runs 2 Cascadias and a VNR · beverage and general freight, Lehigh Valley
#1
three trucks, two of them 2019 Cascadia 116 day cabs at 190 inch wheelbase, one 2021 VNR. everything i have pulled for six years is 48 foot vans for a beverage distributor, loaded by hand, pallets to the nose.
a broker i do backhauls for offered me a dedicated five day a week run with 53 foot dry vans, Lehigh Valley to north Jersey and Brooklyn two days a week and Baltimore the other three. it is better money than the beverage work and it would keep both Cascadias busy.
then one of my drivers, who has been doing this longer than i have, said i will be illegal with a 190 inch truck under a 53 and that i need a longer wheelbase. he says kingpin to rear axle. i have read four websites tonight and three of them are talking about California, which i am never going to see.
so what is the actual rule where i run, does a sliding fifth wheel fix it, and has anybody here actually been measured for this at a scale. i do not mind buying a different truck if i have to, i mind buying one because of something somebody heard.
I
intermodal_since_04
RegionalMemphis, TN58 posts · joined Aug 2025
runs 3 day cabs · intermodal out of Memphis since 2004
#2
your driver is half right and he got the half that applies two thousand miles from you.
kingpin to rear axle is a state rule, not a federal one, and California is the famous one at forty feet. that is a rule about where the trailer's rear axle group sits, measured from the kingpin, and it is why you see 53 footers on the west coast with the tandems slid way up. it is a trailer rule. it has nothing to do with your wheelbase.
in the states you listed there is no forty foot kingpin rule waiting to get you. what is waiting for you is weight and axle spacing, and the Brooklyn end of that run has its own local restrictions on where a 53 can go at all, which the broker will not mention. ask them which receivers in Brooklyn and then look at the streets on a map before you sign anything.
if you want a real answer for a state, call the commercial vehicle enforcement office for that state police, not the main DOT number. the trooper who answers that phone measures trucks for a living and in my experience will talk to you for twenty minutes. the switchboard will transfer you four times and then tell you to consult an attorney.
M
mod_terry_k
ModeratorCasper, WY112 posts · joined Aug 2025
runs a 2018 T880 and a 2015 Granite · gravel and oilfield, Casper WY
#3
what the wheelbase actually decides is not legal or illegal, it is where the weight lands. that is the part worth your attention.
short truck, pallets loaded to the nose of a 53, fifth wheel set forward: you put weight on the steer axle. most states hold you to 12,000 on the steers unless your tires and axle rating say otherwise, and a 190 inch truck with a nose heavy box will walk right up to that number while your gross is still fine. that is the ticket you are actually at risk of, and it is a ticket you can fix with a wrench and twenty minutes at a scale instead of a new truck.
the other half is axle spacing, which is the bridge formula. it is federal, it governs the interstate system, and it is a table, not an opinion. the short version is that the closer your axle groups are together the less weight you are allowed to carry across them. 80,000 gross, 12,000 steers, 34,000 on a tandem, and then the spacing between groups limits the combination. it is published at fhwa.dot.gov and worth printing once and keeping in the truck.
my advice before you sign a five day commitment: load one 53 the way that customer loads them, drive to a CAT scale, get the ticket, slide the fifth wheel, get a second ticket. 23 dollars and an hour tells you more than this whole thread will.
T
tx12_or_manual
Local RunKenosha, WI14 posts · joined Aug 2025
runs a 2019 579 with a 10 speed · coil steel, Kenosha WI
#4
opposite problem over here. my 579 is 230 inches because the fellow who ordered it was thinking about a sleeper someday, and i pull coil in and out of mills and scrap yards in Chicago with it. i would trade six inches of frame for a tighter turn most days of the week.
do not buy a longer truck to pull a 53. a 190 is a gift in a city alley and you will find that out the first time you back into a Brooklyn receiver with cars parked on both sides.
your fifth wheel is almost certainly already a slider. air release on a Cascadia of that year, two handles, four or five holes of adjustment. the problem is not whether you have one, it is that nobody has moved it in four years and it will be rusted in one position. that is a saturday, not a purchase.
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fleet_of_threeOP
Local RunAllentown, PA19 posts · joined Aug 2025
runs 2 Cascadias and a VNR · beverage and general freight, Lehigh Valley
#5
took terry's advice. borrowed a 53 from the broker, had the customer load it the way they load, drove to the scale on 78.
first ticket, fifth wheel where it sat: steers 12,460, drives 33,100, trailer 33,100, gross 78,660. so i am 460 over on the steers at a legal gross, exactly like he said, and the number nobody guessed was that the gross was never the problem.
second ticket after i slid the fifth wheel back three holes: steers 11,800, drives 33,760, trailer the same, same gross. two tickets, 26 dollars, and the question is answered.
and the slider on the other truck is seized solid, both pins, will not budge with the air dumped. so tx12 called that one too.
i am still half tempted to put one of these on a 220 inch truck when i replace the VNR. is there any reason not to run two different wheelbases in a three truck fleet, besides me having to remember which one goes to Brooklyn.
D
dump_and_flatbed_jr
RegionalHattiesburg, MS26 posts · joined Aug 2025
runs a 2016 Pinnacle and a 2019 567 · gravel and flatbed, south Mississippi
#6
reason not to: you bought a truck for one customer. customers leave. i bought a truck in 2021 with a wet kit and a short frame for a contractor who had three years of work lined up and then sold his company in eleven months.
on the seized slider, here is how i do it and i have done four. air dumped, release handle pulled and wired back out of the way. heat the top plate rails where the pin sits, not the pin itself, with a torch, and keep it moving so you do not cook the grease out of the bushings. then put the trailer brakes on and bump it with the tractor in low, forward and reverse, a few inches at a time. it will crack loose with a bang that will make you jump.
after it moves, wire brush both rails, grease the pin bores and the rails, and then move it one hole every oil change whether you need to or not. that is the only maintenance it needs and nobody does it. while you have the light on it, look at the rails for cracks where they are welded to the plate, because a slider that has been slammed in one hole for four years sometimes has a surprise under the rust.
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fleet_of_threeOP
Local RunAllentown, PA19 posts · joined Aug 2025
runs 2 Cascadias and a VNR · beverage and general freight, Lehigh Valley
#7
took the run, three weeks in, and no new truck. both sliders move, the second one came loose exactly like jr described and i did jump.
got pulled into the scale on the turnpike the second week with a loaded 53 behind a 190 inch truck, which is the thing my driver said would end me. the officer weighed it, walked the tires, looked at my annual sticker and my paperwork, asked how long the trailer was, and sent me on. nobody put a tape measure on anything. the only thing he commented on was a marker lamp out on the trailer, which was the trailer owner's problem and not mine.
what i did not expect: the 53s are easier at the big warehouses than the 48s because the dock aprons are built for them, and worse at exactly one customer, a liquor store in Easton with an alley i now send the VNR to. so i run a 48 one day a week for that one.
so the whole business came down to 460 pounds on a steer axle, and three holes of slider took care of that. thanks for keeping me from buying a truck i did not need.
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