Useless weigh station!

I'll agree with standard onboard fire extinguishers being next to useless here. Fire requires heat-fuel-air, and there'll be so much heat in those brakes that it'll easily re-ignite once you've run out of fire retardant (which would be denying the fire air for as long as it lasts). As mentioned before, there'll still be plenty of rubber and grease for fuel, and like I said... mucho heat.

 

In Illinois the person working thew scale is a "Truck Weight Inspector" with no inspection powers. If the Illinois DOT or State Police are available they will do a truck inspection.

If the driver with the brakes smoking was stopped, how is it he didn't see the smoke in their rear view mirror and pull around back? How is it the driver couldn't tell the trailer was pulling hard and stopped to see what was going on? How is it the driver couldn't smell the burning brakes and stop or look around to make sure it wsan't their vehicle?

PFM

Be safe.

 

Is anyone else seeing a pattern here? Is everything always the drivers' fault? Or am I the only one that is seeing almost a fanatical, personal grudge agaisnt all drivers?

 

Hmmmmm, so it's okay to blame the scale operator but not the driver?

IMHO it's the driver's fault. Not all drivers, just this one driver in particular.

Be safe.

 

Guys, I don't pretend to be anywhere near the most experienced driver around here, but my wife and I had a set of brakes on the trailer catch fire, and not only did the standard 20A:20B:10C (I think) fire extinguisher put it out, I had most of it left. I gave it two or three quick shots, and it was out.

We did get it before the tires caught, but there were plenty of flames going. Air bag melted, brakes burned up, hub burned up...

 

thats 2a 10bc, a fire x with a 20 A rating would have an 80 bc rating and weigh about 40lbs ( i used to do fire code inspections )

 

Tn is bad about leaving the scale OPEN sign out and nobody in there, especially the I-65 southbound at the state line coming in from KY. I have seen them have Northbound and Southbound both OPEN and nobody in either one.

 

You should buy lotto tickets. As a rule this does not happen unless they were not actually flaming. The brakes shoes(asbestos) and drums (steel) don't burn, its the grease and rubber seals. So if this happened your are truly lucky. As a driver whom does have a decent number of miles and years, I have not seen, but all is possible. But your best odd's are to drive it out, keep very lite pressure on the pedal maybe 10 psi and blow it out or cool it down what ever you want to can it.

I have smoked brakes several times when I worked for T&T Truck out of Lodi, CA. I do not know why there brakes smoke so easily but they do. I run the same roads now as then and never have a problem. But T&T trailer brakes smoke. I would go off the grapevine at 30 mph geared down to 2000 rpms jakes on full and by the sand boxes they would be leaving a trail of smoke. I pulled different trailers there all the time same thing. Could be there tractor contributed being turned down on the jake hp. As soon as I would hit the straightaway I would gear up let it roll and cool them down and not once did CHP ever say a word. I drove for them about 2 years.

 

Sorry, I don't remember what the numbers on it were. It's whatever has to be in the truck to pull hazmat.

I know the brakes themselves and the drums can't catch fire, but I don't really know what was burning that night. I was about 10 miles outside Needles, CA around midnight local. The only light was the fire. And it was coming from inside the brake drum.

 

Asbestos brakes were phased out a few years back, but yeah, they will burn if heated enough. It's why we were encouraged to hold steady pressure on them while going down steep grades. It kept air from feeding a possible fire.
Later, when the composition of brake pads was changed, we could go back to 'pulsing' the brakes as the new brakes were less combustible than the old asbestos ones.

One of the main reasons they required the change was all that brake dust, which was considered a health hazard.

Some folks think it's impossible, a former co-driver of mine for instance (the same I posted about before, with the Dr. Pepper load) who insisted that it was impossible to take a gross-weight tractor trailer down Wolf Creek Pass without leaving a cloud.
I went down at the recommended speed of 11 mph, and at the bottom, pulled over and placed my hand on a brake drum. It was pretty warm, but nowhere near hot.
He's a pretty smart guy, so at that point he could accept that brakes convert energy (speed and weight) into heat. If you reduce one of those factors, you'll end up with less heat. voila!