Hendricson Airtek front informaton?

Gonna open a can of worms here, but here goes.
As Oram said, i will be happy with good ole drums for awhile, yet. Cars and light trucks came out with disk brakes in the 70's(?). They have their problem. Rotors warp, calipers stick, etc. Drum brakes are usually fairly trouble free. Maybe new truck disk brakes have eliminated these problems?

 

disc brakes have been the normal across the pond for years. research is already done, we should have a perfected product. Should?,lol.

 

They ,being disc brakes, have been standard on trucks for 10y.
Are quite good,stopping power is fenominal,specially when they get older.(when you compare with older drums)
They work best with EBS which i haven't seen offered on any North America trucks.(if anybody knows different,pls correct me)
Need a little adjusting in how you maintain them.
Allways check the rubber seals on the calipers when you look at them.(if there is a crack in it,water will get in and ruin your caliper)
When you put on new blocks,take an anglegrinder and at 45° angle cut the corners all around the pads.(otherwise the corners can crack ugly,doesn't matter to performance but a DOT guy seeing those ugly edges to your pads might not like it.)

And when you are in the mountains...............they can take much more heat.(isn't good for them but at least you will not crash like you would with drums)

 

That Steertek axle is a box not an I-beam. Is it welded steel or cast or what? Can't tell from the parts pdf.



Whatever happened to the rack and pinion steering Freightliner came out with a few years ago? Could you put that axle under the Airtek suspension?

 

Keep in mind, even though the new drums may stop better, won't they still have the same amount of fade? I just figured they were wider.

 

Welded steel.
I don't have any long driving experience with them, but from the limited time I have test driven trucks with them, I don't see a real big improvement. There are two basic versions of the axle/suspension. Softek and Airtek. The Softek is regular monoleaf spring suspension. Airtek is the air ride version. Both use the same Steertek beam. Some things I have found with some regardless if they are Air or Soft is the axle beam tend to be more "springy" or "bouncy". The truck will have a shake or shimmy in the steering after hitting bumps for a bit until the suspension calms down. This is a well known issue. Hendrickson has released an updated thrust bearing for one side only. The new bearing basically just a composite washer to make the steering tight to reduce the shimmy. These beams are rated for 12,000 pounds Max! No off road, (even though they say "up to" 15% off road is acceptable). The king pins are cyrogenically installed and not serviceable, so if you wear a king pin, you have to replace the whole beam. I do not want to start an alignment war or open a can of worms about caster/camber, but in my opinion this is the worst axle for alignments out there. Due to the design of the manufactured beam, any attempt to bend the beam for a camber adjustment can cause the beam to shatter, not bend. The same design also prevents any cross caster from being adjusted. The beam will not twist like regular I-beam axles. With this axle your cross caster is zero. Adjusting camber and/or cross caster is one way to counter road crown and prevent trucks from pulling to the right all the time. Since you can't adjust this it becomes normal to find trucks with Steerteks that always have a pull to the right. Hendrickson recommends setting the front drive to a slightly negative scrub angle to help compensate for the lack of cross caster - so now you have to de-tune your alignment to accommodate this axle. I have also seen Steerteks that have been in service for a while start to show excessive negative camber. I would guess they have been overloaded and probably driven hard, but I don't see this with regular I-beam axles. I say pass.