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What Are Your Margins ? ?


Dollytrolley

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Well it's a rather peaceful night here caring for the memory-loss mom-n-law so..... maybe I'll get a little “crazy(er)” and ask some personal questions.....(no, not like how often or hard does your wife beat you) ….but......what kind of RV-Margins do you strive to maintain?

Example:

Our small Dollytrolley Toy / Dolly-horse hauler is a simple 30 ft TT with a removable Dolly-stall that installs in the last 3 ft of the garage to allow Dolly to be hauled in a slant-load fashion....this trailer is fairly light at about 6,400 lbs. empty and a listed GW of 11,800 lbs but I have assigned a “Margin GW of 10,000 lbs and then I desire to not exceed 85% of the 10,000lbs so my “personal margin weight is around 8,500 lbs” however lately I have seen more like 8,800 lbs most of the times we haul Dolly (Dolly was a slim girl when she first joined the family at 950 lbs.... but last week she hit the scales at 1,020 lbs.......but you could never guess she gained 70 lbs.....she is still a sharp nag..)

Anyhow, some of the margins I strive for are, NO tire to exceed 85% of sidewall-listed weight or sustained 95% of rated speed, generator margin 85% sustained load, Inverter 70% sustained load, Battery discharge 60% of recommended discharge margin, truck speed 85% of max gov / speed, truck fuel margin not under 15% of each 100 gal tank, turbo boost 85% of max, etc. etc......

The final margin...........load only about 85% of junk that we “think” we “need”.........

Before the Freightshaker many of our margins were at 100% or worse but now we are able to unload the trailer and add those items to the truck where the margins are reduced......

In the past dry camping with Dolly was a water-limited stay in that she tends to be a heavy drinker of 10 to 15 gallons of water per day........now we just load the 330 gallon food-grade tote on the Shaker and we have a easy two weeks of water and do not have to fill the too-big-water-tanks in the trailer so we are able to carry 300% more water than the trailer capacity but not have to carry a full trailer tank load.

Life has been much better now that the entire truck / trailer margins are better balanced........

What margins have worked or NOT worked for you ? ?

Drive on......(Whats my margin......)

97 Freightshaker Century Cummins M11-370 / 1350 /10 spd / 3:08 /tandem/ 20ft Garage/ 30 ft Curtis Dune toybox with a removable horse-haul-module to transport Dolly-The-Painthorse to horse camps and trail heads all over the Western U S

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Got a detention for writing in the margins, so I tend to avoid them.

 

80% seems to be my comfort zone. I have no sound reason for picking that number, but feel comfortable there.

 

Seems to me that "margin" might be linked to "duty cycle?"

KW T-680, POPEMOBILE
Newmar X-Aire, VATICAN
Lots of old motorcycles, Moto Guzzi Griso and Spyder F3 currently in the front row
Young enough to play in the dirt as a retired farmer.
contact me at rickeieio1@comcast.net

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I think Rick brings up a very good point. A large portion of that duty cycle is how fast do you travel. Heat being the tire / wheel bearing / suspension's enemy, you can get away with a lot by slowing down slightly.

"There are No Experts, Do the Math!"

2014 Freightliner Cascadia DD16 600hp  1850ft-lb  18spd  3.31  260"wb
SpaceCraft S-470
SKP #131740

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I haven't actually calculated our margins lately. I do know that moving to the HDT last year put the truck towing margin around under 50%, pin weight at 25%. This is based on the truck being singled, rear axle capacity is 20k.

The rv has lost weight thankfully. We're at our max axle capacity 7k each, but are now under the tire load. We have towed fast and long hours when needed, but now are able to slow down, keeping speeds around 65 or so, stopping regularly.

Alie & Jim + 8 paws

2017 DRV Memphis 

BART- 1998 Volvo 610

Lil'ole 6cyl Cummins

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How you roll is a big part of the margins. My Teton has yet to be tow by me any distance. I don't have an accurate empty weight on it at this time either. I tend to use10~15% margins in general, on speeds that is zero! I confess; my SOP is kick the tires, light the fires and, cruse at MMO. My usual trips are lots of miles of southwest desert on highways.

 

Steve

2005 Peterbilt 387-112 Baby Cat 9 speed U-shift

1996/2016 remod Teton Royal Atlanta

1996 Kentucky 48 single drop stacker garage project

 catdiesellogo.jpg.e96e571c41096ef39b447f78b9c2027c.jpg Pulls like a train, sounds like a plane....faster than a Cheetah sniffin cocaine.   

 

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Got a detention for writing in the margins, so I tend to avoid them.

 

80% seems to be my comfort zone. I have no sound reason for picking that number, but feel comfortable there.

 

Seems to me that "margin" might be linked to "duty cycle?"

 

I think Rick brings up a very good point. A large portion of that duty cycle is how fast do you travel. Heat being the tire / wheel bearing / suspension's enemy, you can get away with a lot by slowing down slightly.

 

I haven't actually calculated our margins lately. I do know that moving to the HDT last year put the truck towing margin around under 50%, pin weight at 25%. This is based on the truck being singled, rear axle capacity is 20k.

The rv has lost weight thankfully. We're at our max axle capacity 7k each, but are now under the tire load. We have towed fast and long hours when needed, but now are able to slow down, keeping speeds around 65 or so, stopping regularly.

 

 

Regarding tires and speed brings me to recall a tasking of transporting a 320,000 lb chunk of Iron & copper across 1/2 mile of top deck of a Columbia River Dam several years ago......

 

I had been "Drafted" into managing a small Tug, Barge, Crane operation and it was almost as

big a pain-in-the-kester as aircraft.......but at least once in a while I could drop a line over the side and tickle a fish or two......

 

So........the 320,000 pounds of Iron & Copper was due to arrive in a couple of weeks so all we had to do was..........unload the “chunk” off of a low-bed rail car sit it on a “Very LARGE Lowboy Trailer” and the a KW 900W would tow the trailer 400 ft to the loading pier and then we sling the “Chunk” onto the barge deck and then push the barge over to the dam and then just pick the “Chunk” back onto the “Very LARGE Lowboy Trailer”.......ya right.....no way in “heck” would the huge trailer ever get onto the dam top-deck and then be able to get the ½ mile twists and turms to the off-load location......

So.....a heavy-haul buddy gave me a phone number of a Bridgestone application engineer and I called and the engineer said no “problem” just use the base lowboy trailer and then pump-up the tire pressure to …...GULP …....210 PSI.......of course first the tires have to be mounted on Heavy Steel Wheels and the last point the speed limit was.......FIVE mph.....

 

The engineer said that heavy duty commercial tires have huge load capacity as long as speeds are kept low and heat is not generated.......

 

The “nervous” part of this “tasking” was pumping a bunch of truck tires up to 210 psi.

 

We loaded the chunk at the dam top and it was easy to keep the speeds down to 5 mph for the ½ mile and life was sweet.

 

Tire loads and speeds are key to the start of a good life on the road.........

 

 

Drive on.........(To the good life.....)

97 Freightshaker Century Cummins M11-370 / 1350 /10 spd / 3:08 /tandem/ 20ft Garage/ 30 ft Curtis Dune toybox with a removable horse-haul-module to transport Dolly-The-Painthorse to horse camps and trail heads all over the Western U S

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My only thought is the difference between 'Million Mile Truck' axle ratings and 'Fifth Wheelers'. I would not ever recommend exceeding your trailer axle ratings. There is likely a very large margin on our HDT ratings.

 

JohnnyB

2014 ShowHauler Motorhome 45'

Jacksonville Beach, FL

32250

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My only thought is the difference between 'Million Mile Truck' axle ratings and 'Fifth Wheelers'. I would not ever recommend exceeding your trailer axle ratings. There is likely a very large margin on our HDT ratings.

 

JohnnyB

Bingo. That's what I hinting when I mentioned margins and duty cycles together.

KW T-680, POPEMOBILE
Newmar X-Aire, VATICAN
Lots of old motorcycles, Moto Guzzi Griso and Spyder F3 currently in the front row
Young enough to play in the dirt as a retired farmer.
contact me at rickeieio1@comcast.net

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My only thought is the difference between 'Million Mile Truck' axle ratings and 'Fifth Wheelers'. I would not ever recommend exceeding your trailer axle ratings. There is likely a very large margin on our HDT ratings.

 

JohnnyB

 

So.....

 

Am I getting to be a "Chicken" in my declining years by Reducing the GW rating on our cheaply suspended toyhauler from 11,800 lbs to down below 9,000 lbs ?

 

Are many of RV's Over-Rated in suspensions as well as certain systems......Are the the factory "Margins" too "thin" ? ?

 

It seems that for the total miles traveled many RV's seem to have many failed systems........maybe......

 

It seems that by dropping 20% off of my toyhaulers gross weight all of the tire and suspension "glitchs" have gone away......

 

Drive on.........(Keep a comfort margin........)

97 Freightshaker Century Cummins M11-370 / 1350 /10 spd / 3:08 /tandem/ 20ft Garage/ 30 ft Curtis Dune toybox with a removable horse-haul-module to transport Dolly-The-Painthorse to horse camps and trail heads all over the Western U S

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Most people would say that I run about as close to the limit as NASCAR would.

That is in my jeep as it has a Chevy 350 and has about 2000 lbs of parts and tools in it.

 

Now for us going down the highway we are just over 50,000 lbs, but well balanced. We try to be carefree as how I drive along with treating the tires as best I can.

 

 

Be Safe, Vern

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