Need help from the truck alignment twisted frame gurus

[watglen]

I bought something I shouldn't have.

The plan was I needed a new joe dog to pull my 4 axle float. Farm duty, but we put on some miles.
I wanted spring suspension and Budd wheels. These are hard to find. I found a triaxle dump at the wreckers. Made the deal. He cut the rear axle clip off, pulled out the expensive axle bits and I brought it home.

Started cleaning it up and found the frame has a pretty serious twist in it. I think it got worse when he cut the rails, it wasn't this bad when I inspected it.

So my question is, given two large excavators and a d6, can it be massaged back into anything close to straight, or is no amount of force going to help.

The frame rails are about 1" out of square. That is to say, if you put a carpenters square on any of the cross members, one frame rail is about an inch further ahead than the other.
Using a long straightedge, I can see one axle is off track (offset right) of the other by about an inch.

Lastly, looking at it from the front, the frame ends are rotated one way. From the rear, they are rotated the other way. So the frame is twisted, and the rails are offset.



My questions are: Has anyone ever had any luck trying to beat a frame back into shape? I am worried about tire wear. Is it a concern?

 

[DMiller]

Hate to say it but would have started with a two axle slider from under a box trailer. Simpler event to set up as a Jo-dog or a secondary Pup trailer as we do down here for dump trucks and Pup trailers. With Hendrickson suspension has to be something really amiss as busted cross member, broken and rewelded crossmember frame mounts, or just every bushing and pin set on the suspension is shot and squirming.

 

[Truck Shop]

First off you will have to take the tension off the rails and crossmembers by loosening all the bolts to try and let it settle. But the trouble with a bent or twisted rail
is memory because of a stressed area. Some rails never can be really straightened. As far as the axles out of alignment the center and end busings on the beams are
shot. And that frame could get ugly dealing with inner rails also. Like DMiler said above a slider set-up works real well. The tensile strength of that frame rail is
probably of the 80.000 lb variety which is fairly standard.

Truck Shop

 

[Theweldor]

Loosen all the bolts up on the crossmembers. Put a chain and a ratchet binder corner to corner. Snug up the binder and see if it doesn't come back where it belongs. You do want to get it true as it will dog track if not square. You also don't want to trust putting a square on it. Try and pick 4 points that you know for sure are true and corner square it off of those.

 

[RZucker]

Another thing to consider is the axle housing without the drop-ins bolted in will be weak. I've built a bunch of farm dollies with stripped truck tandems and I always weld a plate over the differential opening, usually 1/2" with a minimum of a 3 pass weld, ask me how I learned that one.

 

[crane operator]

I've never made a tandem dolly out of drive axles like that, what do you do, just grease the bearings and cap the ends where the axles bolted in?

All the ones I've dealt with are made out of trailer suspensions/ tandems. Like this:

https://kansascity.craigslist.org/hvo/d/complete-slide-tandem-axle/6536058155.html

Are you just making a hitch then to pull behind a big tractor?

 

[RZucker]

I've never made a tandem dolly out of drive axles like that, what do you do, just grease the bearings and cap the ends where the axles bolted in?

All the ones I've dealt with are made out of trailer suspensions/ tandems. Like this:

https://kansascity.craigslist.org/hvo/d/complete-slide-tandem-axle/6536058155.html

Are you just making a hitch then to pull behind a big tractor?

View attachment 179468

The ones I have done, we drove dorman freeze plugs into the ends of the spindles and built our own hub cap with an oil plug to lube the bearings, mind you these were field use only... no highway use.

 

[watglen]

Thanks for all the replies guys.

I've never seen a joe dog not built out of the drive axle clip like mine. Seems like the trailer axle makes a lot more sense, wouldn't know where to look for one around here. There are lots of heavy truck wreckers, no body has the trailers for some reason.

My plan is to blank off all the openings with heavy plate, and fill with gear oil as it would be in service. I figured removing the differential carrier would remove a good amount of strength, so I have 1/2" plate covers being made up. I was going to silicone and bolt them on.

Those trailer axles, what weight are they rated for? These drive axles are 46k lbs.

 

[crane operator]

I would think the van trailer axles would handle 20k per axle easy. I don't think you'd hurt them at slow speed with more than that either. The tires would probably be the weakest.

Wouldn't that spring over walking beam tend to tilt forward and back really bad under braking and acceleration because of how narrow the attachment distance is on the frame rails? I'm just asking because I'm curious and haven't seen one set up like that on drives.

On the trailer set up the connections to the frame rails are outside of the axles on the front and rear. The spring over walking beam they are really close. Maybe bigger and taller blocks/ axle stops would tame that?

I guess it depends on what you're hitch is like too. If the hitch is fixed and putting on tongue weight like a dump truck pup, you'd be okay, if its a pivoting hitch like a wagon tongue- I'd think it would dive up and down real bad.

 

[RZucker]

Thanks for all the replies guys.

I've never seen a joe dog not built out of the drive axle clip like mine. Seems like the trailer axle makes a lot more sense, wouldn't know where to look for one around here. There are lots of heavy truck wreckers, no body has the trailers for some reason.
Big question here is are you building a Jeep trailer to carry a fifth wheel and couple to a fifth wheel on your tractor or a dolly with a tongue to couple to a pintle hook on a dumptruck?

My plan is to blank off all the openings with heavy plate, and fill with gear oil as it would be in service. I figured removing the differential carrier would remove a good amount of strength, so I have 1/2" plate covers being made up. I was going to silicone and bolt them on.

Those trailer axles, what weight are they rated for? These drive axles are 46k lbs.

Are you building a dolly with a tongue? or a fifth wheel jeep to spread the load from a lowboy?

 

[watglen]

I would think the van trailer axles would handle 20k per axle easy. I don't think you'd hurt them at slow speed with more than that either. The tires would probably be the weakest.

Wouldn't that spring over walking beam tend to tilt forward and back really bad under braking and acceleration because of how narrow the attachment distance is on the frame rails? I'm just asking because I'm curious and haven't seen one set up like that on drives.

On the trailer set up the connections to the frame rails are outside of the axles on the front and rear. The spring over walking beam they are really close. Maybe bigger and taller blocks/ axle stops would tame that?

I guess it depends on what you're hitch is like too. If the hitch is fixed and putting on tongue weight like a dump truck pup, you'd be okay, if its a pivoting hitch like a wagon tongue- I'd think it would dive up and down real bad.

I had to think about what you were picturing here with this comment. Yeah, I understand, and yeah, the wagon tongue idea might not be the way to go. The hitch I am installing is solid channel welded to the frame rails and ending in a typical farm tractor hitch with drawpin. Not unlike a boat trailer, landscape trailer etc.

I have a 50T detachable gooseneck float. The machine we haul is about 40T. This is the third one of these I have owned, works fine. Eventually the double frames corrode enough that you kinda want to move on to something newer. And of course, they start as well used dump trucks, so they are well worn when I get them.

 

[watglen]

We cut out nearly all the bolts in the cross members today. Everything is pretty loose now, but 1.5T come-along isnt enough to move the frame yet. Time to move up to something a little heavier.

 

[pushbroom]

The frame rail and insert are also starting to corrode pretty bad forcing the outer rail to open up. If you already have all the bolts out might as well split the rails and get all the rust cleaned out.

 

[crane operator]

10-4, I've pulled some of these 5th wheel "dollies" that just had pivoting "wagon" hitches with loaders and telehandlers on a powerhouse project. Basically we would load the trailer with the crane or forklift/ loader in a lay down yard and then drive the loaded flatbeds to the powerhouse for install. Didn't need any job trucks to move the trailers around, and had all the brakes backed off.

They just had a pivot on the front of the frame rails and a tongue to the pintle hitch, if you had a big load on it could get a little jumpy on you. Had no tongue weight with the pivots.

If you have a full welded hitch, and position the 5th wheel so you get some tongue weight, then the suspension pivot is no longer a problem.

I was just curious. Thanks.

I would also think with no bolts tight in it you could push it up between the excavators and get it close to straight and weld it up.

 

[Delmer]

Chains and ratcheting chain binders are the next step up.

 

[Jumbo]

Excuse me while i ooze ignorance all over this thread: I had to google "joe dogs" as I had never heard of one before. Having seen one now, what is the difference between a "joe dog" and a trailer dolly?

 

[watglen]

Yeah, i don't know where the joe dog term comes from. Its just what its called around these parts.

 

[watglen]

Update.

In the end, to get the twist out, we cut the rear hitch off the frame rails. That left the frame rails separated, and any twist was gone. Aligned them so they were level and parallel and welded plate front and rear.

Also, when you place a long straightedge on the front tire, sometimes it is lined up with the rear tire, sometimes its out by an inch. So the two axles can move side to side relative to one another, which is either by design or wear.

My concern is tire wear. Hopefully its not out of control...have to wait and see.

When we get it painted, ill post some pics

 

[Junkyard]

I'd say the periodic tire misalignment is your suspension bushings. The entire tandem rotating under the frame rails for lack of a better explanation. For what you're doing I don't think it'll affect the tire wear at all.

 

[DMiller]

I still prefer pulling out old Van trailer tandems and converting them over. Down here in the Midwest US we have pipe tongue Dump truck Trailers using the suspension off van trailers, cheap and effective, good to 15-20 ton.

This is a doubles "Joe Dog"


This is a tube steel type of US Midwest pup dump trailer