What if?

Pray your guardian angel is on duty....

 

i would ease into braking as long as you matain control. the first thing you want to is slam the brakes on. if your still in gear, you lose all power steering and have no control at all! let back off of the brakes and push the clutch in so motor will keep running. then start easing the brakes on to slow down. when stopped, change underwear!

 

I ain't sure,but I think I killed my guardian angel in a fourwheeler accident.

 

I was told to accelerate, this slows the downward motion of the front and then once you have control, brake like a mad man and get 'r stopped.

 

Ride it out till you have somewhat control of the truck then downshift using the Jake much as possible... Never break because your just going to shoot to one direction.... I blew a steer tire coming out of the last turn in the gorge a few years ago, just had jumped out into the left lane to pass and bam the truck jumped 3 feet to the left in an instant.. I still don't know how it stayed of the wall, you could of imagine what the traffic was like, had all kinds of trucks behind me, in front and I was passing... The driver behind me was wise enough to know what was going on and backed everybody down so I could get everything under control.. I had a death grip on that steering wheel and never once hit the breaks till I was able to get it off to the side on an exit ramp...

Run with it, let it do what it wants to do making only minimum adjustments if possible to get it under control then use the Jake much as possible to slow it down...

 

Always good to hear advice from people that actually had the experience. Glad to hear you're still with us!

 

What about using the trolley brake for the trailer brakes?

I figure if you pull the trolley brake lever it would slow you down and take weight off the steering axle and you could slow down and regain control without ever touching the tractor brakes.

Besides helping slide stubborn tandems what else is the trolley brake there for?

 

If you're going downhill with a load you don't really want to push the clutch in!!

 

how else would you shift gears, if you don't float 'em?

overall, though, sounds like TruckerJo has it in hand. School taught us that sequence of events - though they did say that once you have firm control of the truck you can brake LIGHTLY to augment the jake.

I don't ever use the Johnson bar (yeah, three whole weeks of OTR experience here). Set the trailer brakes in the cab and use a chock to slide th' tandems- that's what I do