Just some questions came up after the I70 crash in CO.

I hate when that happens, welcome to my world

 

It's possible (at least in my Star,) to heel and toe the throttle and brake with the right foot, leaving the left free for the clutch if needed. I do it fairly often slowing on ramps, especially downhill ramps. I can maintain a constant light brake application while dropping through the gears to keep the Jake working, toeing the clutch just enough to kill the Jake during shifts. And to be clear, I'm floating the shifts, not clutching them.

 

All engines have a RPM that you do not exceed. Many old iron it sits at 2300. Many first generation computer engines sat at 2150 or so. Some 1950.

somewhere in there close to the theoratical and listed maximum RPM for a engine you are controlling there is a particular RPM thats redline.

When you have the jacobs operating near that RPM say 200 below you are putting as much braking power possible with a margin for safety.

I usually allow mine to redline before I shift. Only once have I ever had it beyond that and that was one of my runaways where you don't dare come out of gear and rob power from the drives, even if the power was a sort of a braking form rather than driving forward.

 

I only stay when I get reserved parking which generally is easier to get in and out of, or I'm in a spot with a long pull out from the parking spots. If you park in the places with the narrow isles and trucks nose to nose with barely the length of the rig to get out of it, you're just asking to lose a mirror or much worse.

 

There is one tactic I do always.

I sleep one to two hours from any urban core. Say Chicago.

I'll be sufficiently far so that the thuggies wont walk or drive to give me trouble.

If I am a reefer, I'll ghost park at a cold storage somewhere looking just like a reefer waiting for a call to dock. No one comes out to check if they did, they are looking for one particular truck.

 

I thought it was one gear lower going down than going up?

 

Few years back a truck lost it going down the Ft Tijon pass on I5 N just before Grapevine. Hit the runaway ramp so fast it hit the mountain at the end of the ramp and the load smashed through the front of the trailer and through the cab, killing the driver and passenger. How they got into the situation to be going that fast, God only knows.

 

MAYBE.

In the old iron days you came down in the gear you came up. However it is logical that if you ran up one side of some mountains and find the profile on the other side steeper, you will gear down as appropriate. Mt Eagle used to be run at 12 to 14 mph at 80K when I ran old pre computer trucks on it decades ago. Some of then newer faster trucks just blew by me in the middle.

Without a jake it becomes a thermal battle, maintaining just enough air application all the way down less than compressor feeding rate and less than the apparent build up of heat. First the trolley valve then the service (Tractor) is brought into the fight as haze comes off the trailer. You smell it before you haze. And you haze before you get white smoke. (If you pushed it beyond you have blue smoke or worse)

I never try to be the fast going down (Other than a couple of training runs) and I never try to be the one in the way more than anyone else on that same downgrade. I try to move along.

Don't lock your mind into this gear coming up and coming down again. It's going to bite you.

 

Like the Ft Tijon pass on I5? I run it at least once a month sometimes 3. Coming down northbound is much steaper than southbound. Unfortunately or fortunately the 2 trucks I drive for work are autos (non-CDL). Neither one has a 1/2/3 on the exhaust brake, it's either on or off. But I've learned how to handle them a bit. In the NPR/XD if I started at the top of that hill at 35mph at max GVWR I'd be doing 12mph at the bottom. Usually start at 55 mph and toggle the exhaust brake on and off to maintain 50-55mph unless I'm coming up on slower traffic, and then when it's safe, I pass. The Hino on the other hand has Econ and Power modes for the transmission. In Econ, it doesn't really downshift going down hill. But if I set Power mode with the exhaust brake on and start at 45mph, that's what I'm doing at the bottom. It will down and up shift and manipulate the exhaust brake to maintain that speed.

 

If it is anything in my wretched life I loathe and hate with a passion is eco anything. Green eco hard drives, treehugging eco ammo, bs eco modes on trucks this that and other.

**Jumps off cliff... my body is eco enough already. Nature will take care of it.

If you are going to do mountain work, set her up to the max and find a speed at which your downgrade gravity versus vehicle drag and resistance (Tires etc) is balanced by your jake at max. If you are going to be jaking (Term includes all forms of truck braking, exhaust, oil (Jacobs etc) then by heavy, jake the #### out of it.

Why?

Cold brakes is your goal on any hill all the way down. If you and when you find that magic balance where you are one speed, one gear and on full jake without braking all the way down on any hill in the world you have no problems.