"That kid that don't know nothin'"

Good advice right there! Clogs suck like no tomorrow and make for a long day. The hoses tend to move slightly when you are flowing good another option to focus on!

 

I don't know if anyone has pounded this lesson into you yet.

Do not, ever. Go up top with pressure in tank. The hatch if enough bolts are loosened up there has the power to launch your body 50 yards up and 100 yards downrange. You probably will be dead before you hit the ground buried in product.

People have gone up top and they simply have their lives taken from them and essentially the entire plant property is now covered in everything. It's essentially a bomb.

Lesson B.

If you fixing to blow down, make frigging sure no souls are on the other side. People have a bad habit of walking about. I usually shoo and chase em away from that right front corner of the tankers because of that blow down pipe. Do not stand next to that pipe on the left when you do turn that valve to blow down.

If you have a plastic 5 gallon bucket fill with water and set it near your tandem. When you see your flip clip connections get loose and product starts spewing out of the sides where the metal flaps grab onto the pipe, you take some of that water, pour it onto the blowing product until it quits blowing out of the pipe (Then stop. Leave it be. it clots just like blood)

To this day I only had one complete failure unloading halfway. There is a spinning or flap checkvalve inside it's ball on the pipe supplying turbo or plant air to tank. unloading hose. There was a internal break or failure in that particular valve and the product simply ran back down the silo as the entire trailer did a human Sneeze leaving me standing still like a statue processing it's sneeze with a giant mental ? WTF ? the product ran down the silo pipe which at that time was almost 8 stories up. straight past everything blew in that valve area and when it did the entire tank gagged and coughed while bouncing a foot off the tires.

What was amazing was my engine turbo blower started filling with product. I had to take that off line like right now before the engine itself was compromised at the valves. I don't know what would have happened to that roaring Mack set at 2500 idle if the product made it that far.

I threw the blow down then hustled to close the pots and everyting. (*Much good that did...)

Plant boss came running out because there was a rumble above him as the product settled.

Then the yelling started. There is no ifs buts or maybes the trailer is completely broke. No more product today.

We took it back to the company shop and they put three people on it all night. It was ready at 4 am to go back to unload the rest.

The company bosses grilled me very carefully and I stuck to my guns just like I write here what it did.

To this day I don't know the true cost of that one malfunction or collapse in the valving. But you think someone managed to steal the crown jewels or something. The plant had it's own problems. But I was back to unload. I delivered there again a few times (Pipe plant) without trouble. But it was a bad day.

 

One final thing.

When you are on your LAST POT at a plant where OTHER TRUCKS are also BLOWING product, and your tank starts to SING... humming and singing inside that tank YOU need to attend to it to makes sure all the pots are empty and that you do not waste air because once all the product is gone you are now a giant parasite stealing tank air from everyone else at the same time making a situation where they will probably all plug up at once.

(Talk about workplace violence. There is a little application necessary for that...)

I usually liked to unload alone.

There are plenty of other bulk stories in my posts buried in this TTR Web Forum. I think barring any new developments I'll leave it to you to consider the possibilities.

 

I think you got great attitude for this kind of work! You are single-handedly disproving every naysayer about what millennials are about. Good luck and keep us posted!

 

Indeed. It wont be the first time either.

Two young ones were part of a crew hired to do major electrical work and heat and air on our home and they were watched carefully.

Someday they will be masters of the trade and they will hire young ones to help them as well. As far as I am concerned it was delightful to see a young professional doing well within the work that has to be done.

In trucking it is habit to abuse the young ones. Or not give them the respect they deserve for being good and professional. I would think a large percentage of them did not get properly raised well to actually be professional. I remember a youtube video somewhere from a year ago where three young ones was literally using the Jake of a pete to rap down the street to their music. I saw it as a abuse of the equiptment that was outrageous and will break the truck with very expensive repairs at some point.

It is what it is. But sometimes the old ones do outrageous things around trucks as well. And it's a little wonder the industry is losing the respect it once had up to about the 70's as Kings of the Road.

In gaming there is awful lot of young ones online and frankly it's a filthy mob. It's unfortunate. But they are growing up with this technology and don't know how to live without it because they were not alive before say 1985 where there was no smart phones and no internet none of that. heh.

 

There's a whole thread on here about pneumatic tankers. I don't know how to post the link, but it's titled 'The pneumatic tanker thread". There's some great info there.

One of the best leesons I've ever been taught is don't be in a hurry. There's only so much material able to pass through the pipe at any time. If you try forcing it, you block up. And that slows you down. I run three loads a night, five nights a week.

There's 10 other people where I work doing the same thing. And there's a clear difference in the unloading habits. We have the guys that insist on opening all three pockets and forcing things. They're usually the first to block up, and their days usually take longer than the others. You will see them staring at the pressure gauges, line valve in hand, constantly adjusting the pressure. They will run the pressure right up against the pop off valve, 17 psi in our case. That leaves no time to react if you do block up. Then the pop off valve goes, and now you've got a problem.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have some who are content to empty one pocket at a time, while reading the newspaper or playing on Faceplant. They get everything going, make sure it's all good, and hop in the truck, exiting only when the hopper goes empty. They let the trailer do all the work. That may mean unloading at 10 psi or even less.

I prefer to unload one at a time, keeping my pressure around 13 psi. I don't babysit the trailer, but I don't ignore it either. If I notice pressure climbing, I'll close the hopper valve some. If it continues, I slow the blower a bit. If the pressure wants to drop, open a second hopper, and keep an eye on it. You may find one hopper fully open and another one half open works. Or, in some cases, one fully open hopper is too much. As you gain experience, this will come as second nature.

If you're still reading this drivel, just remember "dont be in a hurry". There's only so much material gonna fit through the pipe at once!


P.S. I've been running with a broken tank pressure gauge for six months now. Yes, it's annoying, but if you have a good line pressure gauge, that's the main thing, as the gauges, when working, should be running about the same pressure.

 

I tend to lean towards being conservative with the pressure and the product flow. I usually unload at 12. I know I can unload at 15 and the safety valve takes off somewhere between 16 to 18 roughly. (This is one valve I have never heard in my life on my tankers going off. It never happened.)

The product is watched, the hose is watched and felt and the silo pipe tells me how it's doing. I prefer the plant electric pump over the PTO exhaust turbo any time.

I like details. SO Im happily bouncing around checking this checking that adjusting this and a touch of that. When the mallet comes out against the pot (One at a time) we'll know pretty fast where the product is.

The one place I get sort of bad is the Lehigh Silos across from Fort McHenry at the Baltimore Harbor, above the keybridge. They have a huge air supply and In the very early morning when for whatever reason it's just me unloading (I think they support 16 silos but not sure) and the gulls gather around my hood and on my mirriors eyeballing the food, doughnuts in particular and coffee One of them will hop onto the mirrior post next to the cab and take a few pieces of doughnuts.

That is when I lose the load mentally. Im too busy working with the gulls so that everyone has a turn the first gull, 2nd, third and so on. Hurry up. Numbers 30 through 34 wants to squabble and bicker...

BANG BANG BANG HEY yer empty stupid. Get that air shut off.

Whoops back to reality.

The problem with that particular facility is that when the trailer is empty is becomes a huge source of air loss. And the plant does certain things to beef up air supply but it's a losing battle. If there were 15 other trucks unloading, all of them would have plugged and it would be my own fault. (That would ruin so many people's days on those stupid birds.) Im the one whose stupid. lol.

Lesson for me was stay on the job until it's finish, you can go after the gulls before you drive home on your own time.

 

Interesting read thus far. Great attitude OP, and one thing some folks tend to forget, is attitude is everything. You can choose your outlook, and if you focus on being positive, even in light of the negatives, you tend to let things roll off your back a bit easier, and you realize there's really no need to sweat the small stuff. We all have our days, but attitude goes a long way in any aspect in life. Keep it up and stay sharp, as I'm interested to see how you progress.