30 ton National counterweight?

[Courierguy]

I got my counter weight installed today, about a 15 minute job. I'll post a picture and how it changes things in a couple days.

 

[classictruckman]

Awesome, i'd like to know if it feels more stable.

 

[Courierguy]

It felt more stable at 70' then it did at 60' before. I had a chance to play with it today a bit, while waiting on some pipe fitters. No load on the hook but a difference for sure. Plus I gained about 6 sq. ft. of advertising space on the rear end, and am debating on what I'll use it for. Here's what I've come up with so far:

"MISS PIGGY" ( what I call it) in script, and then in smaller lettering below (I'M GOING AS FAST AS I CAN) I was in the shade today so no pictures yet.

 

[Courierguy]

After a few busy days now, I'm a little surprised to NOT find it being a PITA to climb around. It does take up some deck space, but so far it's easy enough to go around the other way, or behind it, using the installation lifting pad eyes as hand grips. A friend who helped install it, with his ancient Austen Western RT crane, suggested that the holes in it are to provide a means to hang more weights off each side and the rear. I'm good with this, the holes could also be a left over from the manufacture process. I did pull the worse grade around today, and found no real difference in the truck performance, at least I could still pull the same gear I had used before. I have yet to take it through the Port of Entry though! I think the first time I go through there I'll run the boom out 3 or 4' to take some weight off the rear end. I'm setting some 14 K fuel tanks tomorrow, the first significant weight, should be interesting. Best of all, it should eliminate smacking my head into the winch when the booms at a steep angle and I climb up on the bed, I about knocked myself out the last time! Looking at this picture, I realize it should also make reaching the top side boom slider pads easier , no more step ladder needed.

 

[classictruckman]

Looks good, not like one that I've ever seen on a national, I guess I was thinking of the 33ton's CW

 

[Courierguy]

Setting trusses today 78' off to the side (exactly my weak area before, not now) I realized at one point that the slight bump I used to get when a 2 or 300 lb. truss touched down (my cue to hold the load/quit winching down) is much harder to discern, it's still there but almost totally gone. For truss work this is almost a disadvantage, but nothing I can't get around by using the LMI weight on the hook display. It goes without saying I was working blind, at least the last few feet of winching down was obscured. But this also tells me the counter weight is doing it's job, so well that it's hard to tell when a minor load like a truss sets down.

I also found that I need to change my situational awareness about what's in the bed of the crane. Two days ago, while setting some 15,000 lb. fuel tanks that required multiple moves, I left my lifting beam on the bed rather then secured in the usual place, only later in the day when putting it away did I realize I had grazed it with the bottom of the counter weight while rotating, the red primer painted beam had a little grey on it, and sure enough the CW now had a little primer red it didn't have before. A good wakeup call, and no harm done.