Not popping Trailer brakes when parked?

I had to do that with the only daycab we have that wouldn't idle longer than 45 secs. I never shut the truck down instantly upon stopping so it was the only way without blipping the throttle all the time. I parked on a street bobtail every night so I'd just turn the wheels to the curb and let it hold me with the brake off to warm the #### thing up. Kind of hard to do a pretrip when you're running back to hit the throttle after every item you check.

 

Sounds like you have weak or broken springs in your brake pod's. Your service brakes can be adjusted/working fine but if that spring is weak/broken there is little braking resistance for parking. Your truck should not be able to easily over power the braking force of those spring brakes.

 

:smt023
That's what I do.

 

Only set tracter here. But if you are parking on any type of grade need to set both. In some of the steep residential area's I have to park, I even get out the wheel chuaks.

I dont see very many trucks that have maxi brakes on both axles, Its typicaly only the front driver axles that do. Also even if your brakes are fully adjusted and hold good and tight and brand new tires, You get the right grade and weight distibution You will slide with only the tractor set. And I am not talking about the brakes sliping, I am talking about the wheel sliding across the pavement.

 

Same on our tankers - tractor brake only.

Every time we pull the red button it dumps the air bags on the tanker.

Especially loading with the nozzle in the top - the tanker will actually roll forward and put the nozzle in a bind.

When I'm dropping the tanker in the yard, set the trailer brakes, let the air bags depress, and then set the tractor, un hook.

My trainer corrected me from the start about using both trailer/tractor brakes (like taught at school). I'm also seeing several things that they didn't teach us.
IE having a pre-loaded trailer and dumping the tractor air bags before pulling out from under it. They never showed us/told us to ever do that. We dropped the legs, unhooked the air, pulled pin release, and pulled out from under it.

The amount of knowledge one can learn in a day in this business is awesome!

 

Most of the time if the spring brake isn't holding your truck, brake adjustment isn't the likely culprit. Chances are greater that the brake chamber has a weak spring, which isn't pushing the shoes against the drum with enough force to adequately hold the vehicle in place.

Replace the defective brake chambers.

Personally, I never set the trailer brakes unless I'm dropping the trailer. Spring brakes on my truck hold just fine, even on a grade, even when fully loaded.

 

I thought you were supposed to leave them both pushed in and use the Johnny bar?

 

Lol you probably could in my truck the darn thing sticks have to push it back up to make it release. I'm not gonna try to find out though lol.

 

I always set all the brakes,

never had a problem........

 

Mine does to...actually there is absolutely no tension on the spring in it. I do it all the time while i am sitting in line at a grain elevator, granted I am sitting in the seat with the truck running. Just to lazy to keep my foot on the brake.