Can someone explain these brake canister bolts to me?

[Floridianson]

If you havent seen the movie "Anchor Man" not a whole lot. That guys name is Brick, and he never really knows whats going on. At the moment, thats me.

Yea no worries that can happen. I feel the main thing here is safety and if you read between my lines then all of our tow bars should not be used. We are not the military and can be sued. The tow bar tm if I rember right was 25 mph. I would rather see them put on a trailer. There is to many things that can happen when on the tow bar. Every tow is different everything that goes wrong can cost us lives.

 

[98G]

Since I have at least one person's attention I'll continue to ramble about air brakes.

Let me play Murphy, I am uniquely qualified.

Scenario - someone less fortunate than the OP picked up 2 trucks and connected them via the appropriate towbars and chains and lights. He's driving back on I-10 during rush hour. There's a long steep hill on I 10 a little bit east of Fontana. Just as he reaches 65mph on the downhill side of the hill his compressor fails and his air pressure rapidly falls to zero. Traffic is at a standstill at the bottom of the hill.


Scenario 1 - before he left the GL yard he caged all the brakes on both trucks for no apparent reason. (Just to clarify, NOBODY is advocating this. Not me, not James, not anybody. This is just the worst case scenario. ). This doesn't end well. He stands on the brakes and nothing happens. Both trucks continue to accelerate downhill. Maybe he thinks to downshift and pull the park brake and maybe not. Doesn't much matter if he does or not. That one little cable brake isn't going to do much with a combined weight of 45,000 lbs or so. The trucks stop when he impacts something substantial, or perhaps he maneuvers sharp enough to overturn. Nothing good comes of this.

Scenario 2 - towed truck's brakes were caged prior to leaving the GL yard, but towing truck's brakes were not. Driver finds out about his loss of air when the spring brakes engage on the towing vehicle. The towed vehicle is unbraked. The combined 45,000 lbs is a lot to ask the towing truck's spring brakes to stop, especially downhill and already at 65mph. Stopping distances are greatly increased, resulting in impact. Or maybe we blow the locked up tires on the towing vehicle. This doesn't end well either. (I'd welcome further conjecture on how this one ends).

Scenario 3 - no cage bolt are in place prior to leaving GLs yard. Our driver becomes aware of his air loss when his springbrakes engage on both the towing and the towed vehicle. He's stopped in traffic and generally a nuisance to everyone around. Many people are making obscene gestures at him, and his vocabulary is greatly expanded , especially obscenities. Eventually CHP comes along and adds insult to injury by adding some tickets and an enormous tow bill. But everybody lives to tell the tale and this becomes a story he tells to convince others to have their MVs trailered for recovery....

 

[Floridianson]

98g guess there could be many case's when we tow with a bar. I never liked it and butt was always tight and I trusted the tow bar even though we have had two tow bars break on the board. It is such a hard call what is best to tow a air brake system truck that we don't know the condition of the rubber/air system. Even if we supply emergency air what about rusted out tanks or lines that blow on the tow.
Guess that is why there is insurance. Lets do another one. We don't cage the cans but along the way down the highway or right in the middle intersection we were not watching the air gages well enough and the tow gets it parking brake. Another would be we don't cage tow bar breaks chains hold we apply light brake and able to come to stop. Another. No cage tow bar breaks chain fail truck goes off to left or right and as soon as the air in the tow get to 60 it locks up and if the truck is still with the wheels on the ground the spring brakes bring it to a stop like you said it would do. But it still rolled 100 feet before the springs kicked in. Another. Tow bar 809 series no air brakes highway 50 mph and a bump sends the tow front end up and it gets light and the front wheels cock hard to one way or another. There are so many things we could add or change in every case and most work out real bad. Yes for safety and in a court of law it would be better to show the brakes were not caged and we did everything correct. You know how that goes we do our best but $h!t still happens. Could we be safe with only caging one bad can and hope the rest are in good shape? I would guess so but I am guessing and not really in control.
I have used the 816 and done a lift tow and still had a tight butt. I think I am in control but I am just fooling myself and that is why I myself stopped towing with a tow bar and myself will never tow bar anything again. That and did not want to pay the insurance as it cost more than the trucks most of the time and if you don't work the truck everyday the insurance would kill you.
Well guess you get my side of it that there are 100 different ways that might go wrong with a tow bar tow. That is not good oddes

Forgot I talked to my friend Steve yesterday that put me to work helping him with all his trucks that we had towed in in one year. He said it was about 100k each year paid to the towing company we used. He ran his company for 10 years. ouch I could retire on that.