Steep Downhill and you need to downshift

Agreed. Good analysis.

 

Man this post, really I wanna tell you how it is but seems like you being experienced you should have had the trainee on a a lower gear way before you pressed the panic button. Im saying all the grades ive been down, it tells you before hand that it is a downgrade. experience tells you that you should slow it down before proceeding. ive seen to many rigs at the bottom of the grapevine pulled over cuz da brakes were on fire. all you can do is laugh about it. effin rookie is what im thinking. go boy, get those few extra minutes flying by me. hahhahahahjajajajjajajaja. dam, hahhahhahhhahahhahaha, wow its still funny, hahahhahahahhahah

 

I can creep down the grapevine loaded at 9th gear, not touch brake pedal once. just takes knowledge is all. but if you have no skilled trainer to show you then have a 9/16 wrench on your person to adjust the brakes at the bottom of the hill. I seen one rig smoking out at the bottom and he tried to make it look no problems by pulling over. funny thing was dude was smoking and fire dept was only way to stop smoking

 

I learned about hills in a old Mack dump truck with twin sticks and a defunct( read: non-working) exhaust brake . I would face this medium grade hill with a full load several times a day and although it wasn't too steep, it was long, with a climbing turn at the end. If you missed the turn you visited the gorge and trees on the other side of the guard rail. I would ENSURE that I was in the lowest gear( the exact one escapes me) before I started down because I didn't have a Jake brake to help, throwing around twin sticks while loaded and accelerating downhill was NOT an option and the brakes wouldn't cut it on their own. Prior planning prevents piss-poor performance. I makes me really appreciated the new 13 speeds with a flick of the thumb or fingers I can do what use to be a lot of swearing, clutch pumping, arm-flailing,steering with the knee-so-you-don't-blow-by-the-stopped-school bus with the twin sticks. AHHH the good-ol'-days!!

 

1. The accident happened westbound, I believe a few miles east of Colfax.

2. When upshifting on a steep hill using the jake is very beneficial. If you are downshifting you will have the throttle covered & the jake won't come on anyway. I will sometimes heel & toe the brake & throttle so I can depress the clutch enough to get the transmission out of gear easily with my other foot. On a 379 it's really easy to cover the clutch pedal enough to shut the jake off without lifting your foot off the floor, I will do that to modulate the jake on a hill or shut it off to make a shift.

3. Nobody has talked about this guys speed. He had to be going way too fast, like 65-70. At that speed no driving technique is going to save you.

 

top heavy load in trailer You can tell when the driver tries to change lanes and the trailer immediately tips to the right while lifting the left wheels up. not to mention he was hauling ### down hill didn't help any.

 

With the newer engines the Jake shuts off if the rpm's get too low or your shifting. it doesn't engage again for a couple seconds after you have shifted. When I first encountered a Jake brake my trainer forgot to tell me to shut the Jake off when we were slowing for a stop sign and there I was trying to steer a loaded Mack with the engine shut down from the Jake . Armstrong steering. luckily we were only going a few miles and hour so we just stopped, cranked the Cat back up and started over again, lesson learned.

 

its right after exit 139w, that 2 mile stretch is the narrowest and has the sharpest 2 or 3 curves on the entire pass.