Pair of mack tandems and steering axles

[Geoff Weeks]

I have heard the same arguments over the years, but never saw someone come forward with a spread sheet to show it. I can build a truck that will go 130 mph on paper but will never be able to achieve that in the real world.  Real world money also includes re sale if you aren't going to keep it.  I wonder how well that outfit with stripped out trucks does in driver retention? If you have constant turn-over you will never see a ROI the lighter weight is supposed to give.

39 minutes ago, 67RModel said:

I If you told them you wanted 45,000 pounds put on you got extremely close to that. I

 

A 1% variance in weight is 450 lbs, much more than the difference between wheels, cost go up and lifespan goes down with aluminum, my question is at that 1% how long would it take at the rates, assuming you can hold the weight to less than the 1% to pay for all the extra? The difference of that  450 comes to pennies, not dimes or dollars. That is 4.5 hundred weight, but most would only pay 4 as it is not a full 5 hundredweight.

I don't know how you were paid, but most trucking pay by weight is by the 100 weight. You are not going to see pay back on every pound. I've never seen it.

 Single drive with tag gets stuck in rough ground, needs a tow or gets damaged by a dozer pull, Yep that comes off the top line. Get stuck enough times, you'll be told to keep off that site.

 Seen a lot of companies and even more O/O  go under thinking they can tweek this or that and outsmart everybody else. actual profit never came close to "on paper" what they thought they would see.  At the end of the day, it is how much goes into your pocket, not gross number on a hypothetical spreadsheet.

If you are making "stupid money" on high rates, there is no incentive to pair down for a small gain. When I was doing heavy haul, I sure didn't care what my tractor weighed, but did care if it ever broke. 

 There is a point where more weight carried and the cost of getting light enough, costs. The ideal is to hit the point where you get good life and maintenance while still not being too heavy.  Down time kills more trucking companies large and small than can be gained by higher per load revenue.

Made my living as an O/O for about 30 years, retired without ever going under, seen boom and bust, and seen an aweful lot get caught up in the bust because they thought it would last longer and they could get out from under the note they carried to get in on the boom.

 

[67RModel]

15 hours ago, Geoff Weeks said:

A 1% variance in weight is 450 lbs, much more than the difference between wheels, cost go up and lifespan goes down with aluminum, my question is at that 1% how long would it take at the rates, assuming you can hold the weight to less than the 1% to pay for all the extra? The difference of that  450 comes to pennies, not dimes or dollars. That is 4.5 hundred weight, but most would only pay 4 as it is not a full 5 hundredweight.

I don't know how you were paid, but most trucking pay by weight is by the 100 weight. You are not going to see pay back on every pound. I've never seen it.

Well lets see it. It started out as day rate. You were paid $2500/day whether you hauled a load or not. This was in the early days when the shale boom was first getting started. The infrastructure was in its infancy and a lot of the pressure pumpers didn't have their $hit together yet. This lasted for about 6-10 months depending on who you were working for and to some extent the well's owner / lease holder. Once it got to true tonnage you were paid down to the hundredth of a ton, so every 20 pounds. So yea....every pound mattered to some. The rate was set depending on the loaded miles from the well to whichever sand yard you were picking up at. Same with the fuel surcharge. Detention was paid at $75/hr after 30 minutes of loaded inactivity. This eventually crept up to 2 hours of loaded inactivity.

16 hours ago, Geoff Weeks said:

If you are making "stupid money" on high rates, there is no incentive to pair down for a small gain.

To some there is. Why leave money on the table if you don't need to? I saw several guys removing their passenger seats, switching to super singles or low pro tires, running 2 batteries instead of 3 or 4 and removing one fuel tank...among many other things depending on the specific truck. They were super committed and willing to go into the weeds and put in the effort for an extra $1500 - $2000 / month. They knew it wouldn't last forever and were only there to extract as much money out of the gig and get out when it wasn't worth it anymore. I don't need a spreadsheet to know if you can cut out even 500 pounds and add that to your net you are going to make more money at zero risk to reliability. At $42/ton, 3 sometimes 4 load per day, 6 days a week it adds up quick. I saw several O/O that got out of heavy haul and into the sand gig. They had heavy tractors to begin with. They went through all the effort to put PTOs and blowers on their trucks but neglected to remove the big chain cabinet from behind their bunk. Like everyone I'm sure they made great money but they also left so much behind. 

Like I said I never really got into it because I was already pretty light. I worked at night most of the time and hauled overweight. A lot of those sand yards were run by cowboys and would let you leave at whatever weight you wanted to haul. No risk of hitting scales at night. On a few occasions, if the fracking was running super smooth and I was in and out real quick at both ends I would keep 4 or 5 different logbooks with staggered start times and just keep getting while the getting was good.

17 hours ago, Geoff Weeks said:

 Single drive with tag gets stuck in rough ground, needs a tow or gets damaged by a dozer pull, Yep that comes off the top line. Get stuck enough times, you'll be told to keep off that site.

That is all old wives tales and gossip about getting drug around with a dozer in the oilfield. Possibly during the early works of pad construction if your dump trucking in stone. Once a pad is built and and ready for drilling the local roads are modified to take heavy truck traffic and the lease roads are nicer than most local or county owned dirt roads. Zero risk of getting stuck. Like I said before to those guys money is no object. Once a well gets drilled and they start fracking a lease owner can't afford to be messing around with stuck water and sand trucks. At least in Southwestern PA and Eastern Ohio I never saw a lease road that was in any way sketchy or risky to drive on.

17 hours ago, Geoff Weeks said:

I wonder how well that outfit with stripped out trucks does in driver retention? If you have constant turn-over you will never see a ROI the lighter weight is supposed to give.

I don't really know. They must do OK. They are one of the larger dry bulk only carriers in the Midwest and have been in business for over 60 years. They must know a thing or two about specing a truck to maximize ROI for that kind of work. I don't know I lived it for several years and crunched many numbers over that time period. It was always worth it to be as light as possible if you were willing to "do without", go through the trouble to shed unnecessary items or replace items with a lighter equivalent. But you certainly didn't have to in order to make an excellent profit.

[67RModel]

I'm just now looking at my third picture closely and see that Pete behind my truck had twin stacks. For what? There's only one manifold on his engine. Figure out what that second stack and muffler cost him over his sand career for zero benefit or increase in reliability. Its not a meaningless amount.....

[Geoff Weeks]

All I'm saying is cutting 3 tons from a unit, is not as easy or cheap as it looks on paper, cutting 1000lbs, 2000lbs sure, but once you try and get to the last pound it can cost more than it returns.

 I have been on some of these sites in ND and at that time the roads weren't good, even had to bring stuff in on a corduroy road (made of timbers). Your point about once sand is needed is a good one, and may be a single drive would do ok. 

I would gladly trade any weight penalty for spokes and a mounted spare, esp when going "off the beaten track",  Not a problem if you are getting paid a "day rate, that you get if you move or not" but as you said, that didn't last. 

[Licensed to kill]

On 10/11/2023 at 7:25 AM, Geoff Weeks said:

I never will understand the draw of disk wheels, 

Interesting discussion. I CAN answer this question though, For me, life is too short to drive an ugly truck and Dayton's are UGLY (with the exception of tube type 10.00 20's and steers with SS hub covers, think B-61 and only then when the rim is chromed). You mentioned resale value. I'm thinking resale on a truck with Dayton's would be considerable less than the same truck with aluminum budds. This like you that p[refer Dayton's are few and far between I suspect so finding a buyer that "appreciates" Dayton's might be a challenge. Ease of Changing tires??, I don;t know about that. I had a trailer with Dayton's and it was a PITA to the point that if I had to have tire work done I took it to a tire shop. To be fair, these were 17.5" rims with the 3 spoke, 6 stud rims, not 22.5's or 24.5's. I have heard guys say "Chrome don't get you home" and other such sayings. However, I know for me, if I was to hire a truck and there was two operations bidding and one had chromed and polished Pete's and the other had plain. trucks with daytons and rarely washed I would hire the shiny truck every time. I have had guys hire me and tell me that "anyone that looks after their equipment like you will more likely do a good job" so, while "chrome won't get you home" it can get you more work and usually BETTER work IMO. In the end, there is no right or wrong answer. To each his own, if someone is happy running equipment that I would be reluctant to, more power to them. Some here would probably cringe if I posted how much I spent last winter getting all the aluminum and SS polished on jy Pete and that is OK, I promise not to send them the bill. 😁

[Geoff Weeks]

Yeah, we got pretty far down the rabbit hole on the weight thing, But, I do think weight had very little to do with demountable's going away. I had to "special order" on the one new trailer I bought.

They even tried aluminum spokes, but that didn't work out too good.

Anytime you see aluminum outside and steel inner, you know the reason is looks, there is really no other reason for that.

 Since I did all my own work, from the smallest to the biggest I saw the advantage of spokes, and liked the look with the chrome hub covers and nut covers.

[glenbjackson]

im no driver but do my own maintenance soooo as far as ease, spoke wheels with demountable rims are much easier than either disc wheel setup. id have to say the hard part comes in knowledge of the systems, or lack of. Finding a shop that has spoke wheel knowledge, just as hard but learn to do it yourself and i think you'll agree. Also id have to think this ignorance and a procedure/design that lends to more room for human error as to why its faded away. Us humans can make a good system look like a bad design when its just not implemented correctly. I can hold socket's axis inline with lug and put needed torque on end of breaker bar for spoke wheel fasteners.  Not so with a LONG 1" breaker for disc wheel lug nuts.

Edited October 14, 2023 by glenbjackson

[Mean Green]

Wow Texas that’s too far for me I want to change out the front axle in my b model the rear is all hub pilot so I would like to find a budd axle with brakes or a hub pilot out of something else that would fit 

[Mean Green]

About the weight debate years ago we had a grade all at work that we had rail gear added to it for the customer with this added it was so heavy it had to be permitted to drive it on the road . The company’s idea was to pull the fuel tanks off and put a 20 gallon tank you would have no run time . It all ready had steel hub pilot wheels so I suggested switching them to aluminum. Switched all ten wheels and we were under weight where we needed to be .

[JoeH]

TLDR. Spokes vs Budds comes down to brake jobs for me.  We've always had spokes til our MR688 we bought 2 years ago.  Brake jobs were always a 2 person job on spokes. One to run the car jack, the other to steady the hub on the way off the truck. On Budds, you grab your big 1.5 inch gun, spin the nuts off, pull the wheels,and boom you're at the brakes.  No need to pull the axle and hub. First. Also, we've had spoke rims spin the valve stems behind the spokes. Not fun. We've also had the tips of the spokes that hold the rims on snap off. Budd brakes are a one man job. And if you do need to pull the hub... It's still a one man job as the hubs are so much lighter.

We also run a 15 mile radius, so on a flat tire you just drive slower on the way back to the yard. Seldom have flats, even less common to have to change them on the side of the road.

Edited October 14, 2023 by JoeH

[Licensed to kill]

8 minutes ago, Mean Green said:

Wow Texas that’s too far for me I want to change out the front axle in my b model the rear is all hub pilot so I would like to find a budd axle with brakes or a hub pilot out of something else that would fit 

I don't know if I would count on that happening. From my experience (limited as it may be) the frame on the B is narrower than any relatively modern truck (I THINK all modern trucks use the same width since diffs appear all interchangeable between makes/models) and if you were fortunate enough to find one the correct width, the steering arm would likely be different and probably give you grief. That would be manageable but just another "issue". I bought a few parts from a guy the other day and he has 5 B's in his yard and 3 of them had budds. Thought that unusual but shows that they ARE out there.

[Mean Green]

They are hard to find I’m on the east coast so not much around my axle is light so finding a whole different one would be best it’s my understanding a super liner axle will work or a freightliner fld axle too but some modifications are needed but they fit the fenders

[Geoff Weeks]

On 10/14/2023 at 7:25 AM, Mean Green said:

Wow Texas that’s too far for me I want to change out the front axle in my b model the rear is all hub pilot so I would like to find a budd axle with brakes or a hub pilot out of something else that would fit 

Next time you have the front hubs off, measure the brakes, measure the bearing spacing, and write down the inner and outer bearing numbers, (both the inner and outer races on both).  I have Ford front hubs on both my Spoke wheel trucks. Ford used a different "cone" but same outer cup and bearing spacing. By changing the cones I was able to use on my Eaton and Rockwell front axles.

 IHC (Spicer) had different bearings and bearing spacing, so took a different hub.  By spending some time in catalogs you might get some indication of what axles take similar bearings, and then find one and pull the hub to check spacing of the bearings and drum size.

 By looking up the bearing spec's you can get the hub bore, by looking up the seal spec's you can get the seal bore in the hub as well as the seal dimension on the knuckle, sometimes the seal bore and bearing bore on the hub are the same, and sometimes they are not.

[Mean Green]

Thanks for that I’ll have to try that