driving down mountains in truck has no engine brake,how to handle that

If this is causing you so much consternation why don't you get a truck with a "jake". You know most class 8 trucks in use today has one!

 

At 80K on a true 7% and being new, I'd pick a low gear and DON'T shift, up or down, until you're close to level again.

 

Yes
The information that was given is great rule of thumb advice but much like everything else in trucking it needs to be governed with a little common sense.
Unfortunately common sense ain’t to common anymore.

 

Forget the buckets. Fear is something the body has to do and it strikes me, you and everyone. The big difference is the mental constitution to keep calm and rationally decide your choices and follow through the best one.

My school instructors found I had a problem when we got on the old US 40/48 before there was a I-68 in those days there was a downgrade of about 8% where you needed to slow to 30 halfway down to make a construction type curve. On your left was a quarry type canyon that they had been running haul trucks against a boulder bigger than trump tower that they have been chipping at over years. That is about roughly... 400 feet down over a little 4 foot concrete barrier.

I 68 was eventually completed. But thats not the end of it. I got good on the mountains because I had to.

Fast forward years later I had a good trainer we ran townhill 5% or so for 4 miles south of breezewood on I-70 one day. Let the truck go at the top until it reached 130 and then put it into neutral and let gravity have at it. She actually stabilized at a theoratical speed which even to this day I am uncertain of. Those mile markers against the wrist watch on paper say 140 plus. who knows.

What we did have to do at the bottom is slow to 80 and that takes half the air in primary and secondary from 120 down to about 50 PSI for the left curves. You applied it in one gentle hug for a lack of a better word and be at 80 before you lean into the curve down there.

Never mind the technical problems of the tires speed rated at 85 for 80000. We were way past those limits. If something was to happen, it was a beautiful place to die as far as I am concerned. So we did not worry about it. Enjoyed a smoke and coffee all the way down. That did not take very long.

 

No real input here, just reminiscing. I wonder how today's new drivers would react to OTR in a GMC Crackerbox with a 238 DD, 5 speed, 2 speed axle, Dayton wheels and bias tires. No air ride (not even seat) or jake, same mountains, but the roads are much better now.

 

Or a suicide mack cabover? No sleeper. OR my very favorite, a White Commander COE a back breaker.

Ive actually had one mack for farm work that featured a 5 speed. The RPM range on that one was at least 2300. Took a long time to get there with walking beam drives etc. It did one thing really well with that huge 1st gear that never ends and that's rock crawling before anyone popularized that sport today. We had a farm that was a field of boulders in Baltimore County, the old Yohn Farm (Spelling?) which shipped a small amount of milk in a field of about oh 15 cows that was essentially bottom land that would not be considered good grazing. Im not picking on this particular farm.

It featured manual adjusters only on the brakes, at least once a day they went out and under there you went wrenching away until you got em back. You even went under there before one of three particular hills because you have to turn with that tanker trailer halfway down at 5 mph and if you aint got it then you never will.

I actually had a brake fire under the left forward drives when the pads never came off the drums and Baltimore County rolled three seperate fire departments to me as it's pretty important to get that fire out after I knocked it down with the fire extinguisher. They installed a maxi bolt on there and it was enough to get the delivery made and back to the yard for a new drum, new tire, new set of pads and a new can, airlines to it and the stroke rods as well. All of it. I don't know the true cost, they don't share that information with just a drivah like me.

What they did trace it to was the old three button system in that mack. One of them had failed to release fully allowing that brake to be on. Why the other three did not burn was simple. They were not quite in adjustment for which I got yelled at.

The hills in the east are tiny but there are some that are outstanding, such as Vermont near the Canada Border with ethan allen shipping hardwood furnature south across a 24% 3 mile pull that some here on these forums call mythical. A search of bicycling forums reveal that Vermont has about 6 or 7 of those kinds of hills common to that community. VDOT will be getting in touch with me at some point soon when they have the actual hill referred to once the local highways people identify it. We think it's about 30 minutes from Beecher Falls, but not certain. Not until they confirm it.

 

I don’t mean to sound rude but you shouldn’t have a cdl with this question. How to go down a hill without jake brakes is basic trucking knowledge when you took test. Very dangerous if new truckers don’t know this

 

If you can NOT see the bottom is less than about a half mile away, you should be in whatever gear you can hold about 1,500 rpm without using any brakes. A grade you’re not familiar with, I’d suggest starting the decent (where you enter into the steep crown) about 35 mph, then adjust up or down accordingly.

If you find yourself wanting to add fuel to maintain speed, you can probably go up one gear, but if you round a bend and see the road pitches down more, you might consider going back to your original gear.
LOOK at the road AHEAD and how it’s pitching up or down and choose speed accordingly.

Out west, don’t be deceived by seeing the bottom ahead. It may still be 3 miles until it levels off and you can get in trouble if you release too soon.

 

With all the tech that we now have, (Jake brakes, GPS, collision avoidance systems, smart cruise control, and whatever I may be forgetting), it stands to reason that newer drivers are somewhat ill advised. I'm not saying they're wrong or dumb. But I think they're not taught the old ways that may one day save them some trouble, or maybe a life.

I remember once upon a time, when the Garmin GPS became popular. I was at a facility in Chesapeake VA loading for Brooklyn NY. This driver (from the same company I was working for) comes up to me and asks for directions to the nearest tank wash facility. So I give him directions, turn by turn, on paper. He stares at it, and asks me to show him on his Garmin. I had no idea how to work the thing. Didn't have an actual street address. I had a city map, tried showing it to him, he was confused as ever.

Same with the topic at hand. Driving down a mountain with no Jake brake. People did it for years, and on much worse roads, and most lived to tell about it. But throw a newer driver into a truck without a Jake brake, and it might end up badly. What if a new driver is crossing 68 in Maryland and his Jake brake quits working in his 2017 Cascadia? Will he or she be able to handle it?

The CDL training of today is a joke. Are there good drivers that are new? Certainly. Probably many of them. But today's training seems to be based on perfect world conditions. They're not teaching what to do if the technology at their hands fails, requiring the use of the older way of doing things. And that, to me, is a recipe for trouble.