Do jake brakes damage the engine?

Is their wear using a Jake? Sure there is. Using a 400-600hp force against u-joints and tires.... Nothing is free.

But, it is a great safety feature and used accordingly, makes sense.

Can one measure the wear against the cost of brakes, or can one ever really tell how much longer a engine might have lasted if it had never been used though? That would be a good study. Since no two engines will ever wear out the same way and at the same time, good luck on collecting data.

 

My '88 W900 has both.. a brakesaver and jakes on a 3406B. Old school jakes with just a switch. I end up stalling it every once in a while because I forget vs. my newer trucks. Combined they don't work as good as the jakes on my ISX's.

 

100% incorrect. Jakes on old Cummins used the action from the injector lobe to operate the exhaust valve instead of the plunger on the injector. It opened at TDC. The exhaust valve was closed until the jake opened it.

 

He told stories about how the crew would come in in the morning and fire up the trucks and do their pretrips. Than while they were all standing around with coffee and donuts doing the ###-bye-ya safety briefing some clown would sneak off and flip the jake switches on in some of the trucks. They would all convoy off and the guys would braaaaaap and stall on the first shift. Lol!