Taking the plunge. My journey as an O/O.

Gotta have the spring on chambers. Parking brake. Next time replace the airbags with metal base airbags. I should have mentioned that yesterday. Plastic ones leak. New ones should last a while. Hopefully they won’t leak till they’re rotted again

 

What’s up with the one new brake chamber. Right or wrong? Wrong? I’m going back to the shop that out it on. Why would they say that? Looks different? I would get a visual of it, make sure the rod lengths match at least. What’s different? Why the false alarm? $2000 doesn’t surprise Me. Probably the last Time you’ll need them. Should last at least 7 yrs. I think I’d eat a whole package of Oreos, especially since it’s a Monday. Lol.

 

Too late now......

But one way to test if it’s a air bag leak is to dump the air suspension when you park. And see if the air still leaks down.

I don’t know what kinda suspension you have but my primax bags are 12 years old with 650K miles and there still holding air......

 

Honestly, @Farmerbob1, when one of mine broke, I replaced them all too. I figured if one was bad, it wasn't going to be long before the other 3 would go bad as well.

 

I feel your pain. I ran a Columbia to 1.6 million miles. Everytime it hit the shop for something I thought a hose clamp could fix it cost me a thousand dollars. Eventually the stress got me. I went the new truck route. Run hard and throw away before warranty is up. Stress level went down, money about the same, but I find myself missing my old truck.
Just a tough business where everyone has opinions, but no one way works. I would like to see you having more control over the freight you pull. For me that's what it's all about and the only thing that makes this nonsense worth it. But again, that's just a opinion and we all have different ones.

 

I did get the metal base airbags.

 

If I had a shop and tools for the job, then yes, neither airbags nor brake chambers appear to be difficult to replace. I don't have either. Even if I were on home time, I sold my house, have no shop, and my tools are buried in storage.

 

The one brake chamber I already had replaced is a bit heavier than the Freightliner factory brake chambers, but it will work fine for the truck.

The one brake chamber being different, but working fine in the truck actually saved me the cost of a brake chamber and some labor, so I can't see how it would have benefitted them to lie to me. Now all 4 match.

 

The older dry-rotted ones were original on a 2016 truck with 633k miles.

 

Thats the plan. Eventually.