A red truck against a green background. Complementary colors, opposites of each other on the color wheel. This MAN stood out like a fire truck on an ocean beach, it just couldn’t be missed. Well, not by an enthusiast like me anyway, when walking by on a warm and sunny day.
That’s a traditional 8×4 drivetrain alright, common in the construction business for ages, all over Europe. Twin steer and a dual drive tandem at the rear, a sturdy and straightforward package.
Andre’s truck is equipped with a Hiab hook lift system and carried a dump bed, with solid covers, for the job at hand.
One minor detail is already enough to identify this as a construction worker: the steel step on top of the left fender, for the shortest and cleanest route from the driver’s seat directly to the crane and/or truck body behind the cab (and vice versa).
There’s more of course. Like the heavy-duty, straight steering axles (hence the additional, lower step on both cab sides), the four super singles, skid plate, steel rear fenders and the amber strobe lights on the cab roof.
With a GVWR of 37 metric tons (81,571 lbs), the truck is only three tons short of the weight limit for a long-distance Euro-semi. Not a MAN to be trifled with.
To this day, the truck maker has always had a solid reputation in the field of earth moving and comparable on-/off-road transport. A factory 4×4, 6×6 or 8×8 chassis? Kein Problem!
These two pictures come from Weijers’ FB-site. With and without a container, also red against a green background. Not quite as warm and sunny though.
That’s a really neat truck.
I have often wondered why one never sees dual-steer dump trucks in the U.S., or at least on the West Coast, and I did some research and answered my own question, at least partially. It seems instead the favored configuration involves some combination of liftable tag- and/or pusher axles. In California, at least, the best legal combination seems to be a 4-axle long-wheelbase straight truck including a long-arm liftable tag axle out back,which gets one to 66,000# GVWR. In a state like Montana, which has adopted the Federal Bridge Law statewide, one can get to an 80,000# GVWR using a 7-axle configuration with 3 pushers and 1 tag axle:
https://www.superdumps.com/bridge_laws/?state=California
https://www.superdumps.com/bridge_laws/?state=Montana
I guess in some states in the Midwest and East Coast there are more relaxed regulations, but still overall in the U.S. I have rarely seen dual-steer straight trucks except in specialized applications like concrete pumpers or crane carriers.
But probably others know more.
Interesting links, thanks!
In the land where the soil is soft and the trucks are heavy, 50 tons/110,000 lbs GVW is possible (and legally allowed) with a five-axle straight truck.
Crucial is the axle spacing of at least 180 cm between each axle. That’s all, no bridge formulas, stinger axles, etc.
Then it’s simply the sum of the axle loads, taking the national weight limit of 50 tons into account:
-Steering axle, pusher axle, tag axle, (semi-)trailer axle (so basically all non-driving axles): max. 10 tons axle load.
-Drive axle (steering axles included): max. 11.5 tons axle load.
-Factory tandem (<180 cm axle spacing), regardless configuration: max. 19 tons axle load.
There's also the aspect of weight distribution. A set-forward axle of a conventional truck doesn't have to (and can't) carry much weight. Twin steering axles simply work better -from a weight distribution POV- on a cabover with a day cab and a set-back front/first axle. This article's MAN is a prime example.
The MAN’s registered axle load sum, starting at the front: 9 tons, 9 tons, 9.5 tons, 9.5 tons (as it’s a < 180 cm axle spacing tandem). That's a grand total of 37 tons GVWR.
I don’t know how many people realize that European trucks are generally heavier per axle than US ones. This MAN is almost as heavy on four axles as a US semi-tractor-trailer on five. This is the US bridge formula: ( https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/publications/brdg_frm_wghts/fhwahop19028.pdf ). It’s got enough numbers to put you into a coma. Any truck that crosses a state line uses them, individual states can have their own (usually shorter and/or heavier and/or with “tridems”).
Basically, a longer wheelbase can be heavier. The “long-arm liftable tag axle out back” increases wheelbase. (They also self-steer, just following, and can’t be used in reverse). Axles are single (20,000lbs/9071kg) and tandem (40-96 inches, 34,000lbs/15422kg, over 96 inches it’s two singles even if on the same suspension). It doesn’t matter if it’s drive, liftable, steerable, or super-single, only that it’s on the ground (you lift them when empty).
Canadians/Canadiens are big on twin-steer mixers for whatever reason, maybe New York State also?
So the US “big eighteen-wheeler” (which really only has 10 “wheels”, two per axle) is only “big” lengthwise.
Thanks SD3. That pdf-file with all that info is….intriguing, to say the least. And indeed, a big rig’s length doesn’t say anything at all about its gross weight rating or payload capacity.
Mind you, I’m strictly referring to the legislation in NL. I’m not sure, but the GVWR of straight/rigid trucks in the Netherlands might be the peak, globally (legally speaking, anyway).
See Tatra “shorty” Phoenix 8×8 below, rated at 46 tons/101,413 lbs. Fully public road legal. Four drive axles, at least 180 cm axle spacing between each axle, so simply 4 x 11.5 tons = 46 tons. No rocket science. As far as I know, not allowed in any other Euro-country though.
Man trucks are pretty uncommon in North America, but I just saw this rental overlanding rig shipped over from Germany.
Oops, the numbers aren’t clear and I’m comparing straight trucks to semis. Sorry. We rarely load all the axles to the max, not enough wheelbase. Mixers, under the old Illinois law, were 9 tons steer, 18 tons on the “wide” tandem, and 6 tons on the trailer, for 32 tons gross, the most that (looong) wheelbase could carry. The new laws have heavier axle loads but I don’t know about wheelbase.
Sorry I’m out of order here. A few years ago I threw this together ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truck#Maximum_sizes_by_country ). It’s over five years old, though, times change. Have a nice (night now there?)
One other problem with twin steer axles is alignment. A common use for twin steer axles is the concrete pumper trucks. The front axles need to be re-aligned once all the equipment is installed. The upfitters rarely do this. A set of front tires can be destroyed in as little as 500 miles if the re-alignment is skipped. I did alignments on a few of these pumpers and its a pain. When I worked for a Volvo dealer the twin steers had used three different designs in the front suspensions on these pumpers before they got one that worked.
We also had some twin steer units at the DOT and one in particular was a total mess that took months to fix, chassis was supplied by top quality American truck manufacturer but it was apparent they didn’t know how to build a twin steer chassis.
Twin steer alignment problems? A Swiss customer ordered this Tatra Phoenix 8×8 🙂
Some more pictures from above:
https://iepieleaks.nl/tatra-8x8x8-all-wheel-steering/
I think that all steering axle truck would be a real challenge to get it set up. However taking it for a test drive would make it all worth while.
That super dump site is interesting. A while back I had noticed you don’t see what locally known as tri axle dumps (one steerable two load bearing and another liftable load bearing) in other regions out side the North East. Per that site CT has a law allowing the tri axles to go up much higher when used for construction then other areas.
https://www.superdumps.com/bridge_laws/?state=Connecticut
I noticed this a few years ago staying on VA for a month where most of the dumps had 5 or more axles.
Tri-axle dump trucks were very popular around here for awhile. I’ll have to keep an eye out and see if I spot any now. Mostly multi-axle stuff and tandems now. The super dumps with the lifting rear axles are a bit of a maintenance hog.
The usage of these trucks also depends a lot on the people in charge. What they use is often based on their bias. The multi-axle dump truck vs a belly dump, end dump, side dump trailer. Certain jobs may favor certain equipment. Also some seem to be regional “preferences”. Pup trailers with no hoist, dump box is pulled into the trucks body and then dumped. End dump trailers with no hoist. Lock the trailer brakes and back up, trailer frame is “hinged” which lifts the load to dump it.
In the snow plowing business sanders are generally either a hopper box or a tailgate sander. The users of one type will generally swear they tried the other type and they were a failure.
Another argument with the V-Box type is the mounting. Some are mounted directly to the truck chassis and others are mounted in the dump box. We used tailgate sanders, out of 850 plow trucks we maybe had a dozen V-box trucks.
Variety is the spice of life.
On the tri-axle front I only built six units for our fleet. The first one was an experiment and was used regularly. The third axle had to be removed for snow plowing season and underbody plow and wing plow mounts reinstalled. Then in the spring time to swap everything back.
I built another five for one group, same equipment swapping, these were going to be used by the black topping crew in the summer. Well the engineer who came up with this plan left before the trucks were even finished. New leader, new plan, remove those third axles and sell them, tandems will be just fine.
OK, so pull in those nearly finished trucks and start stripping them down.