SAIA | you better have those rubber grommets for the airline glad hand connections handy

Dracula

TB Veteran
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Months ago, there was a thread talking about the new pups and how the company had changed from cut off valves to gladhands, on the airlines. I didn't like it then and after last night, I hate it. At the meet site, I was doing my pretrip walkaround, with the red button pushed in to feed air to the system. I popped the red gladhand off , of the rear pup, to make sure that I had air all the way to the back and then resecured the gladhand with no apparent leakage. Right before I left, I made one final walkaround and that's when I heard it and found it. The red line rubber grommet, on the rear pup, the one that resecured with no apparent leak, had blown out and was leaking. I resecured the glad hand and waited. Sure enough, a few minutes later the grommet blew out again. I replaced the grommet and waited but no problems with the new one. I hate those gladhands.
 
Not to mention i have had several of the pups where the original gladhands have already been replaced with ones the shop have built. It was a bad idea from the start, the original ones that come with the pups stick out 2 to 3 inches past the back of trailer. If they are backed up to a flat dock ,( which we have several throughout the system) they will break off and bend the valve connection. Bad Bad idea . Go back to original cut off valves!
 
Just another great example of some pencil pusher with no real world experience determining the type of equipment we use on a daily basis. Absolutely no excuse for this kind of grief.
 
I have noticed on the pups starting with 29 ,they have sunk the valves a little deeper and lowered them where the glad hand does not stick past the bumper. A small improvement, but a improvement nonetheless.
 
The gladhands will still leak air if they are not properly put back on the valve. And I have had trailers where the previous driver left the service side hanging. How flippin hard is it to put the gladhand back where it goes ! But we all know a good thorough pre-trip will catch issues, or at least we are suppose to know it .
 
I had one the other night that had the little blue tab bent out if I had not had a pair of pliers / channel locks to squeeze it back together so it would seal I'd a been up the creek
 
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