Down-Hill Driving....Automatic

[gyrocrasher]

Welcome Jim. Glad to have you aboard.  Mitch

[Diesel_Gypsy]

Thanks for the welcome

Nope, not from England, born and raised in western Canada! Now living on my families' home farm in Saskatchewan (not sure why???)

Later
Jim

[johns4104s]

There is not many of us on this board that will drive 100,000 thousand of miles a year so we probably have more maintainece problems than those truckers who fly down the passes with there jakes on full.I have seen quite a few that got stopped by the sand run offs.
When the jakes start shutting the engine down you can add throttle, sorry not for me, I would not know when to add or back off.

John

[NJT 5573]

Jim,

If you have never had a Jake kill the engine and lock the drivers on snow or ice, your just running your mouth. , I don't think you have much experience.

The bus that crashed this past winter with the 180 was a fatality accident and is in our archives. Don't get anyone hurt running your mouth. Do you even own a bus?  Lots of the guys here don't have our experience, don't get anyone hurt.

My bus is just fine thank you, no failures, no wiring problems.

RJ's experiences are in line with mine. I can drift off a 6% grade in my coach without touching the brakes at 60MPH, so what would I want to use a Jake Brake for unless I just wanted to show off.

Granted you could save a buck by not keeping your brakes dry in heavy rain, but thats not my style.

You are welcome to pass me in the hammer lane in the ice, I seldom use it. However, I can not in close to 5 million miles in 4 provinces and 38 states ever remember stopping to help anyone out of the ditch or into an ambulance, so roll on there big dog.

[buswarrior]

Hey Diesel Gypsy,

E-mail me, buswarrior@yahoo.com. You may know me by another handle in relation to Ol Sam.

Never mind NJT 5573, we aren't like that on here. He doesn't have much ammunition against another guy who knows what he's doing, beyond hurling insults.

If this place is not to your taste, there is another site like this one owned by a fellow Canadian. Try out BNO, www.busnut.com.

NJT 5573,

You got no idea who you are messing with, nor the value he could contribute to this board.

Put your inadequate parts away. You are harming the hobby.

happy coaching!
buswarrior

[buswarrior]

NJT 5573,

Would please explain to us how the jakes are going to slide the drives and stall the engine on ice?

And be specific regarding the vintage of equipment, drivetrain configuration, etc.

Which bus crash please? I'll go find the details. Hard to believe the driver didn't use any other control inputs in the middle of a wipe out... Who said the jakes did it?

You do know about the ABS integration in the newer buses?

How does a driver know the brakes are wet, and how does the driver know they are dry?

Kindly remember that many in our viewing audience have no over the road experience and these summaries of yours don't teach folks much that's relevant if you don't provide explanations.

happy coaching!
buswarrior

[NJT 5573]

I may shut up. If this guy is for real whats his ICC Number or his DOT Number, I'd like to check him out, he must own some trucks or buses. Sounds like a rookie to me. No Email, no bus, got a safety record? I have walked the walk and I only speak from real world experiences and I'm not hiding my information. Telling someone something that can get them hurt ain't smart.

If he's from around Lethbridge, maybe he knows Stan Ives, Stan ran a fair sized operation up there. We used to truck togather in the late 60's, hauled explosives out of that area, year around.

If I would respect this person if I knew who he is then why is he hiding all his info? Seems he could/would be proud of himself and not just come on here running his mouth and only having 2 posts? What are you trying to say there buswarrior about harming the hobby? Maybe you are right, I am a professional driver and have never looked at driving as a hobby, safety on the road is my whole life and all I have ever tried to do here is share the things that have kept me alive all these years.

So what kind of bus does your buddy have? Maybe we have some things in common.

[gyrocrasher]

If I am running rain, I always ride my brakes until they are dry and keep them dry, sometimes that can be as often as every 1/2 mile or so in a serious downpour, but if you have to stop, and the brakes are wet, you will travel well more than 1000 feet before you get any brake action and then it will only be from the one that got dry first so its hard to say what direction they will pull you in.


I need enlightened here. Do you mean the actual braking action (mechanical) takes a thousand feet, or there is no slowing of the vehicle for a thousand feet? In either case, I suspect I would have collided with several thousand objects by now if this were so. Sorry if I sound rude, but this just doesn't seem right. I never "dry" my brakes in the rain, and have yet to hit anything. M

[Lonnie time to go]

timetogo40   is adding sugar

[NJT 5573]

BW,

Trying to help,

Think the bus that swaped ends was a retarded MCI with ABS, we all talked about it here. Colorado if I remember right, believe I went back and read the official DOT report. Should'nt have happened, but it did.

If its raining the procedure for wet brakes is to just test them, if they don't come on they are wet and you can dry them out by riding them until they heat up and start working.

The way a retarder, weather Jacobs, Cat, Allison or Thelma can lock the wheels and kill the engine in the ice is when the amount of traction is less than the braking power being applied to the drivers, they stop turning. The engine is working in a reverse torque application and a retarder will just kill the engine by stopping the rubber from turning if there is no traction.

I can get specific about vintage but its all about the same since the crash in Colorado was ABS anyway so no great saving issues there in this case. One advantage with service brakes in the ice is they will spread the brake force to all wheels and a retarder is specific to the drivers, but service brakes can easily lock the rubber up to and I also have used a Jake on the ice with good results, you just gotta have a feel for it. The Jake manual used to say no Jake in the ice, but that may have been before we had jakes that you could control the number of cylinders being retarded.

Sure hope this helps you.

[NJT 5573]

Gyro,

If you take a 7 inch brake shoe or two, (there are 2 on each wheel) and hold it in your hand it will help you understand this. It is a large brake shoe and if it is wet, you must dry both shoes and the drum before you will have any stopping power. I thought about the 1000 feet statement before I made it and it is not out of line for wet brakes, thats only a little more than 3 football fields and at 50 or 60MPH in heavy water, you will indeed be lucky if the brakes dry and start working in that distance. They won't even begin to dry until friction starts to put some heat into them and that takes some distance. Believe me 1000 feet ain't much with wet brakes and its probably not even enough. At 60MPH 1000 feet is not very many seconds. Lets get BW to figure it out!

[RJ]

At 60MPH, 1000 feet is not very many seconds. Let's get BW to figure it out!

At 60 mph you're covering 88 ft/second, so it will take you 11.36 seconds to travel 1000 feet.

Reaction time alone at 60 mph will knock off 66 feet, and another 66 just for the air brakes to come on after you touch the pedal, so now you've only got 868 feet to get it stopped.

If you're maintaining a proper space cushion in front of you at 60 mph, then you've got 528 feet of space in front of you, too, leaving just 340 feet to go before you smack the wall.

That's about 10 - GM 4104s or 4106s to crunch up into aluminum cans if your brakes are wet.

NJT - Clear as mud??   Or are my math skills a little bassakwards?   

FWIW & HTH. . .

[Diesel_Gypsy]

RJ

Did you figure in how much quicker you will stop with the Jakes on? If the Jake switch is on (as mine usually is), as soon as you lift your foot from the throttle pedal the Jake will, almost instantly, do it's part to slow you down. 
Also Jakes don't care how wet it is outside!

NJT 5573

As far as my personal info goes, I'll be putting up some pics etc. when I get some time (and figure out how to do that).

Your experience is awesome! Over 5 million miles (you said), and according to your info page you are only 58. Now, let me do the math. . . . 5 million miles at 100,000 miles per year would equal 50 years right? So that means you started driving commercially when you were 8 years old!! Wow! They wouldn't let me get my "Chauffeur's license" as they called it back then, until I was seventeen!

Too bad that, in all those miles you never stopped to help anyone out (again - what you said). Maybe that's why you have so many more miles than me, because I've stopped to help people countless times! I think that's what it's all about, helping people along the way!

Later. . .
Jim

[TomC]

When I was in 9th grade, took a Eagle 1 series to Mammoth-the bus was packed with people and sky equipment-heavy.  I remember climbing the grade coming out of Bishop in second gear.  Then on the return trip, instead of blasting down the hill, the driver slowed on the flat and down shifted back to 2nd gear and went down the hill.  Near the bottom, he let it loose and we quickly got up to 85 mph and then just basically coasted the rest of the way into Bishop.  If you don't have a Jake brake, you go down the hill in the same gear you came up for maximum braking.

If you don't have a Jake brake and are going into Canada or west of Interstate 25, have one installed.  In 21 years of over the road driving, always had a Jake.  A couple of times did experience no Jakes from electrical problems, and can say would not like driving without them and smoking the brakes all the time.  Good Luck, TomC

[prevost82]

Well I have to agree with Diesel Gypsy on the use of Jake's. I live in Merritt BC, there's not a road out of here that doesn't have a min. 6% grade and they go for miles. I drive the bus during the winter a lot over these mountain passes, as  the bus is my mobile office and living quarters.

I would rather use the Jake's on snow or ice, than the brakes any day. I find the brakes can grab if they aren't warmed up in cold weather and you are also braking all 6 wheels, this can put you in a slide and can be scary. Using the Jake's I have never had it slide as D_G said the worst that can happen is one wheel will slide, with all the other wheels turing keeping the bus in a straight line. In extreme ice conditions I start the Jake's in low then switch it into high.

I don't understand the comment that you can stall the engine using Jake's on ice. As soon as the engine RPM reaches 700 to 800 RPM the Jake's disengage ...

This subject has come up before about not using Jake in snow ... I guess some of these so called experts should contact the 100+ logging truck drivers that live here, that are driving on narrow snow and ice roads (6 months a year) with 12% to 14% grades that can go on for miles with 80,000 + lbs load on a super B, that they shouldn't use their Jake's ... that would get a good laugh