Driving in heavy rain no engine brake

If you are loaded, use the Jakes, no problems.
As far as maximum RPM's, keep it under 1800 rpm's IMHO.
If you normally go down with the Jakes in 9th gear, going down without them would require much lower gearing. 6th or 7th. It all depends on your weight though,


Martin

 

Forget the old saying you go down the same gear you came up. It's real simple you just slow down. The reason drivers are telling you not to use the engine brake is because the road may be real slick. Especially if it hasn't rain in awhile. The oil will build up and when the first rain comes it's like ice. It sounds far fetched but I'm a believer after driving Las Vegas streets. You'll be very lucky if you have a good working ABS then you shouldn't have any problems. In my own experience I just drop down 10 mph slower on a 6° grade. It may be different for you plus I was very heavy over 100,000lbs.

 

Seen quite a few tanker and freight haulers burning at the bottom of the Grapevine following that grab a bigger gear driver advice.

Always take the truck down a hill in a gear, (with or without the jake), that will leave you enough brake power to come to a dead stop in an emergency.

If your running up a hill in 9th gear in a 10 speed your light anyway so your going to be playing with the stages on the jake. Speed limit is 35 on the grapevine hills, 45 on Cajon and was 55 down the hill to stateline NV.

 

Huh? Who said that?
I said lower gears without the Jake vs with the Jake, and the second poster said down in the same gear as up.
Ye kinda lost me there. Especially after driving in Europe, where they have real mountain passes!

Martin

 

It is always easier to speed up going down a hill then it is to slow down. Yesterday in SoCal I would have acted like I was driving on ice. No jake brake. An extra gear or two down. As was mentioned above, a lot of trucks end up on fire at the bottom of those hills because they started too fast and could never slow it down. I've always told my self, if I even wonder if I might be going to fast then I must be going to fast. People will tell you all kinds of things. Just remember this. You can go down a hill a million times to slow. You might only go down a hill to fast once in a lifetime. Slow and steady wins the race so be safe out there.

 

You want your Rpm low going down hill. You have to be able to speed up if your on a slick hill and you tap your breaks the trailer may start coming around (sliding causing a jack knife if it continues). If you are already high in the rpm you will jack knife for sure. Remember High RPM up(hill) and Low down(hill)

 

Fist trick is to be in the right gear for the hill AND weight of the load. Also remember I am talking about slick roads (before some super trucker starts trying to flame me). I would NEVER ride my brakes all the way down a hill on the west coast. Remember as truck brakes heat up they become less effective and this is the #1 reason so many trucks burn out west. Now I don't know what type of engine you have so RPMs vary. A DD15 I would stab break to maintain the RPMs between 1k and 1.3k. On my Pete it was 1.2k to 1.5k.