M1078 air brakes

[cattlerepairman]

Guys I can’t express enough gratitude for the advice and sincere concern for my safety. With your help I was able to successfully cage the spring and remove the air brake at the service diaphragm. In doing so I discovered that the whole housing was bent upward and the end of push rod was snapped off on the diaphragm side. It looks like a whole new unit is $500 ish but I’m not sure what I’ll do about the push rod. I’m attaching some pictures. The last 2 pics are of the end of the push rod.

I am glad @SUBARUMAFIA you got the spring brake chamber caged and the "pancake" on the service brake chamber replaced. The push rod on a new chamber is over length and needs to be shortened for your application. The instructions on "how to" either come on a sheet with the new pot or are available online from the manufacturer. The shortcut taken by some is to cut the pushrod to the same length as the old one was. That "might" work but assumes a few things that may or may not be set correctly on your rig.
It is important to get this right because the ability for the brake chamber to do its job depends on you being able to attach the slack adjuster to the push rod at the right angle to give it full travel and the push rod not hitting anything on extension that it shouldn't.

There are some helpful youtube videos.

Where I live, you are not allowed to operate a full air brake equipped vehicle without having an air brake endorsement on your driver's licence, regardless whether the vehicle is for personal use or commercial. That means, taking an air brake course is mandatory. You are also not allowed to adjust or repair air brakes, even on your own vehicle, without proof of training for doing the same. Yes, people do it, but they also know that they would be held solely and fully responsible for anything that happens as a consequence of f**king up a brake job on a multi-ton rig.

 

[SUBARUMAFIA]

Ok, progress report. It took some hammering but I got it apart. Business end was pretty bent so I had to use the BFH on it. Now to find a new one and figure out this pushrod business.