F-550 Mechanics Truck Aftermarket Springs?

WhiteMamba_Scorpion · Aug 20, 2014

Our company mechanic truck keeps cracking the rear leafs every 2K miles or so. The truck has 5,000 miles on it and is starting to crack the 3rd set of springs. Are there any options out there for some extreme heavy duty leafs? I'm sick of replacing these things.

This truck has a utility body with fully stocked drawers, cabinets etc, welder, air tank, gas tank, crane, and work bench. It's a rolling shop basically so we're looking at a lot of weight. The last shop used an overhead crane and had to use hydraulic floor jacks to assit to even get it off the ground.

Here's what we're working with.

Spatel23 · Aug 20, 2014

probably of no help......but when I see that much equipment on a truck its usually on a medium duty chassis.

Have yall any idea what kind of weight you are asking the springs to hold ?
Thats going to be the first step in finding a new spring and/or figuring out if you dont have enough truck

ON edit......you could call Deaver but again they are going to need to know what kind of weight it needs to carry

HOOV3R · Aug 20, 2014

Air Bags.. Take the stress off of the leaves.

Breaking Habits · Aug 20, 2014

Pete, Loadlifter 5000ULTIMATE Air Bags. They have bump stops so you cant blow the bags out. Run them at 10PSI all the time. Tada

powerstroke22 · Aug 20, 2014

Tell Kiewit to buy a bigger truck they have plenty of money

Trav-O · Aug 20, 2014

I've always known and seen leafs crack from lack of use (no weight/load) and vibration.

WhiteMamba_Scorpion · Aug 20, 2014

Jared @ River City Diesel said:
Pete, Loadlifter 5000ULTIMATE Air Bags. They have bump stops so you cant blow the bags out. Run them at 10PSI all the time. Tada

I'm thinking airbags are the way to go. I'm gonna talk to the Equipment Manager tomorrow and see what we can do.

powerstroke22 said:
Tell Kiewit to buy a bigger truck they have plenty of money

Hahaha how do you know about Kiewit? yeah we're a huge company. Largest fleet of CAT Equipment in the US. We just bought a new fleet of F350s. Working on getting some new F150s next year.

powerstroke22 · Aug 20, 2014

WhiteMamba_Scorpion said:
Hahaha how do you know about Kiewit? yeah we're a huge company. Largest fleet of CAT Equipment in the US. We just bought a new fleet of F350s. Working on getting some new F150s next year.

We are one of Kiewit's largest competitors in the northeast/ east coast region. Been partners with them on a few jobs as well.

WhiteMamba_Scorpion · Aug 20, 2014

powerstroke22 said:
We are one of Kiewit's largest competitors in the northeast/ east coast region. Been partners with them on a few jobs as well.

Oh ok. New York area I see haha work is work I don't get into the whole competitor stuff. I'm actually friends with a ton of guys that work for other companies all over the country. Yeah I'm out in Chicago for now. I almost got sent to New York a few months ago.

powerstroke22 · Aug 20, 2014

New York City is very competitive to many fish in the sea I guess.

In regards to the truck we were having the same problem, bump stop airbags like Jared stated above is an easy fix. Got a truck coming up 12,000 miles no issues

WhiteMamba_Scorpion · Aug 20, 2014

powerstroke22 said:
New York City is very competitive to many fish in the sea I guess.

In regards to the truck we were having the same problem, bump stop airbags like Jared stated above is an easy fix. Got a truck coming up 12,000 miles no issues

Yeah I think we have a couple projects in that area right now. I'll be there for a few days for some training in October. Not really a city guy so they put me in Chicago...

dseitler · Aug 20, 2014

WhiteMamba_Scorpion said:
Our company mechanic truck keeps cracking the rear leafs every 2K miles or so. The truck has 5,000 miles on it and is starting to crack the 3rd set of springs. Are there any options out there for some extreme heavy duty leafs? I'm sick of replacing these things.

I know your company is down here in South Florida we have rented them cranes. There's a place in Palm Beach that makes the Severe Duty Springs for these truck. We use the same trucks. In 2011 they made the springs longer. Most of our weigh over 25K looks about the same equipment as yours. They will know who I am talking about. Once we replaced the springs we had no more problems.

bad moose · Aug 20, 2014

Like stated above ^^^, custom made is the way to go. I run a 550 that is a little lighter at 19 500 lbs. But needed them to level the truck do to too many tools on this side opposite the crane. Haven't had a problem with the springs yet. Get them a weight that will help a lot.

WhiteMamba_Scorpion · Aug 20, 2014

dseitler said:
I know your company is down here in South Florida we have rented them cranes. There's a place in Palm Beach that makes the Severe Duty Springs for these truck. We use the same trucks. In 2011 they made the springs longer. Most of our weigh over 25K looks about the same equipment as yours. They will know who I am talking about. Once we replaced the springs we had no more problems.

South Florida? So.... you hiring? hahah

dseitler · Aug 20, 2014

WhiteMamba_Scorpion said:
South Florida? So.... you hiring? hahah

Yep sure are! Especially if you like Tower Cranes.

WHY NOT · Aug 20, 2014

Jared @ River City Diesel said:
Pete, Loadlifter 5000ULTIMATE Air Bags. They have bump stops so you cant blow the bags out. Run them at 10PSI all the time. Tada

This

WhiteMamba_Scorpion · Aug 20, 2014

dseitler said:
Yep sure are! Especially if you like Tower Cranes.

Very tempting. I love anything dealing with equipment. I spent my internship with the equipment department for a $250,000,000 project. Never messed around with tower cranes besides having to climb them haha. Biggest I've used is 2 LR-1300s for a twin pick of a 40ft ball valve for Chicagos Deep Tunnel. That was fun. I might have to make a trip to Florida when my trucks done for a little job interview

4 Story slip-form custom from Switzerland.

dseitler · Aug 20, 2014

We have 2 LR1300 in FL. Some 1280's and a bunch of 1160's. We are big in Liebherr and Demag. Getting close to the 300 mark between here and TX

WhiteMamba_Scorpion · Aug 20, 2014

dseitler said:
We have 2 LR1300 in FL. Some 1280's and a bunch of 1160's. We are big in Liebherr and Demag. Getting close to the 300 mark between here and TX

300!? :shocked: holy sh*t man. Hook a brother up!

co04cobra · Aug 20, 2014

We did a custom air setup off a Mack OTR truck, last one we did was off a Volvo, on our 550 rollback. One spring and one bag on each side with a leveling valve. It grosses 25-30K on a regular basis.