Trailer tires are smoking when braking hard and trailer is empty....

I pull a tanker trailer that is owned by another company and when I was stopping hard for a red light, I noticed smoke coming from the tandems on just one side of the trailer. The next time I hit the brakes I took it a little easier but still saw some black marks on the road from the same tandems. The tractor has the hanging type brake pedal and I am used to the floor mounted brake pedal which seems a bit easier to control the pressure.

Then today I was driving my car and noticed a tractor trailer that had the same thing going on and I could see the rear half of the trailer tandems not turning when the driver was braking.....and am wondering about flat spotting a pair tires from one incident of smoking them??

I am going to have the company look at the trailer brakes and adjust them. If I have a repeat of the problem, can I just turn the slack adjuster loose one or two turns and get the brakes back into adjustment? Or should I just let the company deal with it. We carry tools in our tractor, so I could make the adjustment myself.

 

I'll sit back, interested in other replies, but one thing to check for is oil/grease on your linings of the wheels that are locking up sooner.

 

should have a qualified mechanic look at ALL the brakes. Could be the one that is locking up is the one working correctly and the rest are way out of adjustment. If it's a newer trailer with auto slack adjusters, better not fool with them. Could be a distribution valve or any number of other things. Sometimes a trailer pulled by a truck with no working air dryer gets water in valves and regulators then you get weird problems when it falls below freezing.

 

First off, you ay want to have the brakes checked. Did this happen loaded or empty? You should try to down shift and jake to so the brakes dont need to do all the work. Also trya nd brake lighter and make your moves earlier. if your empty, its not uncommon for the brakes on the trailer to lock since there isn't enough weight on them although it does mean your braking to hard. Check that your ABS light it working and not lit ont he trailer. Check that the brakes are adjusted properly (but if out of adjustment, contact company for instruction about adjusting...I assume your not a qualified mechanic)

After your first hard brake, you over heated your brakes. As brakes get hot they become less effective so you have to brake harder which means they get hotter which means they get less effective which means you brake harder........ After your first brake they smoked the second time because they were already hot.

 

Back them off alittle. Unless the fact that the slack adjuster is all screwed up you need a new one.

 

In addition to the things pointed out here^, it could be that one corner has different shoes on it, and grabs harder. Also could be in the suspension, and that corner isn't getting as much weight applied to it (not as common as brake issues, but it does happen.) I've seen slack adjusters replaced and not installed properly so that they tend to run tighter or looser than the other 3. Another not so common one is a egged drum caused by someone setting the parking brake when the brakes are very hot, although it's usually multiple drums effected by this issue.

As far as backing them off, it's not a couple turns, that's way too far; and if they are autoslacks they will soon adjust themselves back up to where they were before.

And this can definitely flat spot tires!

I believe he was speaking of tire smoke, not brake smoke.

 

I'm thinkin company trailer..Let the company work on it..

You get under there and start adjusting things and then have an accident..They will hang you out to dry..

Be a smart driver..don't take on that liability..

 

7/16" wrench. Put the tractor brakes on. Release the trailer brakes. Then tighten each slack adjuster til it stops. Then back off half a turn. If you search you tube for adjust air brakes it will show many demo.
Also have someone step on the brake while you watch the travel stroke,, 2" is Max before put out of service

 

I should have mentioned it is an older trailer. So no ABS. Thanks for the advice guys.

 

No ABS? What about autoslacks?