Reefer info?

C'mon semi....of course we run at night....you think is spend 2 days each fall redoing grounds etc on 114 led lites on my ride to run in the Daytime?

Sheesh.......LMAO

 

Do not let one run out of fuel! It can be a royal pain to get running again!
You will pump your arm off on the primer and have to bleed the line several times....NOT fun when it is 95 degrees out!

Depending on what your hauling pre-cooling the trailer is usually best.
I hauled ice cream several times and they wanted it -20 degrees.

Produce,keep a thermometer and pulp the load before it is loaded.
Some places use temp recorders packed with the load so they can tell the temp the whole trip.

 

Hope florida legalizes it soon.

All these old farts, driving around buzzed..........

 

Hi EZ, you have to pressurize the tank with an air line. Once you run it dry, you lose the prime, and those little prime levers are almost worthless. Not sure about new reefers, but I had a friend that sucked the tank dry, and he pumped and pumped that lever for an hour, I showed up, and we stuck an air hose in the reefer tank with a rag around it, and in 15 seconds, the reefer was running. Same with an old 2 cycle Detroit. That's how I learned that.
That's another thing I never understood about reefer's and frozen, what's the difference between -20 and say -5 or 0. Isn't frozen, frozen?

 

Not sure if it has been said here already, do not just ASSUME that because you have a green light on a Carrier or Or the green or white "T" displayed on a Thermo King that everything is ok. They are just like the diesel engine and A/C system on your truck, they need to be pretripped and serviced often enough to stay in decent working order.

For instance, if you blow a compressor seal, or have a leaky one and slowly lose your freon...This is what normally happens:

If you are paying attention you will notice that the box temp will slowly keep climbing (assuming here you are hauling frozen product set at -10 in warm weather)...As the reefer climbs and stays above a certain point without coming down...say +10...most units will trigger a "box temp out of range warning." Sometimes you will not get the yellow light right away, I know some Carriers will stay green and simply have the "check at next service interval" displayed. That is why it is important to actually walk back and LOOK at the display when you stop, not simply the green light.

You will have to hit the alarm key to see what the problem is here. As the unit really climbs in temp as it loses freon, you will notice the engine struggling, straining bogging down trying to make cold air...Usually it will start defrosting a lot, worsening your box temperature problem. Finally as the compressor becomes completely useless, the engine will shut down and throw a code with a yellow light. Usually it will be something to the effect of "high discharge pressure" as well as "box temp out of range"

At a bare minumum, open the engine bay, check your oil level, freon level, belts no less than once a week. If you notice anything other than rainwater in the pan below the engine and compressor, you have a problem.

Always keep that fuel tank as full as possible, NEVER EVER show up at a shipper or receiver with less than half a tank. Some will flat out turn you away, you never know how long you could be stuck in a dock. The extra 100 to 150 pounds you save running low on reefer fuel won't make a fart in the wind's difference. Usually when I am overweight it is close to 1000 pounds or more, and the shipper usually pulls off a full pallet of whatever...just to keep their own inventories even.

Don't run out of fuel, especially in the winter time. Priming a reefer in sub-zero weather is a little piece of hell I hope you never have to experience.

Use enough #1 diesel or anti-gel to treat your reefer fuel in cold weather. If it is going to be less than 10 degrees for any extended amount of time, don't take any chances. Reefers do not run hot enough or circulate fuel fast enough in cold weather to keep fuel from freezing. The return fuel line is smaller in diameter than an ink pen.

Don't run the reefer with open doors at an open dock, especially in hot weather. They usually ice up the coil with a quickness. After you get loaded in hot weather, hit defrost once or twice a few minutes after your doors are shut, and after you have gone an hour or so up the road.

If you do ice up in hot weather (usually it happens from running with open doors or docked a long time in extreme heat/humidity), you will usually get a shutdown with some generic code that says "check refrigeration system". Start the unit back up, and hit defrost right away. (Some people say to turn the temp up to 70 or 80 and just run for 15 to 20 minutes, I advise against that because it will throw hot air directly into the box.) Within a few minutes you should notice ice cold water pouring out of the drain hoses. That is the melted ice that was effing up your cooling process. Eventually the water should turn lukewarm or even hot and stop dripping almost completely. If water is still pouring out, and the unit finishes defrosting and goes back to cooling, wait about 5 minutes, and hit defrost again. It may take 3 or 4 times to get rid of the ice depending on how much moisture has collected and the weather outside.

Defrost heats up your coil while shutting off air supply to the trailer. That is why you hear all the clicking, chugging, and bogging down when it switches between defrost and cool.

Check your temps and operating conditions and LOOK AT AND READ THE DISPLAY every time you stop. Usually this is the best way of keepng a minor problem during the day from turning into a major crisis at 3AM.

 

Marten runs pretty new units so don't sweat it..

Keep the fuel full and monitor your temp.

When I was leased to Marten in the mid 90's they were real good about keeping their reefers serviced and running good....No worries you'll be fine !

 

Some of the best advice I've seen here regarding reefers. It's definitely worth a read. More info from others can be found in the same thread, but Rollover hit square on the head...

http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...-forum/95691-reefer-produce-hauling-tips.html

 

Wow !! Yea thats some good info.....