Air Disc Brakes

that is often problem , here most of trailers are curtainsider as trailer on video so they can be opened from left right rear and from above, such trailers haul all imaginable kind of loads.....often construction materials , drivers are careless and dust often remain on floor ....also here controls are not strict and drivers are lazy so they almost never secure load at all, for example my brother he did not use single strap in last 3years, he does not use any securing even when hauling 5ton concrete manholes, usually most drivers say: "it does not going anywhere" (here coil , or wire rings are also not secured on flatbeds )

 

Air discs are standard on the front axle of Peterbilt class eight trucks. You can take a credit for the upsized drums that meet the reduced stopping distance regulations if you choose.

I recently put a customer into a new 587 with discs all around......they are very impressed with the stopping distance and love the "feel" of the discs, they have a more "car like" feel compared to the drums.

 

Any updates that you can post?

 

We had a customer with disc brakes on twin steer Cement trucks, The drivers learned they could stop, quickly on the steepest hills so the drivers abused them, the company spent a lot of money, fixing abused equipment. They finally started rotating the drivers back to the older equipment with all drums, and firing a few.
Disc brakes work very well, and the same as anything else if you abuse them they will cost you a lot of money. When the drivers finally got trained, the units were great.
Living in the mountains I have seen lots of trucks that have abused there brakes, burnt spots in the drums, so much heat in the drum it burnt the bushings off the "S" cam and that is on units with the "S" cam in a tube. The first time we saw it we filed for a warrenty claim, the second time the bushing was only 80% burnt.
Disc breaks work fine on muddy and wet surfaces, and breakage is not a problem, They had problems with smaller vehicles, untill they got the metal combinations right, they learned they needed to plate the units so they did not corode.
Just a thought!

 

yep, I see the same every day: cracked disks, seized calipers, melt ABS and wear sensors.... Not all drivers know that they shoould brake - release to cool down and brake againe, use jakes and retarder....

So the best brake system is EBS with Disks + EPS + RSS, but the most expencive. So I use drums on trucktor and disks with EBS on trailer (tridem trailer)

 

One more useful video. but pay attention they do not compare convention air brake system vs EBS. EBS gives you -0.2 sec bonus, so how many feet do you run for 1/5 of second at 60 MPH? ouh - 60 MPH is one mile per minute, so 1/60 mile per second, so about 15'! lenth of average car.

So EBS and disk brakes are money you have to spend for additional safety