Vancouver Island, BC. Logging at its Best!

Id say definately not on the cedar loads. Mixed or hemlock get maxed before they are piled that high. The outfit i worked for knew the costs associated with overloading those trucks and seemed to able to keep a balance between production and abuse. There were times we even shortened bunk stakes to keep things under control.Im speaking as a shop guy not a driver.Cant say ive had the feeling myself of an overload and maybe a shortage of brake water,but i have sure worked to repair the consequences.

That and how in the hell do you stop something that heavy on a downgrade without heating and cracking your drums?

Tugger2 said:

Cant say ive had the feeling myself of an overload and maybe a shortage of brake water,but i have sure worked to repair the consequences.

Click to expand...

Brake water?
Please explain...

Water cooled brakes on the truck and trailer. If you look at the pictures of the off highway trucks you notice the bulkhead and bull board over the cab as well as the smaller fuel tank up against the cab. Its also a watertank thats pressurized with truck air 3 or 4 psi (drivers correct me on that) which distributes water to all wheels as you come down hill. Usually a nozzle of flattened 1/4" squirting on each drum.Bad when squirted on allready hot drums and bad when you run short of water halfway down. We had gravity systems feeding from creeks into tanks on stands with a big filler pipe that swung down to dump in the 3 or 4 hundred gallons of water quick on the way back up.

Really?
Very interesting. Thanks for explaining this to me. Next is to find some videos of this being used .

We used to have those water tanks all over the woods around here but they are all but gone now. Once in awhile you will still see one or the remnants of one but that is it.

Welder Dave said:

Just wondering if the trucks were typically legal or often overloaded?

Click to expand...

The Off Highway Logging Trucks used on the West Coast of B.C. were used on Industrial Haul Roads . Most Company's I worked for wanted a reasonable load (Approximatlely 90-95 Cubic Meters) . The bridges and mainline roads were built to easily haul much heavier loads than that . If I was hauling from a loading site that was accessed by good roads , anything the loading operator could put on the load I'd take to the DLS dump . I checked with the scaler on a load of wet Hemlock & Balsam I hauled off the top of Spur 14 that scaled out at 140 Cu. Meters plus the scaler said he had deducted about 10 meters for butt rot . If a haul road had any extremely steep grades or bad switchbacks or corners , the loading operator's were more than willing to load to the top of the stakes and round off the load . The Off Highway log trucks had either or both "Jake Brakes" on the engine and "Retarters "on the "Alison Power Shift Transmissions" As long as the driver looked after his brakes , they worked great . Starting down a hill , we would pick a speed that you felt comfortable with and one that allowed you to stop the truck if anything went wrong . Before you started down any hills you would stop the truck flip the dump valve for the water system and walk around the truck and make sure the water was flowing across all the brake drums from the inside out . Once you started down the hill the brakes were appled long enough to warm them up when you felt them holding , the dump valve was opened to run water on the brake drums . If for any reason you couldn't see steam coming off the truck or trailer tires or the load started "pushing" it was time to stop and fine out what the problem was . When you came off a hill we would let the water flow for a short distance to cool down the brake drums but not to long as you could crack the drums . When we were going to stop we had an air line rigged up to blow the water out of the water lines , so water still in water lines wouldn't run on hot drums and crack them .
Another factor as to how big a load that could be put on these truck was the dumping operation at the DLS . One Stacker pushed the load off , while another Stacker held the load together , so the logs especially Cedar did not crash down from a high height and bust up the logs . If the loads got to high The operators at the DLS let the loaders know they weren't happy about them .

I was more wondering about overloading weight wise not size wise. They say the reason the 350 ton Terex Titan differential failed is being regularly overloaded with 450-500 tons. What's the rated capacity and what's considered overloaded for the big log trucks?

Dave Whiskin Collection Timberwest HBO Div. A birds eye view of the San Juan Valley 1st picture is looking down on Fairy Lake 2nd picture is looking out over San Juan Bay to the open Pacific O cean 3rd picture is looking across the entrance to the Straits of Juan De Fuca , Washington State , Cape Flattery And the Pacific Ocean .

Welder Dave said:

I was more wondering about overloading weight wise not size wise. They say the reason the 350 ton Terex Titan differential failed is being regularly overloaded with 450-500 tons. What's the rated capacity and what's considered overloaded for the big log trucks?

Click to expand...

I really can't answer that question as we never went across Scales and a Cedar or Fir Tree growing by a Swamp or Bog sucks up a lot more water and weigths more than a Cedar or Fir Tree growing on a well drained slope . Certainly we knew when we had a heavy or light load by the gears we use pulling up adverse grades or how it pushed going down a hill , but we didn't know the actual Tonage .

That last photo is real interesting to me because I have been on the other side looking north so many time in my career. Thanks for the picts!

I remember the tires being the weak point in how much weight could be hauled, short hauls were ok to "loader up" but on the long hauls the tires get a lot of heat built up in them and shorten their life.
As weight goes, when the chopper was flying wood they found out heavy pieces could be, remember a fir log 7 ft diameter by 26 ft long that the Sikorsky 64F couldn't lift, they cut it at 16 ft and flew it and said it weighed 18000 lbs.

Dave Whiskin Collection Timberwest HBO Div. May 2001 1st & 2nd Pictures #40-96 P16 Pacific loaded by #56-32 Cypress Log Loader Skagit Tower in back ground . 3rd & 4th pictures Dave W. standing on pigeon roof of truck .

John C. said:

That last photo is real interesting to me because I have been on the other side looking north so many time in my career. Thanks for the picts!

Click to expand...

I've spent a good many years in the Port Renfrew , San Juan Bay area . The head of San Juan Bay has one of the nicest beach's on the Southern West side of Vancouver Island , as a boy I have walked it many times , from the North end where the Gordon River enters the North Branch of the San Juan River , one can look across and see Cape Flattery . When we worked in the Camper Creek area (which is the first main creek North of San Juan Bay) we could see Washington State , and we could on occasion see Cruise Ships pass by from the Straits and head South out bound on the Pacific Ocean . I always thought it would be nice to be on one of thoughs Cruise Ships and have a look at the coast from the sea side . So I got the wife to get us on a repositioning Cruise through the Panama Canal . When we were getting close to the Fall Cruise I checked the Itinerary , we departed Vancouver at 500 Pm in October , we went through the Juan De Fuca Straits in the dark .

Dave Whiskin Collection Timberwest HBO Div.

Dave Whiskin Collection Timberwest HBO Div. 2001 1st picture #40-96 P16 Pacific parked along side a Kenworth highway leased to Timberwest from Aliford Bay Logging driven by Rob Norman (Rob is from a long line of B.C. Loggers , his Grandfather was Henry Norman who rigged the first Ledgerwood Skidder in B.C. His Father Albert Norman was the last Head Rigger at Caycuse to rig wooden spar tree's ) 2nd picture is Dave Whiskin by truck . 3rd picture is both the Pacific and Kenworth at Honeymoon Bay DLS .

And now you know why off-road trucks are more efficient...lol

Ed

That's a pretty dramatic difference!

like to drive one through downtown la

The off highway truck can haul around 200K of logs on grades up to 30%. A highway truck 45K and and doesn't do well on grades of 30%, plus not being built heavy duty enough to take the gravel rough roads that happen between gradings. They start falling apart in a short time, where the off highway trucks have been in use for decades.