Caging Bolts... Do you have any on your truck?

[Waterloo]

Hey guys, hope my experience helps someone. I'm broke down, and waiting for a service truck... Took the truck and trailer (company trailer) in for a DOT inspection. Truck was fine, trailer had a bad air line spring so we replaced it. Well, the idiot that put the new spring on did not properly secure it. This is an actual mechanic, supposedly, so I did not think of crawling under the trailer in their greasy ass shop or in the piss filled parking lot to inspect the damn spring. How hard is it to properly secure a spring?

Anyways, the damn spring came lose on my way to the airport last night to meet a plane with critical freight for Chrysler. I almost made it, 4 miles to go and the air buzzers are going off. I pulled over at my get off ramp and found the trailer airlines dragging the ground. Two holes in the hoses, electrical cable wiped out. I nursed her into the truck stop at the exit to get off the road, 300 yards at a time... I grabbed a wrench and dove under the trailer and guess what? Only one caging bolt on one brake can. The other three were GONE!

So, take a look at your brake cans and make sure the caging bolts are there... And I bet I can guess where the bolts are that should be on this trailer, in some shops garbage can... Check your brake cans.

I'll be purchasing some caging bolts and throwing them in my tool bag.

O'Rielly Automotive Stores carry them, $3.69ea or you can order from here @ $4.75ea http://www.ryderfleetproducts.com/haldex...-p-u55-rt1

Oh, I have them on my tractor cans, but I have not yet lost enough weight to shimmy under there!

[ynot]

I've got 3 or 4 of them in the truck, anytime I get a new brake pot put on I take the bolt off an throw it in the tool box. I started doing that after one cold rainy day in a muddy parking lot, when I had a leaking membrane inside the pot so I went to cage the brake and the bolts were all seized on the truck so I then went back to the trailer crawling around in The muck and ran into the same problem thankfully I managed to get one of the 4 loose with alot of pounding with the ol hammer. I saod never again will I have that problem lol

[gearhead]

Don't leave them on the brake chambers you will never get them out when needed alum and steel creates prosity. I have seen this split the brake chamber do to this reaction.

[Waterloo]

The lone one I had in the can slipped right out... Just the fact that there were none there is what pissed me off. The guy that put the cans on a few months back could have at least given them to me. Stupid me never asked for them. I will buy some and throw them in my tool bag where they will be safe... ;-)

[Hammerhead]

Unless it's your own equipment and all you do is run I-10 from FL to CA, you should always carry a set of (4) caging bolts in your toolbox. After a few years anywhere the weather dictates the use of de-icing materials, getting the caging bolts out of the can will be harder than Johnny getting Marilyn Monroe as a last minute guest on the Tonight Show this week...