Steep Grades Stories

[rogue]

Phil, Thanks, I need to pick up that book.
Bob

[Redrover98]

This past week, June 12th we left Buffalo, Wy headed to Cody on Highway 16. The grade going up to the Powder River Pass was not that bad and the scenery was beautiful. But at about 8000 ft it started snowing and got worse as we continued to climb, then the wind really picked up. At around 9000 ft it got real hairy when we had a white out. I could not see the end of my hood. I had slowed down to less than 10 mph and had visibility back, when I felt the rear of the truck break traction. Fortunately I was able to stay calm and not hit the brakes. We we still climbing, the road had gotten icy and I did not want to give the Cummins any pedal for fear of spinning the tires. Suddenly the snow quit blowing and I was able to pull off into a recently cleared parking area. There was ice on the undercarriage of the Tana, on the rims of the truck and all over the sewer drain pipe. We took a few minutes to catch our breaths and change our underwear. We left the parking area, crested the mountain and then saw the yellow sign "8% down for next 17 miles" Gulp!!. By then the road was ice free and fairly dry. The Pac Brake paid dividends. The wife was ready to turn south and head back to the Keys. A snow white out in mid June..unbelievable.
Dee

[exav8tr]

Dee, We are in Cody now and will be going over that pass on Wednesday, Ihope the white stuff doesn't appear again.....

[Waynem]

Y'all can take all that white stuff and shovel it back up to Eskimo land!!!!

[Redrover98]

Phil & Cathy,
When you leave Cody and if you are heading east on 16/20 towards Greybull and then South on 16/20 there is a very pretty drive that is about 10 miles shorter. At Manderson take hiway 31 towards Hyattville, about 7 miles before Hyattville take the Norwood road South towards Ten Sleep. It is a paved two lane road, no traffic and very scenic. Also flat. By the way, the drive up Powder River pass is very pretty. Hopefully there won't be any white out.

Be safe,
Dee

[garyka]

OK. This is for you guys with Allison transmissions I just read the posts on steep grades because I just returned from the Virgina mountains and it was a white knuckle ride down the hills.I use the tow-haul mode and cruise ad it works great going up.I try and make sure when I reach the top of the hill I'm not going over 55mph.On the down side of a 7 degree hill about 6 miles long, my speed starts to pick up and I apply the brake and the tranny does it's job and drops a gear,but the speed starts to up again further down the hill,when applying the brake again the gear drops again sending the rpms close or into the red zone (white knuckles). Am I starting at the top of the hill to fast.
Any help in this area would be a great help
I Pull my monty with 2003 1-ton dually 6 speed auto Allison tranny

[Waynem]

Gary,
You can search on Google for "braking on steep grades" without the quotes and come up with a lot on this topic.

Here is what I do:
I use Tow Haul, or now Exhaust Braking, when the pavement is dry. As I'm cresting the top, I slow to the speed, or just below the speed that I want to descend at. Sometimes it may be necessary to use a lower gear. If the Tach goes to high, or the speed increases past my comfort zone, I firmly apply the brakes bringing the rpm's down and the speed down to the desired comfort zone again. Example: If I want to descend at 55 mph, I will crest the grade at 55 or 50. If the vehicle does not maintain the 55 mph, I will firmly apply the brakes to get to 50, or even lower. As the vehicle increases in speeed to past the comfort zone, I repeat the process.

I never "pump" the brakes, as that old time trick does not give the brakes time enough to cool off, whereas firmly applying and reducing speed considerably, allows more time for the brakes to cool off. If I notice any smell of brakes overheating, I will stop at a safe location on the side of the road and wait for a period of time, like 20-30 minutes, then start back on the journey.

Anyhow, that's what I do.

Edited: Before you begin to smell the brakes getting hot you will notice a difference in the application of the brakes. As the brakes start to "fade," it will require more pressure to apply the brakes to slow the vehicle. As the get hotter and hotter, the fade will become more pronounced until you can no long obtain an effect when applying the brakes, they just will not stop.

[Dave e Victoria]

Got two stories about steep grades. One from high school. I grew up in Wisconsin Bluff country along the Mississippi. One evening my dad told me to deliver two trailer loads of hay about five miles to the other side of the Rush River. I got out of milking so it was a real good deal. Hooked the two loads in Tandem behind our trusty John Deere and headed out. My first clue should have been when I had to unhook and pull each load separately to the top of a hill. I started down the other side with the whole load and jack-knifed about a third of the way down. I ended up buried under the front load of bales. My dad had to rescue me with a another tractor he borrowed from the neighbor. But, it was all worth it to get out of chores.

The other story is more recent. We had just bought our Cambridge and were still towing it with our 2500HD ( grossly over weight.) . We were headed to Pacifico on the CA coast south of San Francisco. I asked the GPS for directions and it took us on a route through a neighbor hood that included about six blocks of 19% downgrade. Luckily, there was a light or stop sign on each corner. I stopped at each corner and crept down in low range never exceeding 10 mph. Vikki had her feet on the dash as we "cruised" to the bottom. Like has been said, never completely trust the GPS.
Dave

[KathyandDave]

We just drove the north shore of Lake Superior on #17, westbound to THunder Bay and back east. There are some long, steep, curvy grades that we appreciated from both directions. Going uphill, I look at the grade and defeat the CC if it looks steeper than the engine can do with one gear drop, keeping the RPMs below about 3500. Downhill, I do what Waynem does - brake firmly as needed to get the speed down, assisted by engine breaking, then let it build slowly under engine braking to my target speed, then repeat. With our Duramax/Allison, I found that the engine brake was enough for grades of 5% or less. To get this to work well in Tow/Haul, I have to slow down to about 6mph/10kph less than my target speed before I start down the hill.

Sadly, there is a tight curve at the bottom of a long, steep grade where the fence is gone for a couple of hundred feet, replaced by police tape and a shrine. I noticed this peripherally as an a-hole trucker passed a car uphill toward us as I rounded the curve and I had to seriously brake our rig to let him complete his pass. I thank my lucky stars that I was operating the rig within its safe envelope, or I might have broken the police tape and our kids would have had to add another shrine.

[Bob Pasternak]

Downhill fast eh??? Well, back about 1963 I had only been driveing truck about 5 years or so and mostly on flat land. The guy I worked for in northern Indiana bought me a new International tractor. The model was a "Fleetstar" conventional. Also new 40' flatbed trailer. The tractor had a 6-71N 2 cycle Detroit Diesel with 238 HP. (My Dodge has more HP and torque than that Detroit) The tranny was a 5 speed direct with 3 speed rear ends. (twin screw) The truck was leased to an outfit out of NC called Hennis Frt. Lines. I loaded out of Youngstown, OH one time for Charlotte, NC and headed south. Got down around Charleston, caught the turnpike, took it to Bluefield where it ended. Got on rte 52 toward Mt. Airy, NC. On that trip, rte 52 went over Fancy Gap. I was following a couple freight haulers out of South Carolina and was as dumb and happy as if I knew what I was doing. The other guys had 4 axle units and balloon freight. I had more weight on the floor than they had on the ground. Got to the top of Fancy Gap in pretty good order. Some of the switchbacks one had to get over in the other lane to keep the trailer from falling off the edge. (There's a 5 ton limit on that stretch of road now.) Starting down is when it got really interesting. I started using my brakes; good idea.....for a while. It wasn't too long 'til I was going a little faster than I really wanted to. Things commenced getting a little hairy about that time. I wasn't getting any results from all the braking I was doing and going too fast to gear down. I popped the trailer valve to set those brakes, shut the fuel off, pulled the 'emergency shutoff' that shurs the air intake off on the 2 cycle Detroit. Stil gaining speed. I came to a construction area and it had been raining some and the place was all mud. I ran off into the mud and got stopped. The outside of the truck was almost as dirty as the inside of my shorts. I was a helluva lot smarter when I got to Mt. Airy than I was when I left Bluefield.
Gives meaning to the old adage: "You can go down a lot of hills too slowly; You'll only go down one too fast!"

[richfaa]

PA 30 East Breezewood to Gettysburg..My shinney new Ford 6.4L and 3400..what was I thinking of...Did not know a Diesel could make that kind of noise. T/H saved the day..

[Bob Pasternak]

Rich (faa) The time we were at the Goshen rally, 4 years ago I guess, we took rte 33 south out of Goshen all the way down to southern Ohio. Somewhere around Cadiz we caught rte US 22 and took it through Steubenville and on over to Irwin, PA. Caught 30 there on over to Gettysburg. We thought it was really a nice ride. The last time I'd been over that road was with a tractor/trailer in the late 50's. I was comming home(South Bend, IN) from Baltimore and I had just enough money for the PA Pike OR to eat. I chose to eat.

[corncob]

Let me get this conversation clear as I will be experiencing this soon. For those of us that have the Duramax w/ Allison Trannies, use the Tow Haul Mode going up and down steep grades? This lets the trans hold the speed? Only use the brakes to slow speed down to desired level.

Do you shift down to a lower gear, e.g. down to number 5 or 4 depending on downhill grade?

How about the Curise Control, e.g. use it?

Thanks for the response.
Regards

[Waynem]

Corncob,
Look at my second post on page 3 of this thread for one of "my" explanations
I believe it will apply to all vehicles and transmissions.

[sreigle]

The steepest grade we've towed was on Utah highway 12. We took this picture from the top of the grade but we towed UP the grade with a 2005 Ford F250 diesel automatic towing a 2003 3295RK scaled at 14,320 pounds. This stretch of highway was 4 miles long and curvy with a 35 mph speed limit. We were able to hold the speed limit (barely). I attempted to accelerate and it would verrrry slowly accelerate but temperatures also started climbing so I backed off. The truck was already running close to the limit I allow for temperatures, including EGT. I cannot remember the exact temperatures but they were safe. Barely. My biggest concern was what I would do if we didn't make it up the hill. This stretch of road had no place to turn around and backing up to 4 miles of curvy mountain road is not exactly a safe procedure. The road was a beautiful drive and I'd do it again.


As for lessons, I always left the gearshift in Drive and used tow/haul and let the transmission and engine do the work. On a really steep downhill grade I will occasionally apply a couple of seconds of brakes if speed is climbing. With this Dodge I also use the builtin exhaust brake. At 6% or less downgrades I have to occasionally give it some throttle since it slows us too much. Above 6% is like I said above, apply occasional brakes.

I don't know about other brands but on the Ford and Dodge my understanding is dropping the gearshift out of drive defeats the grade braking feature. I'm not sure it's still that way. Leaving it in drive and using tow/haul and exhaust brake work great for us.

[sreigle]

quote:Originally posted by Bob Pasternak

Rich (faa) The time we were at the Goshen rally, 4 years ago I guess, we took rte 33 south out of Goshen all the way down to southern Ohio. Somewhere around Cadiz we caught rte US 22 and took it through Steubenville and on over to Irwin, PA. Caught 30 there on over to Gettysburg. We thought it was really a nice ride.

Bob, we took that same route on our first trip with this Dodge. We started from the fairgrounds in Goshen. We bought the truck in Nappanee. I agree that's a really nice drive. There are some steep hills on 30 but they're not real long. Our destination also was Gettysburg.

[sreigle]

quote:Originally posted by FLSTS03

Thanks everyone for your stories and experiances.
A few more questions. Are most steep grades marked and normally can you find turn arounds/alternate routes. What would be the steepest grade you would attempt? I have the new Dodge tranny with a manual shift option. Would you suggest using that option on Steep grades?

Have the same tranny in our Dodge. It's an excellent and very smart transmission. On occasion I feel it's lugging and I'll manually downshift it a gear. It's probably my imagination since the Cummins runs a low rpm anyhow but it makes me feel better. Other than that I just let the transmission decide when to shift. It does a good job other than the times I mentioned.

As for how steep a hill would I take it? See my other post about the 14 percenter, 4 miles long. I did not expect that one so had no choice and no place to turn around. And the alternative road would have added many miles of backtracking and going around. Probably a coupld hundred miles. Anyhow, I would do that 14 percenter with this Dodge. The other time it was with the Ford F250.

Steep grades are **usually** marked but I don't recall any offering an alternative road or turnaround. If you want to scope out the grades in advance I recommend the East and West Mountain Directory. They don't cover all roads and states but have most. Surprisingly they don't show the 14 percenter on Utah highway 12. But I have the picture for proof. By the way, that 14 percenter was marked at the top, not at the bottom as we started up. I saw the sign in the mirror as we passed. After getting setup in our rv park we went back and looked at the sign. I wanted to know just how steep that darn hill is. We took the picture because I knew otherwise nobody would believe me.

I also leave cruise on if it was on prior to the grade, unless there's some reason I want to turn it off, like for upcoming curves or a desire to run a slower speed.

[padredw]

This interesting topic brings back memories of my very first towing experience. We had just bought a used Prowler Regal fifth-wheel (the model with the living room in the front, bedroom in the rear), and had a new Chevrolet 2500 gasoline engine. Our first trip was up to Queen Wilhelmina State Park near Mena, Arkansas. Our best route is up the very eastern side of Oklahoma to the intersection of the "Talamena Drive" which leads eastward to the state park in Arkansas. All seemed to be going well, but I had no experience of "anticipating" the steep grades and was driving along slowly as we started up one of those inclines. I have no idea of the percentage of grade, but I can tell you that for a moment or two I was not sure we were going to make it to the top. My speed dropped and the engine was in labor.

We did make it and settled into the very nice camping area at the park. Later on we got acquainted with some of our more experienced neighbors in the campground. I mentioned our experience with "that hill" and admitted that I was a bit concerned about our plans to drive the same rig to Colorado in the Summer. One of the fellow asked me, "Which way did you come in here? From Arkansas or from Oklahoma?" When I told him that it was from Oklahoma, he assured me, "If you came in here from Oklahoma, you won't have no trouble pullin' anything in Colorado!" [He also told me that he knew of several instances when rigs had pulled down and had to be towed up the hill with a tractor.]

Well, he proved to be right, though my learning through that first experience probably had something to do with it.

[bncinwv]

Corncob,
It sounds as if you are using manual instead of automatic on the Allison. I believe (I may be wrong) that the grade braking feature requires the tranny to be in D instead of M. Can any Allison gurus confirm or deny this. I know I have never had a problem using the grade-braking feature at grades up to 9% (Sandstone Mountain - I-64 - WV). I did have to re-set (hard application of brake pedal to desired speed) the speed near the bottom. And yes, you will get close to red-line and yes that monster will absolutely scream under the hood.
Bingo

[Gramps]

September of "07" pulling my SOB from Washington to Idaho. East bound coming over Deadmans Pass outside Pendelton, OR., driving a 95 F250. After I topped the pass and started down, I had to go to the passing lane to get around some really slow traffic. Pulled out behind an 18 wheeler and when I looked in the rearview mirror, there was another one on my bumper. Because of the traffic and the fact that this road is a mass of curves, I had to ride in the rocking chair for about 15 miles, and these guys didn't seem to want to let any grass grow under their tires. Needless to say, the first chance I got to get out of their way and pull over, I stopped to remove the upholstry from.....well you know where. Better than no brakes, but still no fun.