How to navigate icy grades with Automatic 2015 Freightliner

Locking the differential helps give some traction, but steers don't behave nicely on ICE even at truck stop speed. Thus, a fresh snow is good when you absolutely need to get r done.

 

What load is worth losing your license,life,livelihood, freedom?


Dont drive on ice.

 

I generally figure if you can walk in it, the rough ice, it's going to be the same for your truck.

If you cannot keep your feet walking to the truck, don't even think about driving today. You stay put.

I am a monster with ice, but Nature is a bigger one able to make ice so bad you must stop and wait. I remember one december 2000 in OKC it went from near 90 to 20 something in less than a hour. And whatever was wet during the frontal passage became ice too bad to safely drive on. It was about 4 am so we holed up in a truckstop of sorts on the west end until after sunrise.

Once it warmed enough to have stuff dripping and falling everywhere, it's go time.

Generally you don't use jake on ice. It's foolish. Those drives will lose whatever traction they have left and then slide. Next thing you see her coming around. The most trouble I have had with that is when the ice is really tiny, like a half inch to a inch on top of snow. Not a foot thick like in Sheridan WY on what I call split ice.

 

Using the Differential Lock will push you straight forward in a turn. Using only the Power Divider won't do that in my experience. Most mega carriers don't have Differential Locks, only the Power Divider. Some don't even have a Power Divider.

I like it best if I have a separate lock for each drive axle. Then I can disengage the rear axle and get some ability to turn.

 

The rears on a semi are pretty big and tough. However drivers who leave the interlock in can absolutely burn em out on dry pavement. I have to clear the cobwebs here, but you cannot engage them while there is wheel spin back there in motion either. A tiny important detail.

In any case the auto we had when spouse had the tractor get away from her west of Knoxville was the very last problem on our list of increasingly stacked problems to solve and not enough time to solve them all. We managed to turn the wheel just enough to feed traction back to the drives, once they bit, the auto shifted in large amounts and maintained that power whatever was being applied to the engine somewhere above torque and we clawed out of there as the rest of the convoy behind number two went into the canyon. (Middle) I remember number 4, a TMC Flatbed loaded he went backwards using his power on the drives to keep everything upright as it went in. He knew he was a goner, but he was a warrior, doing the one thing that everyone in school is taught not to on the way out.

Our tractor had interlock which would enslave all 8 drive tires to pulling forward, the steering would go bye bye for the most part. The interlock was a manual switch in the dash. To this day I cannot remember if we had it in or not. Usually on ice we did as long the speeds were less than 20.