Abilene Motor Express....A New Place To Call Home

As I understand things (warning: understanding may be imperfect), food grade is smoothbore because of tank-cleaning regulations. Can only have baffles if it's non-food grade.

 

Yeah, they are smooth bore due to cleaning and sanitizing regs. I used to pull food grade tankers for a while. The surge sucks in smooth bore.

 

Swapped trucks for the 8th time in WM then got a boar's head load to new castle. The backups suck in Indiana.....ate up my clock. Interesting to see what I get from here. Need to stay west due to home time coming up.

 

See, you know more about tankers than the newbie actually hooked to one.

I thought food grade referred to the product loaded within, not the tanker itself. The terms "smoothbore" and "shotgun" relating to unbaffled tanks were known previously though.

 

Sucks is putting it lightly. My very first load beat me up so badly I wanted to quit.

 

I missed a gear once shifting on an on ramp and the surge from the grape juice I had hit so hard I smacked my face off the steering wheel, lol!

 

The transition from door slammer to tanker yanker isn’t an easy one.


Take it slow and easy. You’re get the rhythm down after a little while. Also, try to picture what the liquid is doing in the tank. You’ll eventually get the feel for it. I still get slapped by the liquid now and then. Only thing now is that I usually know when it’s coming.

 

I didn't get it that bad, but the impact was hard enough to cause pain...and make me pull over to look for damage to the fifth wheel and frame.

This company doesn't have driver cams which I thought was odd, but one trip made me realize they would get thousands of "events" per day just from surge if they did.

 

Fluid viscosity seems to have a lot to do with it too. The stuff I'm hauling now is pretty thick, like 10w engine oil and it's a lot more forgiving than milk or juice.