Checking brake lights for pre-trip

What's laundry?

 

Guys seriously, what jumbo is saying
Hazards circuit is different from brake circuit. You have to apply brake pedal to insure all brake circuits are working.

 

Not having a way to check them is also something a dot inspector can write up. I personally carry a set of 50lb dumbbells and putting one end of one of those on the pedal works just fine.

 

*set up iPhone for videorecording
*run and pump the brakes
*comeback and review the video

 

Actually, for what it's worth, the hand brake is not a Johnson bar. On Friday, I looked up an article about Casey Jones, the engineer. The legend is they found him with his hand on the brake (Johnson bar), so I looked it up. A jbar is a ratcheting locking bar. Like the parking brake on old trucks, not the friction hand brake.

I did not know!

 

So what's everyone favourite way of pushing the pedal down far enough to check the push rod stroke?

 

....another person.....

 

Same 2x4 cut to length that wedges between the clutch pedal and seat base for adjusting the clutch will hold the brake pedal if I air the seat up, insert the board, and then let the air out of the seat to press the brake pedal. Watch the application pressure gauge as I air down the seat, and when I've got 90 or so psi to the brakes, I get to measuring.

 

Wire ties from bread bags (I keep a spooll of the green garden / plant tie in my kit). Reusable. Inexpensive. Can also be trimmed to length from the spool to make a light duty harness material for that darned pen that never stays where I thought it was in the cab...