to the outer axle tube on both sides. May not be good for 25K on the axle, but would be a whole lot better than how it sits now.

Many are hollow, like the axle itself. The spindle is made to fit inside the tube then welded to the tube. Depending on bearings, many spindles are hollow, allows for auto inflation, but more important reduces weight. Often a cup-plug is pressed in from the outside to keep oil from entering the axle tube. That is how "axle surgeons" repair axles, the cut the old spindle out and replace with a new one and weld.

Other than the axles, that is one of the better looking trailers of that type I have seen. Most a beat all to blazes. That is why, if the prices is right, it might be worth fixing. If the spindles were hollow, you could make a slug to insert into the old tube and cut a new tube to go in between, then when the new tube is in place, push the slug into position where the joint is from each side and weld up. Not possible if the spindle is solid tho.

It may explain why the trailer didn't get used much. If I had time an money to put into it, there are a couple ways to "fix" it. One would be to cut out the axles and replace. The other would be to weld structural tubing back in where they cut the axle. Problem is with either method you are going to have a lot of welding that has to be done correctly and the axles have to be in perfect alignment when welded as there is no adjustment possible. You can't just slide a new axle in unless you get one with no brake spider on it and the weld a spider on. Lots of making sure everything is correct before welding. You can cut out the back of the box beam and install an axle but then have to re-weld in the box for strength. You can re-bush the center pivot which would help but not solve all the issues. Easiest method for a good "pipeline" welder would be to weld tube back where it was cut out.

I have never seen it done like that in a semi trailer, unless it was a "trunnion axle with tires and brakes on both sides of the walking beam for 8 tires across. Cozad trailers are built like that.

You sure find (and drag home) the weird ones. Never ever, seen a trailer axle where the center was cut out! I'm sure it has bad tire wear from the axles not being held true. All the forces are going through a single pivot point, with the axle cut it is going to tend to bow up under load, without a full axle it is going oscillate back a forth because not tied to the other side You could drop the beam out and rebush, may have to make the bushing, but that isn't going to solve all the other problems. Looks like it was made that way, but begs the question why? edit: I confused you with another guy that had a low-boy with axle problems, Sorry.

It is in between 4th and 5th. not exactly in the middle of those two.

Not old enough to ever been around worm drives and 140, Hypoid or Amboid with 80w-90 for me.

The thing that would make that truck jump out from the rest at a truck show is the tip turbine aftercooler. I think it would have been fine with the triplex or just about any transmission given the loads he is going to pull. It will have a unique sound pulling, and there aren't all that many tip turbines on the road anymore, or those that know what they are. I think you'd have to look a long time to find another B with one. They were an interesting answer to a problem that went away, much more unique than low flow cooling, for the same problem.

I was rolling between 45-55 mph with those loads and enough axles and brakes. Takes a lot to move along at those speeds. Steam sterilizers from Chicago to Jackson Mo. Long, tall, wide and heavy.

The "old 18's and the RTLO's have about the same low ratio, but I do agree the new have more even steps, in the 17%- 21%. range. I had one truck that had 3.46's and a old 9, Not quite 3.36's but close enough. It would still be out of low by 25 Mph or so. While I have driven a few electronic engines, I never owned one so don't have a whole bunch of long term seat time in one. That said, less RPM isn't always better, in comparison to what others report, my older mechanical had at most a 1mpg "penalty" but that was a few years ago and may be different now.

I grossed 160K-170K several times with a 13 spd and never felt a need to split the low side. I could have used a lower starting gear, but once I was rolling, it didn't take much to get up on the high side. This was before I had 2 spd rears in anything. May be if I was in steeper terrain, but I doubt it even then. Low side is mostly below 25 MPH. If you can't pull below 25 without splitting, then you likely should stay in a lower gear until you can shift without splitting. Plenty of times I wished I had a lower 1st or reverse than a 13 provided but never wished I had smaller jumps between gears on the low side. My guess that is why we didn't see 18's until 2spd and aux transmission started to become a thing of the past. 6x4 or a 13 with 2 spd would be my choice for hauling heavy.

If your going to run a lot of highway miles a steep O/D gearing is going to put a lot of engine power into heat in the transmission and rear axle. In an ideal world, you would have top gear direct and be able to get all the road speed you want. The world is not ideal, and for many reasons that is not easy to achieve and be usable. Most efficient is straight through drive, where all the gears are just "along for the ride" in top gear. Gearing up in front and down in back has lots of losses in the form of heat. It does allow smaller driveline to a point. That is why it was used of old. @Mark T is spot on about driveshaft speeds and critical rpm. It is easy to drive a driveshaft at speed that it will come apart. Shorter shafts and carrier bearing are required to keep the shaft from "whipping" at higher speeds. Spicer has a good online critical speed calculator.

It may be as simple as the 18 and 13 use different low (range) and OD ratios and if you got it to function, it would leave you with ratios that aren't really usable. A 15% splitter ratio for the 13 and 18% for the 18. So the 18 has a lower "low range" ratio so when in OD low it is close to low in the 13. If you take a normal 13 and add an O/D without changing the low range ratio you don't get the ratio spread you need to be usable.

always thought if adding an underdrive rear splitter box to an overdrive front, to make what Eaton finely did in the RTLO series. Gives you two O/D ratios .86 and .74, direct is one stick position down splitter in direct.

Let be start by saying I have zero experience with the newer RTLO series. All the roadrangers I worked on were the older RT-RTO series. I haven't been inside one in almost 10 years now 😮. I remember there being a reason the old series can't take a 13 and make it an 18 with just a knob change. So I am going to disappoint just about everyone including myself and say I don't remember why. There is no reason not to use highside low on a 9 spd or a 13 (or 18) where it becomes more risky is when you use the splitter gear. You are multiplying the input torque through the the front box, then passing though the splitter gearing, and it isn't designed for that. In direct the power flows straight through the back box. The reason it is not generally used in a 9 spd or others is it is a ratio in between 4th and 5th (or 3rd and 4th if you use the "low" terminology) and the step between that isn't a even step. If you're climbing a grade it may be tempting to use "funny gear" as it used to be called (highside low) but the jump down is a bigger one then it is to low side high, and it means any further downshift will also be another un-even drop. The low range gears are larger and better able to take the torque input for long periods than high side low. Empty I also have used funny gear many times, 1-2-3 (or if you must, lo-1-2) flip to high and go back to 1st, it is a bigger jump than continuing on in low and the jump from there to the next gear up is bigger jump than shifting as you "should". I only did it empty, not saying it is better or great but no harm will come. sorry not to remember better, a mind is a terrible thing to loose!