Driving an automatic on icy roads and taking off on hills?

Exactly right. And the misconceptions about windchill happen because people incorporate the emotional, hyper-dramatic language of the fools on TV weather reports, but don't think about it before accepting it. It's elevating the emotional above the factual. A nice dinner isn't just nice, it's awesome, magnificent, best in history, it changed my life.

Why don't the roads freeze over at 40 deg F with a 30 mph wind? The windchill is 28 F. The idea roads can freeze above 32 F is thinking like 4-wheelers drive, an unnoticed mistake waiting to happen. The ice on a road can be in the process of melting, but not yet turned fully to water at temps above freezing, but all of it will melt. If the wind speed increased to a steady 50 mph and the outside air temp stayed at 35 F the water on the road will never ever freeze. People like to elevate what they go through, like driving in slushy conditions with the media megaphones announcing the storm of the century headed our way into a personal story of surviving as a member of the Donner Party, when it was just their uncontained anxiety and then justification afterwards.

Windchill is FELT by warm-blooded creatures. It makes living and non-living object lose heat faster than calm wind conditions. It doesn't lower the actual temp, it makes it FEEL cooler than actual temp.

 

Dude I’ve lived in ND my whole life. I understand wind chill.

 

Where are driving a banked switchback at 15 mph ? Are you saying if you stopped the trailer would slide and pull you into the ditch or off the road. It sounds like you needed to have tire chains on already. Even with tire chains on you still don’t use engine brake. Lots of drivers do, I heard them all the time driving down the hills.

Are you saying going around a corner in ice or snow you would recommend just using the engine brake because it so slippery or the road is banked the trailer would slide down the bank in the corner ? Seems like tire chains should have been put on before it got that bad.

I know roads can change very quickly but the engine brake was never something you use in snow or ice. It does not do anything all your brakes can’t do better.

Can you explain how just using the drive tires to slow down will give you better traction vs using all the brakes and tires ? When drivers put tire chains on you don’t just put them on the drive tires as you know. You also put them on trailer because you need the trailer to stay behind the truck when you apply the brakes.

 

As stated, there's some coming down Lolo towards Orofino on the Idaho side, and on Lost Trail on both sides of the divide.

There's more to driving in this country than cruising the interstates.

If you're not familiar with those roads, or similar roads (White Pass, for example) this is not a discussion where you can make a positive contribution.

 

I get a kick out of misinformed people when it starts cooling off and we gotta start watching cloud points of the fuel. Couple guys I know always talk about the wind chill on whatever weather app they’re using. Ones from Utah and the other is from Northern California. “Wind chill is gonna be -10 tonight, so I better get some #1 fuel or additive soon.”

If wind chill was really a factor in filter gelling, why doesn’t it freeze solid when the truck is going down the road at 75 mph when the ambient temperature is say -20? By what some of these ratchet jaws say, even #1 would be solid.

WIND CHILL HAS NO EFFECT ON THE CLOUDING POINT OR FREEZING POINT OF FUEL, OTHER THAN THE WIND BLOWING ACROSS THE SURFACE OF IT BRINGS THE TEMPERATURE TO AMBIENT FASTER.

 

Can you explain how you get more traction or control just using your engine brake vs my way of using no engine brake and all the brakes the truck has ?

 

@Accidental Trucker answered the first part, but there are numerous other highways in the west that are that way too. The same idea can apply to the supers on interstate curves as well.

As far as having chains on already, yes there are many times that a road will be bare or just wet at the bottom, but will be snow covered or ice at the top.

When I put chains on it is at least a set of three railers on one drive axle. At that point I lock the diff lock in and use the Jake. If it's bad I'll throw chains on both drives. Real bad maybe a single on a steer and a drag on the trailer, but were talking water on ice bad, which doesn't happen often. Again, I use the Jake with abandoned with two sets of three railers on. The highways we are talking about don’t have someone at the bottom of a pass checking chains. It is up to the driver to determine the need, and even today you can usually find someone with a cb to let you know how things are on top.

Yes, you have better traction using brakes than Jakes, but most of us don't want to ride our brakes for 15 minutes straight. If we break loose we'll use the brakes/throttle as needed to get things tracking, and then back to the Jake. From Burgess Jct. down to Greybull Wyoming is 18 miles of switchbacks and 6 percent grade. I'm not riding my brakes non stop for 18 miles unless my Jakes quit.

To further confuse the issue, I have retarders in two trucks. They are fantastic on slick roads as they come on real slow and have infinite adjustment up to max. Retarders (Brakesaver) are unknown to most folks anymore though so I probably shouldn't have brought that up.

Anyway, I am not telling you what you should do, just what works for me.

 

Someone better tell all the drivers in Alaska running the haul roads they need to turn off their Jake’s. I bet they would
Get laughed out of the room.

when a tire is turning it is generally providing sideway tractive forces that keep the trailer going stright. Once the brakes lockup the sliding tire is no longer providing that force and the trailer or drives can/will start stepping out.

If your Jake’s drop the engine to idle because of a loss of traction, it will only be one wheel unless you have your power divider locked, then two wheels will be affected. The other 2/3 positions rolling will keep the truck heading straight down the road. With modern trucks this is not an issue because as soon as a loss of traction is sensed the computer will cut the Jake’s, at least in all the new trucks I’ve driven.

 

This has been answered several times in several different ways, but here it goes again.

Coming down a grade on your brakes necessarily means you are going down VERY slow to keep from overheating the brakes. Going down steep grades with switchbacks very slowly on slick roads WILL increase your risk of breaking out going around a banked corner. It's INHERENTLY unsafe.

Secondly, if you're coming down on your jakes and wheel slip occurs -- all that really happens is that your engine rpm's drop and usually the jakes kick off. In that case, you've lost traction on ONE wheel end, and the other 9 wheel ends still have traction. Adjust speed as needed with your service brakes, re-engage the Jake, and keep rolling down.

If you are coming down on your service brakes and you lose traction, that's IT. There's nothing else you can at that point to increase your braking power.