How to back up a pivoting axle trailer

[CH4Ohio]

Quit all the stress and bs
.....pin the axle before backing.

If you somehow "pin the axle", especially on a LOADED wagon, you're going to bend the tongue or break something else. It would have to be a very robust wagon with no load to let you scoot the front wheels around without them turning.

 

[CH4Ohio]

We are really over-thinking this. Go borrow some kid's little red wagon and have them show you how they have to turn the tongue to back it up when it's tied to their tricycle. It's a pain in the butt to do. BUT, it's not this complicated to understand.

Forget all this talk about backing doubles and triples and balers with wagons hitched behind them. That's really not relevant to your question and never necessary on a farm. It's always easier and MUCH faster to pull hitch pins and move things separately when backing is required.

After all this blather, I suspect you've set fire to the wagon by now . . .

 

[Too many Kubotas]

Before there was super B's there was A trains. Pretty well all of the A trains I ever saw had a pin to lock out the turning on the rear trailer. (We are talking semi trailers here). Otherwise they were just about impossible to back up with.

Not sure I've ever seen a super B here in the states, but A trains are the normal setup. And have never seen any provisions for locking the con gear so it can't rotate the 5th wheel under the trailer.

Besides, when even I can back up doubles to some extent, it's far from impossible.

 

[LouNY]

Heavy Duty Roll-Off "Dead PUP" Trailers | Galbreath®The roll-off trailers have a lock out pin for the front axle. I watched the guy at our place use it on a empty trailer...

I would like to see that and how well it performed, the stress it would place on the tongue and front wheels and hubs would be huge.

 

[KennyG]

The only way it seems to me the locking pin would work is if you could line it up perfectly so you are only backing in a straight line. Has anyone actually used one of these and can explain it?

 

[Too many Kubotas]

I'd like to see the locking mechanism. It'd have to be substantial.

 

[Jaygyver]

To the OP, if you don't back the trailer up very often to keep in practice I would do like has been mentioned, just get a hitch for the FEL and be done with it. There are quite a few company's that either make a weld on or a bolt on hitch. So much easier and faster if you don't do it often.
I know it may feel like a cop-out but it does take A LOT of practice and you have to do it fairly often to keep it there. I think you said you have air brakes on it, you can make a spare long hose to hook up to it if needed, and I do like your reasons to keep the trailer. I kept a spare 20' air line I made up with an air nozzle on the other end when I drove truck to fill any low tires with the trucks compressor.

I drove double/triple trailers with a few 53 footers thrown in for around 45 years with a smaller freight company and I could back the doubles up no problems but the triples I gave up on. It's all I could do to back the trailers with the second "dolly" up to the third trailer and I usually gave up. It was so funny to watch some of the "old guys" back up a straight truck (ok, me too), similar to U-Haul truck, after so many years of backing up a trailer it took second or two to realize the truck doesn't bend in the middle.

Actually a lot of B-trains as well as A-trains here on the west coast anyways, most of the chip trucks use them here and have seen quite a few lumber haulers use them also. Some of the chip haulers did have a lock-out to back the trailers up but it was only used to back up straight. Never drove one only talked to a few drivers at the coffee shop.

 

[Too many Kubotas]

..after so many years of backing up a trailer it took second or two to realize the truck doesn't bend in the middle.

Funny you mention that. For about a year I pulled a little 6-foot utility trailer behind a Chevy Blazer, in Los Angeles and suburbs.

Did parallel park, backing into regular parking spaces at work, etc. One day I didn't have the trailer...and had a hard time backing into my parking space.

 

[Deanes]

60 years ago. I was state 4-H tractor driving champion. The contest involved 2 wheel trailers and 4 wheel wagons being backed into a "stall" made of metal fence posts with golf balls on top. With 2 inch clearance on each side. A skill I still have. My advice is learn to line it up as best you can - anticipate and practice-practice-practice. There is no other method.

 

[RSteiner]

OK Wagon. I have no issue with the term.

I already figured that it goes reverse as a normal trailer but I still cant get it to back up properly.
Would lengthening the tongue make it easier?
Or any of the other possibilities I mentioned eliminating one of the two pivot points i.e. either pinning the axle so it does not rotate when backing up or braising the tongue (using the 3-point arms) so the hitch does not pivot?

They can be backed up, I have one. You steer it the exact opposite of a fixed axle trailer. It takes a lot more room and practice. The response is a lot slower as you have to move the tongue of the steering axle a lot to make a turn. Backing straight up is not too bad but turns take practice.