Anyone use one regularly in Michigan. How do they work. Are they like over width? Just buy a blanket permit? For the year? And can I buy one for the machine and other truckers haul it?
Unless Michigan is different from any other state, the trucker will have to buy the permit. It will depend on how high you buy it as to all the hoops you will be put through, routing, pilot pickup with a pole, etc,etc.
In MN you pay for an oversized permit once a year . you have to keep a log of each move .
Gear box, does that yearly permit in Mn come with size restrictions?
In many states I can buy monthly or yearly permits, with no routing restrictions, but they only cover so wide or long, depending on the state.
Like here for instance, I can get overlength log permit, for a month, two months or a year, but only for 10 ft overhang, anything over that requires a pilot car and trip permits.
When I haul pipe it is by the trip and anytime my overall length is over 100 ft I have to have 2 pilots for the first half of the trip in the winter, then I can drop the back one, in the summer they are required all the way.
You are right size restrictions I think 12 feet daylight hrs only . Logging is an ag product so they kind of turn there heads as long as your signed and lighted with beacons .
They turn their head EVERY time I go through an open scale house with a load of logs, but it is usually to either pick up the cb mike and tell me to come in or to pick up the tape and come measure me.
they will even come out and measure my bridge day after day, I ask them if they think the truck shrank over night. lol
Well I'm not buyers by the forwarder. Which is why I ask about permits. It's just to tall 13' on the ground. To much hassles to haul it once a month.
I drove pilot car for a while, but not in the last 6 years. You can get a book at most truckstops that is called Oversize load and pilot car directory. It will give you most of the info that you need for permits, and how to get them. What I found was you had to plan the roads you want to travel and they would issue a permit.
The directory will tell you how to flag your truck and also how the pilot car has to be flagged. Also pilot cars have to have pilot car insurance.If you pilot with tour personal vehicle your insurance will not cover you. I learned that the Hard way.
Logging is ag and you can't run freeways they are controlled by US laws + state laws . Over high loads are a blanket permit to just don't screw up a bridge .
PSA: put your dump body down before heading back to the gravel pit!
You can thank me later.
;)
Haha :)
Uhm.... what about setting the 2 back bunks so they remove and yank 2 tires off it when you load it ? There's a guy here who has to pull tires to get under height, my 230 is 13-6 ish 😂 on an 18" deck.
It's roof mt loader so the front tires would have to come off. This would be 14'6" on a 18" deck. It not a bad machine but taking the tires off doesn't really appeal to me every haul.
Are forwarders able to raise themselves by the blade and crane their own tires on and off or do you have to do it all manually?
Quote from: mike_belben on November 20, 2017, 08:32:18 AM
Are forwarders able to raise themselves by the blade and crane their own tires on and off or do you have to do it all manually?
My 230 is the best machine I've got to chain up, reach over and take the ice chain out of the box, loader sets them on without the fight. Yes i could pull the front tires off mine with the loader if I had to.
Our ponsse buffalo is 15ft plus on the trailer. Not sure what permits the company that moves us gets but we move close to a dozen times a year. There's a few overpasses that we have to go around.
Thats pretty sweet! Wish my dozer could put its own track back on
1270 yes I new those are tall and there is a large company here that I'm sure has the proper permits but I just don't want to deal with it. And I also thought of taking the tires off the front. The blade will lift it and the loader will easily reach them. But again I'd rather look for a diff machine.
Look all you want, but over height for all good forestry machines is just something you have to deal with when you move. Key is to know your route and avoid potential conflicts.
I move my own harvester and forwarder and always drive a new route first to check for low clearances. Highway construction rules are supposed to guarantee you 17 feet of clearance or be marked with low clearance signs but you cannot trust that.
There is devise advertised in one of my trucker mags that electronically measures overhead clearance with an in cab programmable readout. www.giraffeg4.com They worked fairly good when surveying a route. they worked best at a slower speed going under a suspected low overhead (30- MPH) . I would put it on a pickup and drive the route first.
Fordman That's what a story pole is for . Never question if some electronic device worked . Just a couple pieces of 2 inch plastic pipe hooked to the hitch with guy wires .
Why would you want to use a simple 20 dollar story pole that has a 100% success rate and no chance of failing, when you can use a thousand bucks worth of computer gear?
:D
Theres bound to be a worse way, and by god we intend to find it!
I got my pilot vehicle certification a bit ago and did we ever get shown examples of things gone wrong. We learned that on most overheight incidents the pilot vehicle operator had been so distracted that they didn't notice their height pole bounce! As you can imagine we didn't see the thousands of successful loads, just the disasters.
From my trucking days I never found overheight to be much of a challenge. Ensure you have all measurements written down and that they match your permits. Check routing to see if there's any surprises and follow your plan. I always used a sticky note or something like that to put on the dash with dimensions in both ft/in and metric so I was ready for whatever came.
Local trucking company had a bit of a bad day here a while back. They had a big oil processing pre-fab module to haul North, which isnt a great road. But they filled out all the permit paperwork (correctly) with the height, width and length of the load (all oversize), and were given the permit. Off they set, and it's all going well until the get to one narrow corner with a tunnel and overhanging rock outcrop. Because of the length of the oversize load there was simply no way to maneuver it past. (Cliff on one side, river on the other). And of course now the road is completely blocked as well. Took them most of the day to get unjammed and backed up a mile or so to where they could even turn the load around.
They didn't actually get into legal trouble as they had an approved permit that was all correct. They would have got through with any 2 of the measurements, but the combo of the 3 dimensions didn't fit, and no one had considered that. :D
Then of course they had to made a 6+ hour detour to go the long way.
We moved a steam traction engine from lower Mich. to Minnesota over the top . DOT issued the permit for 12 feet up I 75 . Road construction down to less than one lane . Scattered barrel cones for 20 miles and no one said a word . Not one warning sign .