Will a 3/4 ton do

To shiners point, while drivers are over engineered vehicle specs,
MOST IMPORTANTLY!!!!!!
They are not over the road bed engineered specs that LEO/CVEO's enforce!

That is the real key many of you have to realize. It doesn't matter if BenK has designed the vehicle to go down the road at only 11000 lbs, as long as it meets federal bridge law point load, which engineer BenK designed the road bed/bridge has been designed to handle. It ALL good!
If said 11000 lb gvw vehicle, does NOT meet the road engineer specs, then you should plan on getting overload tickets, or be told you can't drive on the road. YES, I can think of some things that would make an 11000 lb vehicle illegal per actual enforced wieght laws! Yet designed to handle being 11000 lb.
Best to know how rules, specs etc work in or out of your favor!

Marty

Some of ya'll worrying about weight ought to come down here to Texas and see all of the things being towed down I-35 to Mexico. You will burst a blood vessel.

You will have a mini van full of people and junk, towing a Chevy 1500(they love their Chevys down there) with the bed and inside full of junk, and behind that is a small Honda full junk. This is a common site heading down to the dear lease, and I will probably pass four or five of these caravans in my three hour drive.

Not once did I ever see one pulled over by the state troopers or in an accident. I did see many broke down on the side of the road though, but the cops just go right by them.

What the ****!!!!!! I think the answer was on the first page.
Don't you guys camp any more.

"PA12DRVR...your story reminds of a buddy who was in the Navy during the 60's-70's and told of what they told him if they ever 'heard' steam escaping. Invisible and that stream was hot enough & escaping fast enough to cut a body in half...told to take a broom and wave it slooowly around and found when the broom was cut in half...don't know how true that one was".

Whether or not it was the best, most efficient, or safest method, that method (or a variant as far as what was waved) was very true "back in the day". During the same piping installing job, one of the more discrete activities was to run each boiler up to 1XX% of pressure / temp / flow and then do the same for each turbine as part of the prep for start up. All of that required that various gas and steam control valves were flowing, while within design parameters, at 1XX% of normal operating flow. That flow, while not indicating any problem, generated a noise that was close enough to escaping superheated steam that checks were needed for leaks. The procedure was to walk down the pipe chase and wave (it was actually a bit more prescribed than that) the broom in a consistent manner, then, barring any leak indications, walk through the pipe chase again with a gas detector held X", Y", and Z" above the floor to seek out gas leaks that might not have got to the level of triggering the primary detectors.

The dual-redundancy aspect was that there were special pressure and temp gauges put in the feed and outflow piping where such gauges provided circa .25 psi gradations and ??? 1 degree??? gradations. Once steady state was reached, which had to be maintained for IIRC 12 hours, any change of more than 2-3 psi and 8-10 degrees required oversight, possibly intervention, and ultimately possibly shutdown. The lower guys on the totem pole (remember, this was back in the day) got to argue who got the broom waving duty (more on edge but shorter) vs. the gauge watching duty, safer but BORING.

The "broom" was actually a rube goldberg frame with visqueen and paper....would still be cut by steam, but would pickup moisture if the leak was microscopic. Either result shut down the boil in process.

Good times from decades ago.

Also the actual specs need to be shown better.
Take the tow ratings for example. It meets spec, of going 40 mph up a 5% grade at 109f temp, can pull gcw from a stop up a min 12% grade. You or I jump into the truck, much less a known lead foot like grit. Said rig doesn't go speed limit if 60, or pull from a stand still an 18% grade....said truck doesn't meet owners drivers needs or specs. Their is no how much to derate or increase actual rating to meet those that have tougher needs than some engineer/bean counter/attny/gvmt spec.
At the end of the day, many including myself have had to figure out the hard way, if a truck is up to the task I have at hand. Ie the day a 2500 pulled a fully loaded 3500dw truck up a 20+% grade. On a freeway the 3500 left the 2500 behind .....but I could not get to the last 200 yds to jobsite!
This happened more with trucks in the 70s to 90s.
Reality is, I know where to find specs, formulas to figure out max speed at a give wt, with given frontal area, and max grade I can pull with out stalling out!
Choose your truck wisely! It may turn out as in a few cases for me, the lowered rated truck is the better option!

Marty

BenK wrote:


All things engineered/designed/etc are not for the good days, but for the Mr Murphy moment and for the Idiot Gorilla who will misuse whatever they have...taught to me early in my designing career. Seems today's designers are never taught that

And yet at some point, it is of diminishing returns to tell the proverbial dumbarse to quit pointing the gun at his head while his finger is on the trigger!
Not my job or yours, or the do gooder forum members who appoint themselves to try to save someone from themselves.

But assuming a person asking the question at least has enough commonsense to ask the question also has enough common sense to take it easy, do some learning along the way, AND not be driving something that is actually overloaded not just in the sense of govt vehicle classification, the responsible response is give them the information with which to make their own decision and at the same time quit crying the sky is falling and potentially having someone go spend far more $ than need be to achieve the same end result.

Lantley wrote:
Grit you hit the nail on the head. All the ratings, parameters etc. are based on the lowest common denominator.

And to be fair, I generally try to qualify my recommendations as such.
However that theory or statement is in general (like no hair dryers in the bath tub warning lables), is further complicated by the 10kgvw 3/4 ton thing. Which is the crux of most of these discussions. Where it is 99% NOT an actual design or mechanical difference but rather simply an administrative "issue."

Not like recreational users are required to have training or a different license if moving up to a 1 ton. That would also theoretically maybe save the LCDs.

And then there's the issue of what is a god given "right" vs what may require some shred of common sense or experience vs what legally requires one to posses some greater legal "qualification" like a CDL.

Do I think a dumbarse pulling a 10k trailer who can't walk and chew gum at the same time and has to wear velcro shoes is any more of a hazard in a 2500 than a 3500? Nope
Yet that same guy could go buy a bigger 5ver than yours and a dually and pass the sniff test from the other people who have little understanding, all day long. But I give the odds to DA#1 with a smaller trailer making it to his destination than DA#2 who is pulling a miniature semi trailer with a pickemup truck!


BTW I agree with you. Just good discussion....and food for thought for the naysayers.

And why have been saying that anyone who asks does NOT understand and best to advise them to go by the OEM's specifications/ratings.

Go out and weigh it all, axle by axle and then do the simple math



Shiner...thanks for the details. Knew most of that from a broader point and your details are very good. Made a copy for my reference



Also have been saying for years and years to use the OEM's ratings instead of the marketing nomenclature...but that again is too confusing to those who have to ask...

OEMs sell many more vehicles to those who bought the wrong one...




Grit...that boss is a pure bean counter manager and the legislators who writeup the laws governing this stuff usually are clueless. They should stick to counting beans and stay away from science & technology based topics




PA12DRVR...your story reminds of a buddy who was in the Navy during the 60's-70's and told of what they told him if they ever 'heard' steam escaping. Invisible and that stream was hot enough & escaping fast enough to cut a body in half...told to take a broom and wave it slooowly around and found when the broom was cut in half...don't know how true that one was




All things engineered/designed/etc are not for the good days, but for the Mr Murphy moment and for the Idiot Gorilla who will misuse whatever they have...taught to me early in my designing career. Seems today's designers are never taught that

double posted

Grit you hit the nail on the head. All the ratings, parameters etc. are based on the lowest common denominator.
They are not set for the most seasoned veteran. They are not caculated for those who have BTDT. They are set for the weakest, dumbest ,most frail individual.
Why? Because those individuals are out there too. Those are the people that need the guidance. If we can keep the weakest safe and in line than we can keep everyone safe.
Should we set the speed limit based on Tony Stewart's ability?
Maybe make life jacket standards based on Michael Phelps' talent?
That is why so many get excited when we discuss ignoring certain parameters.
Or that this rating is not critical.
They all matter if you are part of the lowest common denominator crowd!
More importantly this crowd really exist and we share the roads with them everyday. We should not encourage them to do anything but follow the rules,guidelines and parameters as written.
We know the dumbest of the dumb are capable of ruining the day for a lot of experienced, seasoned genuises!...LOL