Kluckraft wrote:
Thanks. I do have an exhaust brake which helps a lot, and I have hade the pads and air recently checked. The problem I have is on long, steep descents the brakes get very hot (smoking hot), and begin to fade. This is with the exhaust brake on and in low gear. I was wondering if maybe there are any enhancements I could make. Perhaps high performance brake pads etc. thanks again,
Ken
Ken
It's certainly not my place here to tell you, or anyone on here how to drive or, ascend or descend hills or grades. We all learn through either practical experience or maybe some qualified teachers of some sort. But, with all that being said, and based on just how you stated and described your issue(s), it kind of sounds like you may be approaching some of your grades/hills with too much speed and, you're having to work your rig too hard to slow it down.
Again, not chastising you here, just trying to assess your situation and trying to help with a possible solution. On certain hills/switch backs/grades etc. our brakes start to heat up a tad too. As you do, I also use the exhaust brake as much as possible. If a grade is long and steep enough on the descent, I kind-a do like the truckers do and just put it in a lower gear at the top, let the e-brake do it's thing and, I just put the 4-way flashers on and slowly go down the grade.
As much as I drove fire trucks for over thirty years, again, it's not my place to tell you what you may be doing wrong, if anything. Sometimes brakes just heat up, it's a fact of life. We all do as much as possible to minimize that but, sometimes, it can't be helped. That's why they make them replaceable.
One of the nice items we had on our fire trucks was called, a "Telma" retarder. No, it's not a transmission retarder. It's an electromagnetic, non-contact auxiliary braking system. Now, you talk about some stopping power, it don't get any better than that.
Basically it's two disc brakes, mounted on the differential/drive shaft. And, there's a double set of huge coils mounted on a stationary mount, within approximately 1/16th of those rotating discs. We have a lever on the dash. It's about 5" long and four detents in its movement. Pull that lever down one detent and you start to feel the "extra" braking take effect. Move it another detent and you feel quite a bit more.
Move it to the third detent and you're slowing at a pretty fair rate. Move it to the fourth detent and you're almost against the steering wheel. And, like stated, there's absolutely no contact, no friction of any type and yet, you're slowing down like you're on the service brakes with some gusto. The only issue is, it takes some serious amps to activate that retarder. Now, couple that Telma retarder with a fully active, 3-stage Jake brake and, you have some phenomenal braking power and, you never touch the service brakes until you're at about 3 mph or lower.
So, anyway, maybe a slower approach to the grades and, using lower gears against the e-brake may help. I'm not sure you can do anything to your stock brakes to enhance their operation. There are different compounds which will be more gummy and have different coefficient of friction but, not sure if you'd want those or not.
When we tried those on the FD, they wore out pretty quickly. Anyway, good luck on your endeavor to improve your braking capability.
Scott
