I'm sold on light steady pressure rather than snubbing

A good motor with good engine brakes should require very little use of the foot brake if using proper gear

 

The reasoning against steady breaking was based on the fact thay back in day, it wasn't uncommon for brake adjustment to vary significantly at the various wheel ends of a tractor trailer. Because of this, light steady breaking would often result in one or more of the drums doing very little braking and the others overheating as they had to try to dissipate the energy of the loose brakes, too. Steady braking wasn't a problem in a truck with properly maintained and adjusted brakes. Autoslacks largely eliminated this as a problem, although unbalanced application is still an issue with very light brake pressures, as even the best maintained brakes will have some variation in stiction in the slack/cam/shoe mechanism.

 

It's not wrong, it is an allegory that is meant to draw out the thinkers on this forum; however, one can surmise that number to be on the nearly nonexistent side when you have the vast majority of people here equating 'stab' braking with 'snub' braking.

 

Thats because many of us were made to watch an outdated Bendix video on braking where the term was used interchangeably.
I remember the instructor telling us that terms had changed and stab braking meant something different now and to just pretend the voice over was saying "snub" whenever he said stab

 

Way back when.. Gas,engines, 4axles, main mountain was Monteagle, TN. Young driver was told by the main men who were running the west coast.
West coast tractors have a gauge in the airlines. Never put over 10 pounds in the lines, hold it steady and you will not have a problem. Seems logical.

 

Mine smoked white smoke, and it tended to hover..... This heck smoke you speak of???

 

Basically how I was taught in school, light steady pressure, 10 psi max was good enough, if it wasn't then I was in too high a gear. I can count on one hand the number of times I've smoked brakes coming out of the mountains.

 

Depends on the state and the cop

 

True; But I subscribe to the airplane pilots axiom... Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing, and if you can use the plane again, textbook. Was able to wind up several rounds on the slacks at bottom of Monteagle once, no serious after effects.