Winter Parking Question.

Here ya go. Roll tires back and forth and get them cold,leaves a runway so you can launch in the AM,then park. Do not set your trailer brakes only your tractor. Tractor brakes freeze just like trailer brakes. Guess what you have power to them. They will break free.

 

Not unless you have full locking diffs. You will still drag a tire or two with the power diverter locked.

This is why I don't even set the tractor brakes in the winter anymore. Simple pieces of 2x4 will keep it from rolling on a slight slope, much cheaper then actual wheel chauks and much easier to find. Most of the time I don't have to worry about it since there is usually just enough snow to keep it from rolling.

But sometimes if you hook to a trailer and the brakes are froze up, wait for the air to fully build in the trailer. Then jack hammer the brakes to the floor. More times then not this will free up frozen trailer brakes, If not then I have a ball peen hammer and a tire iron. Crawl under the trailer, put the tire iron against the shoe and give it a few good raps and you will get that nice tang sound instead of a thud.

 

My bad. We run lockers on all of our trucks. Power dividers are almost useless in off road winter driving. Coupling to a new trailer frozen then hand torch and hammer away.

 

Simple solution, don't set your trailer brakes! You could use a hammer or mallet but you will most likely be there till springtime! Your going to F up a lot of stuff too! I have never, ever had this problem but I also do a lot of steps to prevent this, kind of like what the other posters were saying about a few laps around the parking lot and riding the brakes a little so that they are dry when you park.

Ice melt has gotten me out of every jam I have ever been in, so I highly recommend keeping a few bags on board. I also recommend you trying to avoid dirt parking lots in the winter. Your hot tires melt through the ice down to the dirt which is now mud mixed with ice. Plus it only happens in the spots your tires are in causing muddy ruts that you can't get out of. So try to stay on the paved parking lots whenever possible.

I'll never forget one time at a truck stop we were sitting in the truck and a driver pulled up in his hyndai I guess from a few days off. He turned his truck on and proceeded to load all his junk from his car to his truck. He puts the truck in gear and nothing! You could hear the tractor brakes pop but the trailer wasn't going anywhere. He got a hammer and beat the S out of his brakes for 30 minutes. No luck there. He left to go to a hardware store to buy a torch and we came back proceeded to cook his truck on a medium searing heat for another 30 minutes. Problem is it was so cold by the time he finished heating one brake the other had froze back! No luck. So now he hooks a chain to the bumper and pulls his little hyundai up in front of the truck, hooks the chain to the hyndai gets in his car and floors it in reverse! All four wheels of the hyndai come off the ground, his bumper flew off and came with in inches of my truck! I have never seen anything so ###### retarded in my entire life! So now he's got a stuck truck and a hyndai with no bumper! Add that to the cost of the tow truck and I guess the cost of the torch too and he had a pretty expensive, useless day! Actually, I am the ######. Had I been filming this whole ordeal I could have made good money off that video! Cost me money too cause I had to do laundry after pissing myself from laughing so hard!

 

something no one mentioned, every winter I buy a qt of brake line anti-freeze and pour a little bit into the glad hands before connecting on every trailer. Lot's fo moisture in those brake lines, air tanks, and chambers. Learned that lesson the hard way when I trailer brakes start freezing up going across I-80 in Wyo. on winters night, drug one tire more than 4 miles before I realized the brakes had frozen up. Poured some in the lines, released the brakes and within 2 minutes all were rolling again.

 

For frozen trailers, I'll open the petcock valve on its airtank and then heat the tank with a torch until warm air starts flowing. That warm air from your compressor will hit everything at once, getting you out of a jam. Since I started pulling only one trailer, and draining the trailers tank regularly, I've never had to do this again.

One night, just outside of Wytheville up on 77, I had my tractor air system freeze up after not idling. A little investigation revealed a valve on the tractor frame not passing air. A little warm water on it, and I was in business.

 

I always carry them black wheel chocks with me. Not only winter, they come in handy sliding rusty old trailer tandems.

Coming off the interstate in the winter your brakes ain't that hot to begin with. They are more wet than anything. I would try drying them off with a little left foot braking in the parking lot before parking. Sometimes you can't avoid parking in a slush hole.

Picking up dropped trailers is where you'll see more stuck brakes. Sometimes just backing up will break them loose. They are designed for forward braking and when they are stuck, backing up puts em in a bind sort of where they can break loose at an angle and pop.

Severe cases which I only had two in my career, beating the drum might break em loose. But avoid hitting the lining because they are fragile in cold weather. One time I even dragged a trailer in the shop because it was impossible in -20 weather. Then we put one of them turbo kerosene heaters on it.

The main thing is try to park with dry brakes and leave the air on them. Always use brake line antifreeze, treat your fuel, keep your tanks drained, don't park downhill, even the slightest and your problems will be minimal.

If you run north/south alot from hot to cold climates is when your tanks condensate more. Stay on top of them.

I always carried a logging chain in the winter too. Alot of drivers do. Just get on the CB and someone will be happy to help. I've seen drivers get stuck on flat spots before.

 

Washer fluid and alcohol will unstick the tires.

 

That washer fluid that is good to -45 and has "anti-freeze" (alcohol) in it works great when your shoes stick to the drums. Pour it on the shoes and it thaws it out, no muss, no fuss, and no beating the hell out of things.