Tires rolling when moving tandems while brakes engaged?

I stick my head over the tires and peek

 

Hey. All I was trying to do was say they were making excuses. To say you can't check anything because trailer skirts are in the way is pretty dumb. You can also slide the axles.

 

Do you pre-trip? Brakes are WAY out of adjustment and you run the risk of killing someone and yourself. Greasing the rails will help in future, but you must pre-trip your truck man... please. Be safe out there.

 

Release trailer brakes, 7/16 or 9/16 wrench tighten it all the way then back off a quarter to a half a turn

meritor slacks are 3/8” and you need a flat head screw driver to pull the lock up

not greasing is the number one reason auto slacks go bad, manually adjusting them all the time will strip the teeth, but these are probably already junk, you could try hitting them with grease and adjusting and see if they hold, if not, I would deal with it until brake time and do all 4 with bushings/s cams and cams and throw it all away.

I had 2 original slacks on my 97 kw when I ripped everything apart, 4 new gunights on it now, front 2 were newer.

I do a thorough “pre trip” including brakes once a month when I grease (6k miles or less), lights tires etc are checked daily

 

They’re loose, half the trailers where I currently work it seems so this. But don’t ignore it. The brakes need to be adjusted. If you needed to stop abruptly or going through a mountain pass you won’t have the braking power.

That said, you don’t won’t to clamp them down to tight either. Doing so could smoke out the brakes while driving, even to the point of a fire.

If you work for a company that you seem to stumble on lots of trailers this way? The shop isn’t doing their job and the trailers aren’t inspected frequently enough. Every now and then is one thing, but all the time? Red flag on cheap lacking maintenance.

 

Don't trust automatic slack adjusters. 2015 to current is plenty of time for them to quit working from lack of grease.
Do you ever have to take them in for "service"? When you have fresh grease in them it is a good time to mash the brake to the floor a few times. They don't auto adjust until you hit 85psi of pressure or so. You really have to stand on it...