Jumping off the Diesel Bandwagon - UPDATED

Me Again wrote:
Wes, nice reply. I still contend that in an off camber down hill turn where a lot of a 5th wheels weight can push on a TV rear suspension this new 2500 with the coils will become a real handful for the driver. Add to that an exhaust brake the is slowing the truck and not the trailer and you just multiplied the issue for the drive by 2 or 3 fold.

This will not occur on normal freeway travel, but could be a real issue on secondary roads.

I see class actions written all over these trucks.

Chris

Thanks, Chris.

I think the center of gravity for a 5vr pin pivot is generally low enough in the box not to be a problem, even in a typical sharp turn on a secondary road. The lateral load is still directed more ahead than sideways in most real turns. As an alternate example, a gooseneck ball joint center is lower and even more stable. Of course a wider dually would always be better; perhaps the first attempt at a wider track over centuries of wheeled motivation.

An odd bit of trivia is that, although the ball is quite low on a bumper pull hitch, weight distributing bars tend to want to tip a truck while at a near 90 degree angle to the RV. At such a sharp angle, the speeds are normally so low as to not lose any noticable control. But one might be able to actually observe the truck lean while parked and tightening the WD bars. In turn, all this could possibly contribute to a rollover during an already out-of-control, jackknife situation. Every suspension compromise has a price, albeit in this trailer case one of small(?) odds.

Another odd bit of trivia is how incredibly narrow a set of rails look from the second story level of a locomotive windshield, especially on a 160 foot high bridge. The standard rails are only 4 foot 8.5 inches wide, and the cab about 10 feet, so nearly 3 foot of overhang exists on each side. Sometimes, when crooked tracks caused excessive violent lateral, I could not see how the engine stayed on the tracks. One wonders why the RR tracks are not wider. For that matter why are not all our truck wheel tracks wider? Apparently no-one years ago could foresee the possibility of high-speed truck-campers.

Wes
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