California Superdumps

[Grinderminder71]

I drive a superdump with a " Strongarm" tag axle. recently we have had two of the strong industries strongarms crack, one broke completely off the truck. Has anyone else heard of this?

 

[trucker68]

If the strong is low or out of nitrogen it will stiff arm the truck. When this happens it is possible to see weight of as much as 40K on the strong arm. If this condition persists for very long it would probably break something. These things come with warning systems to prevent damage. Is it possible someone disabled the noise maker. they are very annoying

 

[monster truck]

My dad has about ten of these in the fleet he takes care of, the majority of them have cracked but none have broken off. They have all since spent a bit of time with the welder and been reinforced.

 

[trucker68]

strongarm or maxle

My dad has about ten of these in the fleet he takes care of, the majority of them have cracked but none have broken off. They have all since spent a bit of time with the welder and been reinforced.

Is it possible you are talking about something called a Maxle by Silent drive. Maxles are very similar to a Strong arm but have a rep for breaking up. They use air bags for there sole means of suspension. The air bags don't have enough travel and constantly bottom out. They have been breaking up since 1997 as far as i know. They dont seem to be able to fix the problem. It would be great if they could. The air bags seem like a great idea. Maybe they cant buy air bags with enough travle. I think maybe the bottoming out is only part of the design flaw. I once checked a pusher axle for increase in weight over a speed bump size elevation change. It almost doubled the weight on the tires. Thats ok for a pusher. Pushers are mounted directly under the frame not on an appendage 10 feet or more behind the truck. Possibly what is going on is the constant fluctuations in air pressure and axle loads as the maxle travels over bumps is constantly flexing the structure causing it to crack up. Think of It like this. What happens when you bend a paper clip over and over. I dont think you could be talking about a strong.The strong I believe has a life time warranty because they don't crack. Or at least the later models.
Ask your dad to check a little closer. Maxles have triple stage air bags Strongs do not. Let me know

 

[monster truck]

They are all definatelly Strong Arms, most of them are early models however. The terrain around here is very steep and hilly and 16-18% grades are seen quite often so im sure that doesnt help. The switch backs on alot of these steep roads really twist your truck back and forth, when pulling and end dump or a low bed it's a little scary to look back and see an 1.5" or greater gap between one side of the fith wheel and the plate on the bottom of the trailer, the Strong Arms have spent plenty of time on these same roads so we cant really fault the manufacturer when they crack. Most of us lowbed guys will usually stop at the bottom of the grades and loosen the chains, if we dont they just snap when the trailer twists. Cracked frames, cross members, rear end housings and springs are the norm around here for some people, we just take it in stride and drag out the welder!

 

[Deere500a]

Super Dumps are a frail design, the early ones had aluminum boxes. They need a lot of TLC they don't seem to get and when they start to go south they go fast. I ran a 97 KW it was a constant fight to keep it together. The aluminum cracking, the pin holes tearing open and before that the owner had to replace the right rear side, because where the strong arm mounts to the bed it had torn off. I have been running a Maxel for a while, it's a poor design weak like others have said above.

 

[Birken Vogt]

Is there a different law for cement mixers? Around here they use all rear discharge mixer trucks and the larger ones have an axle mounted on an arm and they are registered for 70,000. That is with 4 axles. Without knowing the distances between axles it seems to me they are getting it this way: 70,000 gross - 34,000 tandems - 20,000 steer = 16000 on the arm / 620 lbs per inch width / 2 tires = 13 inch wide tires (or more). These axles are all self steering which I don't recall having been mentioned in these discussions about superdumps. I can't remember how they take up differences in the road but I think they have some pretty good travel. Locally we are talking about curvy twisty up and down roads where these trucks will be going to any pour, mainly for residential because that's all there is here. Of course they lift the axle when they get near the job site.

 

[RollOver Pete]

Thank the PUC and deregulation for the flood of these wanna be dump trucks.
Take a worn out road truck, a little paint, some chrome, a few extra axles, and a gardener who has never driven less worked in the construction trades and you got yourself a California SuperDump. We just had some on a job on SUNDAY......$65.00 an hr! Key buy. I can't even feel sorry for those pendejos.

 

[Deere500a]

^We have those bastards showing up here too in the bay area. Those trucks only have a GVW of 54,000 and they are trying to run 20/25 tons . I hate seeing them on our jobs. A four axle super we can run 66,000 total 20k steer 34k rear 12k on the arm.

 

[trucker68]

Super Dumps are a frail design, the early ones had aluminum boxes. They need a lot of TLC they don't seem to get and when they start to go south they go fast. I ran a 97 KW it was a constant fight to keep it together. The aluminum cracking, the pin holes tearing open and before that the owner had to replace the right rear side, because where the strong arm mounts to the bed it had torn off. I have been running a Maxel for a while, it's a poor design weak like others have said above.

I saw this same thing in phoenix in the 90s. The first supers were built by a number of dump bed manufacturing companies some of which made the bad choice of using aluminum. That would not have been a problem except the early strong arms did not have self aligning bearings at the base of the arm. When these beds were built they did not take enough care in matching the alignment of the bed and the frame of the flying tag. This resulted in the frame flexing the aluminum connection between the bed and the axle frame. They could have been repaired by modifying the bed axle connection with a spherical bearing in the base of the arm and align boring the bed. But the only thing you can be sure of when using aluminum is it's going to crack. I have been buying these things since 1995 but only steel beds from reliance trailers in California. The early strongs did have a few issues but I would say from about 03 on they were pretty good. I also owned one maxle (pure junk). My advice is stay away from older strong and all maxles. Also forget buying a new one they are mega bucks. The price of a new truck would make you ill. To some this up it seems to me that it is probably the beds breaking up not the flying tag. I know a lot of other guys with strong and in my 17 years owning them I know it could not be a strong reliance