M923 air brake work arounds....

[quarkz]

Woo Hoo!
My M923 was picked up by the hauler today and will be delivered tomorrow.

Bad news was the driver says he wasn't able to build enough pressure to release the air brakes. So the drivers says they lifted the rear of the truck with a forklift and steered the M923 up onto the step-deck. This confuses me because the front wheels should still be locked.

Anyway here are the fixes I have ready to relieve the brakes to just get the truck off loaded from the step deck. Once off and the drive away there is plenty of time to fix the truck and drive it down the road to my house.

1) Is to start the truck, listen for buzzer to go out, and see if it builds air pressure.
a) If not then check that the stop cocks for all four of the air drains are closed.
b) Check that the valves at the glad hands are all closed.
c)Cycle the hand brake and see if the parking brake light goes out.
d) Use the spring brake bypass button on the dash and see if I can only operate only via hand brake,

2) If air pressure doesn't build hook glad hands between the M923 emergency and the M813A1 service air ports and see if I can pressurize the air tanks enough to get the brakes to release.

3) With the parking brake applied and wheel chocks in place, cage the springs and operate using only the hand brake.

4) If hardware is missing and I am unable to cage the brakes, call a semi-wrecker and have the truck lifted off of the step-deck.

Any other helpful insight on how to get the M923 off of the step deck?

 

[wreckerman893]

Sounds like you have it covered.

The front brakes don't usually lock up when there is no air on the system.

You need to check for damage on the rear axle...when they lifted the truck they may have damaged the air chambers....I have see it before on trucks loaded or moved around by GL forklift operators.

 

[scoutmanadam]

your plan 2 might work if you have air hoses long enough to reach on to the trailer, if not cage the brakes, if you are having it dropped off on the lower road to your driveway that is not that far and no traffic.

 

[Beerslayer]

Well, she's a pretty one. And like most pretty girls, she doesn't really have to work. Just look good!

 

[quarkz]

Adam, that lower road is the planned area for drop off.
Kind of a valley that way it can't roll to far.
I am making up glad hands with pneumatic air tool quick disconnects so that i will have a pretty long air line in between.

You working tomorrow? Diver said his schedule was uncertain, but that he'd call once he reached Ellensburg. Wanna come play? Maybe the rain will dry up by then.

 

[scoutmanadam]

i am free tommorow, just let me know, i need to show you those bows anyway and its always fun to check out your fleet

 

[sandcobra164]

I'd position the step deck in such a manner that I had plenty of room behind me, chock the wheels, cage the rear brakes, secure a 20 foot chain to one of the front shackles and the rear of the trailer, remove wheel chocks, start truck, bump it into reverse just to get it moving, ease off the step deck, go to neutral once truck is rolling and then go to drive just long enough to stop the truck and the chain would be my "emergency" brake.

 

[M35A2-AZ]

The front brakes do not have spring brakes on them.
I would try to get air from the Semi truck or get an air compressor to air the truck up or Cage the brakes.

Good luck and be safe with the brakes gaged!!

 

[Castle Bravo]

Its also possible that the driver doesn't know how to work the brakes. Maybe he was hitting the button on the dash instead of releasing the parking brake between the seats.

 

[wsucougarx]

Hmm, that doesn't make any sense. Tony (GL) drove your truck from the DRMO side to the GL side. I'm sure it's just the hauler's error.

 

[quarkz]

Let's just hope that it was all human error and that they didn't damage anything loading it.
The wind here has rally ramped back up.
I just hope the precipitation has passed to the east.
Thanx for the support and suggestions.

 

[quarkz]

Problems in the passes today, so delivery has been postponed until Monday.
At least it isn't running out the clock sitting on the GL site......
Guess I will have to wait to see what type of deal the GL folks have sold me.

 

[srodocker]

oh tony you and your toys...like i said send one my way. i need a 5 ton in my yard.

 

[wsucougarx]

Gees that would kill me. I think I'd be firing up the 813 and grabbing a tow bar

 

[mudman]

The Drivers have the "Maxi's"..There are no maxi's on the front or "Steer" axle.

 

[mudman]

By the look of his picture he looks like he has gotten to close the "Handford" a few time!!!!

 

[wsucougarx]

Lol, I think thats where he works.

 

[mudman]

That explains it..!!!

 

[quickfarms]

You can get the caging bolts at a good truck parts house for about $5 each, the ones on the cans tend to be rusted in place and a pain to remove. The issue could be simple, the truck driver should have found the simple things unless he did not have parts handy.

 

[quarkz]

Good things come to those who wait?????

So Marc from SnortnBoar Transport (Shipping Wars) showed up today after lunch with my M923 on board. He is a great guy. He was willing to make the trek up to my property, over a gravel road and into some pretty tight quarters.

So let the fail blog begin,...

First I tried jumping the truck to get the motor running, so the air compressor could fill the tanks. I really thought I had that one covered with the super long slave cable (see pic of passenger side M813 front bumper). But my Slave to NATO adapters were the wrong sex (female NATO to male slave I needed female slave or a NATO cable) on the non-NATO end. So I repositioned the M813 and tried to use the medium duty jumper cables out of my pick-up. But that seemed to do no good and the cables became quite warm after a few starting attempts.

So on to idea #2. I attached two glad hand hoses together, the ones I use when I slave 5 tons for towing. Then connected the Emergency source on the M813 to the service on the M923. But this only built the M923 air pressure up to 30 PSI. And for the record all of the bleed and glad hand valves were closed. I was going to try and connect it to the M923s Emergency air circuit. But when GL loaded it with the fork lift they snapped the elbow pipe for the rear Emergency glad hand on the tank side of the shut off valve. (see pic) So the slave air idea was abandoned.

Will someone mind schooling me on the proper way to try and charge the air tanks and then operate the air brakes without the engine running?

Onto idea #3. I started caging the springs on the two rear axles. (3/4" wrench just for the record) With wheels chocked I crawled under the truck and thought I was finally gonna win. The caging bolts, nuts and washer came out of their housings with little work and there was plenty of room to spin a wrench. So the the rear axle was cages in a matter of minutes.

But such was not the case on the middle axle. Both of those bolts were missing nuts and washers and one air brake assembly was missing the rubber dust plug. No biggie I thought. I will just extract the caging bolt and go dig up some nuts and washers. But the steel bolt in the aluminum housing must have corroded and been packed with dirt as it faces forward and probably gets packed with muck every time the truck leaves the pavement. I was unable to force them from their storage tubes. There wasn't enough room to swing a hammer to knock them out of there storage holders.

But as luck would have it, Marc the driver, said that his buddy had given him some spares to keep in his rig. So after he dug through his storage locker I was back in business with two new bolts. They were quickly installed.

Note: If you are going to own a rig with air brakes buy a full set of extras and keep them in your parts kit.

I hopped in the driver's seat. Marc removed the wheel chocks.
I quickly tested the drive shaft parking brake and the truck inched its way backward. After checking that the path was clear, I feathered the hand brake and rolled the truck of the backward off of the deck and rolled to a stop a the end of my drive.

Marc backed his rig out of the way. I backed the M813 into place and attached the towbar. Then pulled the M923 up next to the shop so that could begin to sort the truck out.

I got a picture of Marc next to the M923 and then said my goodbys. Marc made the trip for $2.75 a loaded mile. He let me keep the Caging Bolts, and put up with me for almost 3 hours as I tried to unload the M923. Marc had relatives in the area and wasn't planning on heading back until tomorrow. His base of operations is in the Seattle area, where he has a yard and he has dealt with scheduling thru GL many times. I mentioned that he needs to make friends with a wrecker service then he can remove non-running GL loads offsite before the 10 day period and the move them at his leisure. Now he is looking for a load to the Nellis area as he has a few loads from there that need to come from GL there, back this way.

Here a shameless plug and his contact info, or request a bid from him thru U-ship if you have something to move in the Pacific North West.
Marc Springer, marc@snortnboartransport.com 425-275-1529.
Marc said he got picked up for another season (40 episodes???) on Shipping Wars and has a Canadian firm building him a RGN trailer with drop axle in trade for product placement on the show. Sounds like a sweet deal.

For the GL forklift damage record books... schedule a load out on a day that Tony works. That wasn't Friday when Marc picked up my truck. Damage ala GL... Broken glad hand, crushed driver's brake light and dented sheet metal on the rear drivers side of the bed where the truck slipped off the forks.

All in all not to bad. I got a nice truck for 1/10 the price GL say the military paid for it. The ten 11.00 x 20, G177 tires are almost new, and the spare is untouched. Carc was re-applied May 2010. And with the auto-transmission I don't have to worry about the space between door and the steering wheel to operate the clutch. In the pics the M813 looks bigger than the M923.

So why the heck do we do all of this again? We must truly be insane.....

And yes I used to work in the 300 area of the Hanford site, but as part of the clean up effort I got a new underground clean room/experimental hall to shield us from the cosmic rays.... that is what made the hair change colors...