Truckers, lets see your rigs!

x2 on the brakes. Honestly, air drums as mentioned are the least problematic thing on a truck and one of the easiest things to troubleshoot. Turn the radio down, push down brakes, listen for massive leak, locate chamber.

I over simplified it but I would certainly not let air drums be a deciding factor on a truck whatsoever. I would find something that you like and repower it with something worth having in the truck if the engine is the ONLY thing you don't like about one you have your eye on. If you plan to rebuild the mechanicals then I would be shopping for something relatively undesireable engine wise and shopping for a repower.
 
Air drum brakes are so Cheap to replace an easy to repair. Crazy not to run em. I put a rear clip off an 08 kW on my 94 w9l with disc brakes and love it.
 
We have a local food grade tanker hauler that runs all air discs. Mix of company trucks and brokered loss those trailers see 350-500k on a set of pads. Unreal


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The only reason IMO to go with hydraulic would be if your trying to stay under CDL but he's not going to do that with a trailer so I would go with what most trucks in that class are using. When you start going with odd ball stuff your back to being broke down on a Friday and waiting 4 days for parts. You blow a 22.5 or a lose a wheel bearing in BFE and have standard HD parts your rolling in a few hrs.

After dealing with Freightliner on parts for a FL70 I would run from one. Never will you get what you ordered on the first try and nothing is in stock anywhere. Tried door latches and A/C condenser. Took almost 2 weeks to get the right parts.

Needed a firewall to engine harness for a 2012 114SD Freightliner dumptruck. If it was a Paccar truck it is a one day item. But with FL they're made to order and takes weeks.
 
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will24 said:
We have a local food grade tanker hauler that runs all air discs. Mix of company trucks and brokered loss those trailers see 350-500k on a set of pads. Unreal


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I've heard the same. Had a 2013 W9 in the shop that had over 450k on original pads.
 
Emergency stops on hyd brakes are also not the best. There's quite a delay from the time you press the petal hard in panic stop until brakes actually apply.

Pride and Class at a local dealer, specd with a Paccar engine:

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jfaulkner said:
I'm not sure about a lot of that. On the MD trucks we see with hydraulic brakes, they are problematic. Same as pickups with calipers sticking and rotting brake lines. On our semi's brakes are the least problematic thing and cheap. When you run what 99% of what every semi on the road runs you never have a hard time finding parts. I'm assuming you want 99 to avoid the log book requirement? Personally I would rather cheat the logs than deal with 18yr old truck issues. 22.5's are better than the smaller stuff, last longer, easier to get. Good casings are worth $75 each where the 19.5's are worthless when they're worn out. It seems to me your trying to build a slightly heavier pickup instead of taking advantage of the benefits of a small semi.
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will24 said:
We have a local food grade tanker hauler that runs all air discs. Mix of company trucks and brokered loss those trailers see 350-500k on a set of pads. Unreal


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jfaulkner said:
I've heard the same. Had a 2013 W9 in the shop that had over 450k on original pads.
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HYD is common on class 5 and 50/50 on 6 trucks..plus less harassment from dot.. always in adjustment.. disc by design have less moving parts than drums..
Having ran both drum and disc in class 8, running PNW from Ohio and the north east.. it doesn't take much to smoke a set of drums at 80k.. disc on the other hand literally tried to smoke them.. pushed them a lot harder than drums and chickened out.. not to mention stopped substantially faster and in response is substantially faster.
Currently running 19.5 on my LMM replace them once a year right before winter.. usually get 100k plus before swapping... Something about fresh tires soothes my soul in the winter.. lol

Class 4 is 14-16k
Class 5 is 16-19.5k
Class 6 is 19.5-26k
Class 7 is 26-33k
Brakes aren't a deal breaker.. engine is.
99 older is log books
96 older no abs.

Running 19.5 allow me to run 31-35" hitch height which puts about the same height as deck height..
22.5 is 6-8" higher..
This was a KW 270 iirc at a local customer
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Class 6 is a small semi. IMO
 
I 75th the air brakes, I used to get 150k+ on a set of shoes but the mag chloride on the roads has cut that down a bit. Spring brakes are nice too

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What's wrong with buying a used class 8 axle an dropping it under a fl80? Like mentioned bearings, brakes, seals and drums are cheap imo for it. $100 a drum cad. Cheaper than a rotor for a car. $65 for one side brakes. My wife's g6 just cost me $120 for back brakes lol $100 if you do both bearings.
 
chevota84 said:
Spring/park brakes on an air drum setup.

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Gotcha, yeah definitely a benefit there especially on slick surfaces vs pinion/tailshaft parking brakes.

Pretty strong cons for a class 8 truck...tare weight is one, maneuverability is another... Not to mention overhead of operating cost increase.. I've yet to see on paper a class 7/8 truck operate less than 1.00 mile which is better part of double what I do know... And rate doesn't change just because I have a bigger truck. So I lose income.

A lot of class 6 trucks are derated class 7/8 chassis.. 10-12k/21k f/r axles..and truck is capped at 26k.. or a 10/17k axle setup
Class 8 brakes cheaper than a 4 wheeler....reason they are cheaper.... Volume.

I've carved out a nice niche market with the company I'm with.. being able to carry 35' and up to 20k worth of cargo.. and I don't have to "fight" our big trucks for loads if you will.. plus I don't "look" heavy

On one hand..I like being over built for what I do... On the other hand being so over built that it drastically hurts your bottom line isnt smart. Even more so if/when freight slows down or if/when fuel cost go up to the extent you can't operate....

3 years ago I was paying upwards of $4.00-$4.50 gallon of diesel in the north east. That ~$2.00 difference Evan At 10mpg that's a chunk of change that just gets rolled through your account.. when compared to today's fuel price avg which I'm seeing floating $2.25 range.
Reduce your mpg and that change gets bigger fast..

Would a class 8 be nice for the 800-1200 mile runs i do absolutely... reality is I'd say 75% of my runs are less than 450 miles one way. Class 8 is just too big/heavy/slow

you look at LTL companies... UPS/FedEx/abf/r&L, their OTR trucks are class 8 and their around town p&d trucks are class 5/6/7 straight and single axle trucks usually.... I do more regional/p&d than OTR work.

Currently my trailer grosses out at 29k which you really see my dually start to get winded at that weight. Especially running hills.
A 5/6 truck with a ~400hp MD engine with somewhere between OTR and P&D gearing, it would be about right on target and easily handle upwards of a 40k trailer. Or at least seams to be.
Side note for those that don't know.. 90s C3500 HD style truck is one of these that I'd repower with a Dmax/Allison. this one I did 4 years ago..
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A class 8 single axle would probably be fairly close on mileage to a 3500 and will beat anything in between. Operating costs will go down drastically operating at half the weight.

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This is what I run around in daily. 26,000lbs empty, legal for 40,000ish of load. 8.3L with a Allison 3000.


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I Ifta 10.x mpg right now.. our fleet avg is 5.5 mpg with mix of 15L cats, couple n14/isx15s, and couple 15L 60series Detroits.
That's a substantial jump in mpg just to break even.. mpg wise
 
malibu795 said:
I Ifta 10.x mpg right now.. our fleet avg is 5.5 mpg with mix of 15L cats, couple n14/isx15s, and couple 15L 60series Detroits.
That's a substantial jump in mpg just to break even.. mpg wise
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At 40k?

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chevota84 said:
At 40k?

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Best I ever saw was 8 mpg running van and empty or almost empty with a isx15 when I was in a semi..

I guy I know used to run flat bed for Mercer with a Detroit pull 7 avg. At 80k.

7 to 10 mpg is a ~50% increase in MPG that a big jump..
Not saying it's impossible... Just don't like the idea of drop 25k and then more to get mpg up..

Outside Loren's friend that custom ordered a class 8 truck for efficiency and gets 10mpg in single axle setup..
Heard of a guy in a fl70 with a ,8.3 hitting 10-11

Avg seams 7-8 at beast for a SA class 8 truck
 
Cummins610 said:
Triple 15's, electric/hyd
I rarely see 9mpg, usually 8.5-8.8 combined loaded 1 way and empty back, full emissions with DEF


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Apu as well?
Loaded both ways be high 7s?

I've day dreamed about a tandem 15k or triple 12k single wheel... step deck that could gross 40-45k
 
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