Air Brake Adjustment

Knowing and understanding how something works in order to inspect them is one thing. A year of documented experience wrenching them is another.

I understand how the human heart works, all of its parts, what it's supposed to do and how to tell it's working properly or if there's a problem. I was taught that over a 10 year period as an EMT, even given authority to give certain medications. But I am definitely not qualified to make manual adjustments to its performance.

The correlation? I understand the parts of air brakes and how they are supposed to function and can pick out problems when they aren't working correctly. I can adjust them by way of allowing the auto slack adjusters to do their job. But I am not qualified to apply a wrench to them.

Does that mean I will be going down the east side of Lookout Pass with maladjusted brakes? Not on your life. Not on mine either. If they are that far out of adjustment that they could potentially fail on the way down, I would have noticed the problem long before and simply neglected it. But you know that's not my style. Any little issue with this truck is nipped in the bud before it becomes a major problem capable of either shutting me down or causing a collision. Including manual brake adjustments requiring a wrench.

 

How to adjust brakes.....

Hello? TA?

I can take an 18 wheeler apart bolt by bolt and put it back together. But I'm not qualified to adjust the brakes without certification. Have I done it, yes, when pressed for time and them way off on a trailer. Anything is better than no brakes. It's not like the brake patrol is running around watching.

If you aren't mechanically inclined, than no, one shouldn't even be trying. They don't even know what they are looking at in a pretrip. They just look, lol.

 

I was using that as an example of how automatic adjusters work, similar principal to automatic drum brake adjusters. but yea I did word that wrong. I do stand by my earler post about doing pump downs, its also important to make sure equipment is serviced properly also, if the slack adjusters don't have any grease they won't work properly.