Trying to back a trailer is no fun

[Jim Shooz]

Catching up on my reading and looking for tips on backing a trailer and remembered I had seen a clip similar to this.

Truck Driver Looking For New Job - YouTube

About 1min in he's backing a B-double and then just after 2 min it's a triple.

I think I'll sell my trailer

 

[Bird]

Catching up on my reading and looking for tips on backing a trailer and remembered I had seen a clip similar to this.

Truck Driver Looking For New Job - YouTube

About 1min in he's backing a B-double and then just after 2 min it's a triple.

I think I'll sell my trailer

I'd say the guy's a good driver, but backing those double and triple wouldn't be as difficult at it might first appear because of the way they hook together. That's much different from the doubles we see where the second one is more like a wagon with a tongue hooked to the front trailer.

 

[chad22]

I got pretty good at backing a trailer. But still am working on backing a vehicle up that's hooked up to the cable of our tow truck.

I've scratched up, dented and knocked mirrors off many junk vehicles while trying to back them into place.

I can now get a vehicle backed into a tight spot with the tow truck, and can even now put a vehicle in our shop with 1ft clearance on each side of our shop door. "Well it does take me at least 4 tries". lol

It's scary for me to back a vehicle in our shop with the tow truck though as I'm always worried that I'll ram the vehicle into the side of the brick shop building and the whole thing come tumbling down. :laughing:


My dad's better at backing the vehicles while attached to tow truck so I always try to get him to do it when a vehicle needs backed into the shop.

But if he's not available I'll jump in the truck and very carefully do it.

A while back I had to back a friends car onto my dads car trailer. Now that was a challenge with the car swinging back and forth while trying to keep it straight backing up the ramps with it and the back end of the car going into the air.

Chad

 

[Yooper75]

I remeber the first time I ever backed up a trailer, I was 13 and my dad opened the door on our Mack R model with a fully loaded 48ft flat bed hooked to it and said climb in, start her up, and back her out of the warehouse. Once you get used to backing a trailer up it's pretty easy and the only thing you have to remember is the shorter the tow vehicle or trailer the faster it turns.

 

[Soundguy]

i've got to go pick up a long trailer into a blind bay this week.. thats what i hate doing.. no room to jocket, and the bay door is midway down a building with a wall on one side and another trailer on the other.. so no room to twist or turn or make better runs at it.. ho-hum....

soundguy

 

[Mace Canute]

Years ago when I was an apprentice lineman, we were out in a community pasture building a power line to feed a water well pump service for the cattle. To get to where we needed to go, we had a choice of taking a darn long way around a long steep hill...or go straight up it. The foreman and lead hand decided to try it first in the old 1972 International 3/4 ton pickup and see what it was like. They made it and decided it wasn't too bad and waved me on up.

I was driving the digger truck, a 1971 Fargo with single rear axle, duals and a 413 high compression engine that drank high octane only. The truck and material on it weighted a good 25,000 lbs or a bit more and we were pulling a pole trailer made out of an old truck frame and had it loaded down with a bunch of 35 foot power poles, almost two dozen of them so a good load there too.

The old Fargo had a real low first gear and we started up the hill pedal to the medal. It grunted and pulled down a bit then kept on pulling...right up until we got almost to the very top of the hill...which was just a tad steeper than the rest of it...I couldn't see anything but sky through the windshield. That was all it took...the fuel pickup in the tank uncovered and she sucked air and died! This old beast had vacuum brakes so when the engine died, so did the brakes...and the power steering. Without power steering, that old truck needed two men on the steering wheel to turn it on level ground. I quickly decided to try to get it into reverse to get the motor turning over to develop brakes and power steering since I didn't want to run it backwards and starve it for oil nor lose the power steering but...too late! The speed was already too great to get it into reverse from low.

In retrospect, that was a bad decision.

Being on that steep a hill, we quickly started to roll backwards and gain speed at an alarming rate. I had no choice but to try to back down hill without jackknifing it and rolling the truck. I was doing not too bad until the stupid newbie apprentice in the passengers seat decided he was going to jump! He opened the passenger's door, got one foot on the running bard, and then froze! He didn't know whether to jump, sh*t or go blind!

Needless to say I am now trying to back this rig up with just the driver's side mirror...screaming at the dip stick apprentice to close the effing door!

We got up to a considerable speed too on the way down...estimates from the other crew members were in the 45 mph range...did I mention the hill was steep?? Since we were in the middle of a community pasture there was also a herd of cattle that we had just drove through. The noise and commotion of us bouncing downhill half (ok, 90%) out of control was enough to scare them into running, so I missed skewering any of them on a 35 foot pole.

The other two guys on the crew were sitting in the third truck, a cornbinder, watching from behind us as we tried the hill. Why the driver never pulled right in behind me to follow me as I started up was a mystery, he said didn't know why even, but his decision saved him from getting rammed by a load of power poles. By the time I rolled to a stop, we were a good quarter mile from the top...

That was the farthest I ever backed a trailer up...fastest too!

I took a moment or three to get my heart to stop racing and then I fired up the old Fargo and we took the looong way around to the top...after switching over to the other full gas tank!

 

[banjodunn]

Years ago when I was an apprentice lineman, we were out in a community pasture building a power line to feed a water well pump service for the cattle. To get to where we needed to go, we had a choice of taking a darn long way around a long steep hill...or go straight up it. The foreman and lead hand decided to try it first in the old 1972 International 3/4 ton pickup and see what it was like. They made it and decided it wasn't too bad and waved me on up.

I was driving the digger truck, a 1971 Fargo with single rear axle, duals and a 413 high compression engine that drank high octane only. The truck and material on it weighted a good 25,000 lbs or a bit more and we were pulling a pole trailer made out of an old truck frame and had it loaded down with a bunch of 35 foot power poles, almost two dozen of them so a good load there too.

The old Fargo had a real low first gear and we started up the hill pedal to the medal. It grunted and pulled down a bit then kept on pulling...right up until we got almost to the very top of the hill...which was just a tad steeper than the rest of it...I couldn't see anything but sky through the windshield. That was all it took...the fuel pickup in the tank uncovered and she sucked air and died! This old beast had vacuum brakes so when the engine died, so did the brakes...and the power steering. Without power steering, that old truck needed two men on the steering wheel to turn it on level ground. I quickly decided to try to get it into reverse to get the motor turning over to develop brakes and power steering since I didn't want to run it backwards and starve it for oil nor lose the power steering but...too late! The speed was already too great to get it into reverse from low.

In retrospect, that was a bad decision.

Being on that steep a hill, we quickly started to roll backwards and gain speed at an alarming rate. I had no choice but to try to back down hill without jackknifing it and rolling the truck. I was doing not too bad until the stupid newbie apprentice in the passengers seat decided he was going to jump! He opened the passenger's door, got one foot on the running bard, and then froze! He didn't know whether to jump, sh*t or go blind!

Needless to say I am now trying to back this rig up with just the driver's side mirror...screaming at the dip stick apprentice to close the effing door!

We got up to a considerable speed too on the way down...estimates from the other crew members were in the 45 mph range...did I mention the hill was steep?? Since we were in the middle of a community pasture there was also a herd of cattle that we had just drove through. The noise and commotion of us bouncing downhill half (ok, 90%) out of control was enough to scare them into running, so I missed skewering any of them on a 35 foot pole.

The other two guys on the crew were sitting in the third truck, a cornbinder, watching from behind us as we tried the hill. Why the driver never pulled right in behind me to follow me as I started up was a mystery, he said didn't know why even, but his decision saved him from getting rammed by a load of power poles. By the time I rolled to a stop, we were a good quarter mile from the top...

That was the farthest I ever backed a trailer up...fastest too!

I took a moment or three to get my heart to stop racing and then I fired up the old Fargo and we took the looong way around to the top...after switching over to the other full gas tank!

And to think some people would pay good money for a ride like that:thumbsup:

 

[Soundguy]

sounds like a brown alert type of event..

glad you made it down!

soundguy

 

[xtn]

Now I'm no master trailer puller. My experience is limited to towing various utility trailers from time to time and the occasional boat or camper. But I feel like a towing god compared to some people. I swear I know more than a few guys I wouldn't let pull a trailer twenty feet forward on flat and level pavement.

You've seen them. They're the ones that take four tries just to get their little economy car lined up right in a roomy parking space at the mall.

 

[Bird]

Speaking of 4 tries . . . . In 1978, I bought a one year old 15' fiberglass bass boat with a 55 hp outboard. At that time, we had a rear entry garage. The alley was a 15' easement with 10' paved. With underground utilities, there were some electrical (boxes?) and telephone boxes in the other 2.5' and each house had a gas meter in that 2.5'. Anyway, when I came home with that boat, my wife and the lady next door were out back visiting. I just stopped my forward motion with the pickup and backed that boat to the left, right into the garage without stopping once. When I got out of the truck, the lady next door said she didn't think I'd ever be able to get that boat into the garage.

I'm glad she wasn't around the first time I came back from using that boat. I think I pulled foward and backed up at least 4 to 6 times before I got it in the garage.:laughing:

 

[Soundguy]

i love it when going to a new place and the people tell you.. oh sure.. you have room to pull your extended cab dually in and turn around that 30' trailer... and you get there and it's a winding road the entire way 8' wide with a couple 90' turns in it.. and then you have to back out..

 

[Qapla]

SoundGuy, I know the feeling. A few years back we went to a job that is down a long winding drive (somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 mile) with several turns and twists.

When it was time to leave, the home owner told us that there was no room to turn the trailer around because he did not want us driving off the drive at all.

We were in a 3/4 ton utility truck with a toolbox body and a 20- pipe rack on top loaded with PVC. We had a 16' equipment trailer with a mini-excavator and various other tools and supplies. When I got to the end of the drive (or was that the beginning) I had to back in to a busy street near a curve to exit the drive.

We never pulled the trailer to that customers house again!

 

[Soundguy]

yep.. sounds like one I did.. had to back onto a street, that was at an intersection AND a 90 turn.. there was a DITCH on either side of the road, and the entrance was over a timber 10' bridge.

lets just say I'm not planning on going back there.. first time one of the rear tandems went off the ground I knew it wasn't going to be a fun day..

 

[sunshine coaster]

My kids have had trailers on every tricycle, bicycle, go cart, quad that theey have owned, me being a former farm boy (always a farm boy BTW) means they will have to have some oF The skills I learned o so many years ago

 

[Brad_Blazer]

I can back a trailer no problem, never could back a wagon worth a darn. The farmer I worked for back in HS could back a trailer plus wagon in tandem e.g. a tractor-chopper-chopper box. In the 30 years since then I don't think I've seen anyone else do it.

 

[Gregster613]

Yeah, I hear you Brad! My dad used to do that alot also and made it look just so easy! Tractor, baler, and haywagon...Tractor, chopper, chopper wagon. It's a skill that takes mucho mucho practice for some of us. Me, I had a hard enough time just backing up the darn wagon whenever i had to.

 

[Marveltone]

I think one of the most common problems with backing a trailer is a combination of the failure to anticipate, followed by late overcompensation. Gets you into trouble every time! I see my dad do it all the time.:confused2: Now, I'll never claim to be perfect at it, but I can honestly say that when we're camping with my parents, we'll let my folks pick out the sites and start backing in first. My wife and I will then back our BP trailer into position, jack it up, pull out our lawn chairs and watch my dad and brother fight, argue, miscommunicate and repeatedly jockey the 5th wheel into position while my poor mother stands and shakes her head at the whole fiasco.

Joe

 

[Bird]

My dad used to be a truck driver in his younger days and when I was a teenager, I envied the way he could back a trailer. But then in our RVing days, including one summer working in an RV park, I soon learned the easiest way to "help" someone back a trailer. Never get back behind them, yelling, waving, and making motions the driver doesn't understand. Instead, I'd walk beside the driver's door and simply tell the driver which way, right or left, to turn the steering wheel.

When we had the fifth-wheel trailer, my wife never wanted to drive the truck and pull the trailer. But if we had to back it into a tight place after dark, I put her behind the wheel and told her she could even close her eyes if she wanted to. We had a good CB radio in the truck and I bought a cheap handi-talkie from Radio Shack that was on CB channel 11. At night, the backup lights would reflect off the white front of the trailer so you couldn't see down the side of the trailer. But with the handi-talkie, I'd go behind the trailer and simply tell her which way to turn the steering wheel and she could back right into even very tight spots.

 

[Mace Canute]

My dad used to be a truck driver in his younger days and when I was a teenager, I envied the way he could back a trailer. But then in our RVing days, including one summer working in an RV park, I soon learned the easiest way to "help" someone back a trailer. Never get back behind them, yelling, waving, and making motions the driver doesn't understand. Instead, I'd walk beside the driver's door and simply tell the driver which way, right or left, to turn the steering wheel.

I've done that, and found that the odd driver would turn the wrong way. "Turn right" meant turn the wheel clockwise but they would get it mixed up and turn so the front end of the vehicle went to the right, which of course was opposite to what was needed. Never could figure out the why of that particular action on their part...just the way their brain worked I guess. I ended up having to tell them right hand down or left hand down; that seemed to work better for them.

 

[Rod in Forfar]

I am in the same boat as your wife. My only saving grace is that my husband is no better and probably even worse. We had a pop up camper that used to literally take us one hour or more to back up onto a 20 foot driveway and then make a 90 degree angle into a parking pad adjacent to our driveway. We only did that a few times and then rented a permenent campsite so we did not have to do it any more. We have never rented a trailor for moving either always rented a truck just so that we would not have to pull a trailor. It was good that we learned that when we were young so that we just never ever bought or rented a trailor and probably saved ourselves from disaster. if oyu ain't got it you aint got it adn I take my hats off to everybody who can drive a big rig, drive a bus and pull a trailor as surely that is an acquired skill and valuable one. I still remember telling my hsuband he ws going to hit the mailbox adn he insisted that he wasn't and oh well you can guess the ending. We would each take truns trying with the other person directing until we would become so frustrated and excited that we would jump out of the car and tellt he other person to try it. It was HE double hockey sticks.

Men who eat quiche can稚 back up a trailer. Walnut Diary