Yes, that was a possibility, but I have zero experience with this truck; the TM's are about 6,000 pages total. In the future, I'll learn how to do that, but sitting on a trailer with a pissed off Russian truck driver scowling at me wasn't the time to try to figure it out. Most importantly, we needed a way to slow the truck coming off the trailer, and blocking open the brakes would have turned the truck into a 40,000 pound bowling ball.
some smarts has to be used when caging brakes. you don't back them all the way off. just enough to where it takes some grunting from the pulling vehicle to get it to move. i had to tow log truck that had his pole trailer racked up and his compressor took a crap. we only had to go bout a 1/2 mile. i put my truck in 4 low, and kept the chain tight, till the log truck started to groan from within the drums. we backed off just a tad more and started our trip home. was it safe, yea, if i got off the throttle, the truck stopped. was it legal, not by any means, but we accomplished the mission. it was either than, or go get the skidder and drag it that way, but regardless, the brakes would have needed to be caged.
as for the ruskie, its not like he was gonna go anywhere. the hauler can get mad all they want, iv been there, but reality, a quick search of the -10 might have taken 5-10 min at most, and even with the language barrier, pointing at pictures usually works pretty well and can convey the needs to get the jobs done.
as wheel spinner said, knowledge is power, and you knew several days ahead about the manuals, bc someone mentioned them to you in your thread on batteries for the truck. before i bought my 936a2s, i had most of the manuals, and made sure to get the -10 and had read the pertinent sections several times.
do i know everything about my tck? NO. iv had to ask several questions already. do i know everything about the acft i work on? NO. iv got 17 yrs on 1 specific acft, and I'm still learning stuff about it, and about the manuals.
just getting into the manuals prior to, working on something, or getting it delivered or even buying it, can go a long ways when a shtf moment arrises.
the main thing is, you got your truck home, got it offloaded and now digging into it to see what is not ticking. you aren't to far from me, so if you need some help, give me shout and if I'm home and not bowed up like a cut worm, i can swing down and give you hand. once my truck is road safe, and you need help with a heavy lift on your truck, i'll drive it down.