On Tue, 25 Sep 2012 17:01:29 -0400, "Steve W."
wrote:

Ignoramus5080 wrote:
On 2012-09-25, dpb wrote:
On 9/25/2012 12:30 PM, Ignoramus5080 wrote:
...

Everything went fine, no fishtail
But was the rear axle under the load limit if you'd gone across a scale?

I did some math in my head, and I believe that it was under the limit,
yes.

It'll take all your profit for the whole load likely if not...just a
cautionary note as it surely looks iffy in the pitchur...

Don't know IL and I'll presume you didn't take that as a long haul but
TX gets you for the county in which you're stopped and then they
backtrack and add it up for every county thru which you've passed...

You may well have been under - I wouldn't try running the "Guesser
Booth" at the County Fair, but it looked a little iffy.

BUT unless you have a load cell or a pressure gauge on the fork
cylinder on the forklift you used to load the equipment (*) or you
went through the scales where you loaded it and made sure, you really
don't know either.

* We all know you can take the pressure on the lift cylinder and do a
little prestidigitation with the face area of the piston and any
mechanical advantage in the mast rigging (most have a 2:1 chain &
sheave on the lift cylinder for a two-stage), add in a little Fudge
Factor for friction, and you can calculate the weight on the forks.

Or you pick up a calibrated 2,000 pound weight and measure the
pressure difference from empty. Then pick up two and three, and make
sure it's linear.

Rule: The manufacturer's published weight for a piece of gear can be a
total guess - it doesn't take much of a flub at the foundry to make
the sand mold a little deeper, and the shear or press castings end up
a whole lot heavier than the specs. A Scale is the final word.

So, say, my rear axle would weigh 40,000 lbs at a scale, as an
example. If so, how much the fine would be in the area that you are
familiar with?

I believe that the rear axle was 8k from the trailer, plus 15k from
the shear, plus 8 or so K from the other stuff.

Don't "think", know. Illinois DOT should have a brochure or a section
in the Vehicle Code (buy the Paperback) that spells it out precisely.
And I'll bet there's several "Truckers Bible" cheat-sheets out there
that condense the laws of all 50 states down to a chart.

The last fine I paid for being heavy was in VA with a straight job that
was 3,200 over on the rear. There was a total of three different fines,
The Federal DOT combed the books and wanted $145.00 for a minor log
problem (forgot to change the status when I finally left the dock at
04:30) The state hit me with a $175.00 fine for the weight. (seems like
it was .055 cents a pound or something like that) plus court costs and
surcharge, Total was something like $288.00. So for the OOPS, I got to
pay about $450.00.

If you want to be VERY sure get a set of portable scales OR do like one
of the guys I ran with did. He had an outfit work over his rig and
trailer so he could tell you within 1-2 pounds just how it was loaded
right from the cab! Slick set-up and I don't think it cost all that much.

http://www.atri-online.org/state/dat...s.htm#ILLINOIS

The "Self-Weighing" rig is either hooked to a pressure sender in the
air-suspension bags, or (supposing here) they could put a load-cell at
one end of the spring shackle on a conventionally sprung trailer.

Either way, you know to within ~100 pounds, and if it's getting close
and you cant shuffle things around to make it better, you go through a
Certified Scale and find out for sure.

And you save the weigh slip in case the Highway Patrol miraculously
finds that it's over - They can stick their thumb on the scales too.
That's the time you insist they escort you to another set of permanent
scales and do it again.

-- Bruce --