Air leak company won't fix

Turn the truck off and chock your wheel. Supply air to tractor and do a brake test on tractor only. Like you do on a proper pre trip.

 

Nope, shouldn't hear a leak while the pedal is down.

 

Not normal. What does the pressure gauges do when you do this? Steadily go down or remain up?

 

Chock the wheels. Allow the air pressure to build, and release all of the brakes (create the condition the air leak occurs). When the air compressor kicks off, shut off the truck and wedge a 2x4 (or anything else you might have that will work) onto the brake pedal to hold it down (or draft a fellow driver to sit in the drivers seat applying pressure to the brakes).

Walk around the truck listening and feeling for the leak. If necessary, spray some soapy water on air lines and fittings to see if bubbles form indicating a leak.

When you find the leak, tell the shop EXACTLY where the leak is....SHOW them the leak...physically point it out to them and let them hear the leak so they know under what conditions the leak is occurring.

Air leaks can be a pain in the rear to find if all the driver says is "there is an air leak"...especially when the air leak ONLY happens under specific conditions. They might spend 6 hours searching for a problem that hasn't really been explained too well, and if they can't reproduce the exact conditions to cause it to leak, they may not even be sure the leak exists. For example, if it only leaks when the trailer is supplied with air and the brakes applied....and they don't have a trailer hooked up when they pull into the shop (because you aren't having any trailer problems...the alleged air leak is on the tractor)....it won't leak for them in their shop. In other words, you're nuts and there isn't any air leak as far as they are concerned.

Once the problem is actually found, it could be a 5 minute fix....but they just don't have the 6 hours to spend looking for it.

 

Do a leak test. All parking brakes released, mash that brake pedal to the floor. If the pressure drops more than 4 PSI per minute, then the brake test fails, and the truck is not safe to drive. If the drop is less than that, it passes.

However, there should be no audible leaks. Note it in your pretrip log (you *are* filling out the log, right?) , and have the head mechanic sign off on it saying it's safe. He's the expert on what's mechanically safe, not you. If he refuses to sign off on it, refuse to drive the truck. If he won't stake his job on it, why should you bet your life on it?

 

Or anyone elses.

 

You can always pull into a open scale house and explain that your company refuses to correct the problem and have the DOT officer red tag it, then the company will have no choice but to have it fixed right then and there. If your working for a carrier that wont fix things like this, I would be looking for another job pronto.

 

NO YOU DO NOT DO THAT. Thats the worst thing u can do. Idc if your company refuses to Fix somthing u dont go into a scale and say HEY THIS IS WRONG WITH MY TRUCK. Give me the CSA points and the Ticket SO i can be on my way!... You refuse to drive the truck into its fixed. Call your local State DOT office they can help you.