Location: Medford, OR (204.10.247.1) | Has anyone checked their tire temps with an infrared gun like me? I've been out a few times this year, usually, and unfortunately the ambient outside temps were in the high 90's and even 100 degrees on travel days. HOT. I run the original 17" bias 8 ply tires like a lot of other owners out there...
70 psi in the rears, temps averaged 145 degrees.
60 psi in the steers, temps averaged 155 degrees.
#850 rolls incredibly smooth (like a caddy) when cruising down the highway at 60 mph. That's even with 20-25?? year old shocks.
Now, the reason I pulled the temp gun out on my last couple trips, was because of a stupid thing I did (I'll explain)...My first trip of the season, around June, I was not liking my brake feel, they were unusually stiff/fading/unresponsive as I approached a stop sign? Hmm..AND they were pulling ever so slightly to the right...(I completely rebuilt all the hydraulic system for the brakes going on four years ago this month, but 98% of the last four years, 850 sat in the driveway as I fixed all the other things getting it ready for the road).
S000...on this first trip of the year, after I got to the RV park, I checked the brake fluid in the MC, and the reservoir for the front brakes was a touch low, now I know I have a leak somewhere, but don't see any signs of one....I figured that maybe I'll adjust them up a bit tighter for the drive home? Couldn't be anything else...Right? (I tell myself in denile), so on to traveling back home, probably a 100 mile jaunt, I stopped just before the only down grade I had to deal with, 6% for 8-9 miles, about 30 miles from home, and jacked up the front end and checked brake adjustment, well I didn't find either brake out of adjustment? They were actually adjusted up pretty tight, and "maybe" I clicked them and click tighter??? (dumb a$$ move)......so right then and there I knew it was time to pull wheels and do a visual on the brakes...BUT I got to get her home first! Everything was really hot under the coach, the rear brakes seemed a bit hot too, it was 98 degrees out too...F'n hot. I didn't try and adjust them because I could tell they were already adjusted up pretty tight...too tight. I cruised down the 6% grade with ease...only had to touch the brakes two maybe three times and maintained a nice 50-53 mph's...all good I thought..I had to make a couple turns at some stop signs etc, and I began to smell brake? The pulling to the right was getting more pronounced too...I'd roll up to stop sign and to really press hard on the pedal before she would stop...(I knew 850 wasn't going to leave the driveway until I found the problem). So I parked 850 in front of my house, left the engine running, I had to move a car out of my driveway before I could back 850 into it's parking spot, well as I was getting the keys so I could move the car, I heard Pssssssshhhhhhhhhhh! I thought "What the hell was that???" I looked out to where 850 was setting, and noticed the front end was practically sitting on the ground!! Holy $hit! one of the front tires just blew! Never in my life had I seen that. A tire blow just setting idle, after you just parked it. Well I got the jack, and rolled out a spare wheel/tire combo I have from behind the shop, jack it up expecting to find a bolt or something that maybe I parked on top of? After getting the wheel off the ground, I could barely turn the wheel...I could smell strong brake smell, and low and behold NO bolt or anything on the exterior of the tire that I could see. I put the spare on and backed 850 in the driveway, I was wearing thick leather gloves when I changed the tire, and I rolled the flat tire into the back yard, when I took the leather gloves off, grabbed the flat tire to move it out of my way, and DAM!! It was smoking hot!! I knew right their, that I eff'd up on adjusting these brakes, over compensating for different internal brake problem that it REALLY has, and I created a ton of brake drag and HEAT, I will never know if the hot ambient 105 degree at my house, heat soaked the front hot wheel/brake while it sat there? or if it would of blown driving down the road? I think it heat soaked. The rolling wind cooled it just enough to stay afloat... So anyway I pulled that brake apart and found the brake wheel cylinders pistons were corroded and sticking. I rebuilt both steer axle brakes, the front right was the leaker. Soooo remembering an old thread written by Lesly R.I.P, I went back and searched the archives and found what he had wrote about brake adjustment on the FMC, FIVE clicks out!! I had mine 2 maybe 3 out, TOO TIGHT, like I said, over compensating for another issue.
So, I wasn't going to tell anyone this (because of my stupidity on this issue), But I want others to maybe think twice about "tightening" up them brakes to "maybe get a little more out of them"...
AND before anyone says anything about "That wasn't safe to drive" or "I'm glad I wasn't on the road when you were" blah blah blah...
I was born and raised in the heavy equipment transportation world, I've driven almost everything HEAVY you can imagine, regularly pounded down the big highways, back roads, steep logging roads, high upon cliffs, next to ponds and rivers, your back yard....you name it.... in 105 THOUSAND pound monsters..I'm very educated on safe distance driving and being aware of my surroundings, and I'm not afraid to drive anything. With or without brakes, or even without a clutch cable at times...Sometimes you got to reach down and pull the throttle pedal back up because it starts sticking??? You get the point...
I didn't spend a ton of time editing this, I hope it reads ok.
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