cold weather braking

[JohnEd]

Will the brakes take more use in a downhill in freezing weather?  Not icy roads, now.  I  am not talking about a technicality, but use full improvement or fade resistance.

John

[Hartley]

I doubt that brake temperature will cause any significant difference.

Once they go from super cold to hot you may experience some fade due to
the oils and grease surfacing faster than if they were already warmed up.
Maybe even some grabbing I don't know...

The catch is moisture in your brake system that may cause problems and
brake pressure might not be what you expect until stuff warms up.

Air compresses, Water & Oil sludge does not....

I know, That's not what you asked.. But at least I tried anyway...

[DaveG]

Let's be careful here, as all brake lining is made to operate best at specific temperature ranges. In otherwords, you have to get it hot enough to work as designed/rated.

[buswarrior]

Neat question!

Thinking relatively...

Brakes that are being heavily loaded, think highway speed panic stop, can go into the 600/700/800 degree temperatures. Abusing them in downhill mountain conditions can smoke them into the 1000 degrees area, which will ruin the linings.

Whether the ambient temperature starts at 80 degrees or at -20, that's only 100 degrees difference.

Yes, a cooler ambient temperature will help the drums shed the generated heat a little faster.

As for using the ambient temp as a variable in choosing how to use the brakes on a bus conversion, unless you can monitor the temps of the drums in real time....

You can only manage that which you measure.

happy coaching!
buswarrior