What's it like to drive a dump truck that hauls construction equipment on a trailer?

You do not want a city job. Think 50 chiefs supervising one joe totem at the pothole on shovel.

Dump truck say mack superliner 500 handles a beaver trailer with a paver and backhoe chained to it well enough. Even supplies trailer air through the glad hands among other things too. Essentially a restricted A type work. (Combination vehicle)

When backing the trailer is as long as you are so its really easy. Just not past 50 degrees angle. And there is the problem for some. Then again we had a one acre backyard behind the boss's house and back around a small tree to put everything away for the night. Just be careful not to sideswipe the kitchen sliding door please. Or run over the wife's plants over there. Things like that.

A big truck is not supposed to be put into these tiny spaces and made to turn around, back, go forward or whatever. But here you are with a giant dump truck and a big trailer on the pintle hook. Easy. No problem. Its what you do all day backing down into tiny driveways being built for so and so. Mind the cable line above you when dumping. And yes you will break it a few times and yes its easy fix too.

You don't drive much. That 335 gallons you bought at the local gas station fuel (Takes about 40 minutes to pump it all. Not a high flow truckstop) thats the time to gulp down hot dogs, garnish, swig gatorade, buy 10 dollars more against the 120 degree day pending later.YOU WILL be filling the paver, backhoe and other equiptment as a tanker on busy days.

The job depends on two things. Sunset too dark to see, then quit. OR... a rain drop, then stop for the day.

And when winter comes, you are told before or about Halloween, go home. File unemployment feast and be merry until early spring. They will call you. Since you had all this pay from that hard work for 9 months you should not have any trouble spending some of it. Or need any money.

Its not difficult. When you have a 10 ton pile of blacktop and a small half shovel, you will be taught how to do it fast without throwing your back out or have a heart attack. This job is not for wussies.

And you will spend a certain amount of time sleeping in the hot cab waiting for the boss to make up his mind what to do. That will take a while. He will wake you up soon enough. And maybe dock your time asleep.

 

Dump trucks are incredibly unstable. It's why you see them laying on their side so often. It's the way they are loaded with usually a lot of weight on the steers. Pulling any equipment, usually involves a high center of gravity machine, and care must also be used. When I did dump work, usually filled up at the yard, and didn't use much fuel for the day. The good thing about dump trucks, is most the time, it's by the hour, so there's no need to be in a hurry.

 

Mine tended to slide to left when empty at first rain. If you tried to horse her around too much or did too much braking. Luckly the old time large steering wheel does not need much input to get her back. USUALLY.

A coworker was in the single axle one day on the flyover for 695 from 795 and both tires on the far side detonated on his drive. KABOOM. Followed by a absolute physics problem of going over the barrier to fall into the three lanes of rush hour moving fast below.

He said to me that he managed to get her back before it did but does not know how. Its not something that required any thinking, time wasted in thinking gets you and others killed.

If you realized how easy it is to tip a rock dump do not be driving near them with your car. They might tip, bury you and your car in stone then crush you to death mechanically.

 

Depends on the size of the machine and the trailer you're pulling behind you.

320's behind a dump truck are getting up there in the fun factor, bonus points in the winter time!

It works, but now that I have a lowboy the bigger stuff goes on it 90% of the time except for those places you still need a tilt deck bumper pull to get into.

It's really amazing how little wear the lowboy takes compared to the 3 axle tilt deck bumper pull.