I've had a little time to do some tinkerin' on our 1985 Freightliner aka, the "RattleStar" this week.
One thing that has kinda bothered me was the lack of some kind of retarder.
It keeps you on your toes descending any kind of grade when you are just over 90,000 lbs.
Even running around light and local, I still hate having to use my service brakes as much as I do knowing that there are products out on the market designed to slow a vehicle down while saving your brakes.

On my 06 Dodge Ram,
I spec'd it out with a Jacobs exhaust brake to be installed before I was to take delivery of the truck.
The price was an additional $1300.00 and well worth it.
Since I often tow heavy, I wanted to be able to keep my brakes cool as long as possible.

In doing a little research,
I found Brake Systems Inc.
http://www.brakesystemsinc.com/blueox.html
They make and sell the Blue Ox exhaust brake which has been around for over 50 years.
Finding the parts for a Jacobs engine brake was going to be a bit costly.
Besides, parts for a 3406B seem to not be as popular as they once were.
The word "discontinued" seems to come up when ever I call Cat looking for parts.
So, with the owners approval,
I ordered the parts needed for an exhaust brake.

The kit BSI sent me was about one of the most straight forward, complete, bolt on kits I've ever seen.
The instructions covered and explained everything clearly.
A 10 year old could have installed this thing on his go cart....
That easy.

Start to finish took me about 4 hrs.
While its not a Jake Brake,
It's much, much better than nothing.
In fact, this Blue Ox exhaust brake works real well.
Much better than I had expected.
The price delivered to the door..... $973.00
They have kits for our trucks for about the same price.

 

Where in the heck are you able to run over 90,000 lbs? Thats 10,000 lbs over normal gross limit.

 

Just about anywhere.....
As long as you have (pay for) the proper permit.

 

I can't imagine hauling a load like that with no engine brake at all. Talk about pucker factor!

 

Exactly!
The truck is geared real low in the 1st place.
It will run along at 65 max, uphill or down hill.
Any time I move the drill rig, I will always keep it under 60 and stay to the right.
As wide as I am, if I move to the left, getting back over to the right is hard since I cant see the back of the rig.
It's too easy for some idiot to hang out in a blind spot.

The Blue Ox works surprisingly well at slowing even this weight.
Just like in our trucks, gear selection is the key.

 

Wow! I see now,I've pulled that heavy but not that big. I drove a fuel tanker for awhile and we hauled alot in a commercial zone. We would haul 10,000 gallon loads of diesel fuel...heavy stuff, I can't imagine dragging that load around without a retarder!
I know it's alot of money but hauling stuff like that on a regular basis I'd want a full blown 3 stage jake.

 

I only move our own equipment and materials.
If I hauled heavy on a regular basis, I'm sure we'd look into a different tractor.
Since I might only move this rig 6 times a year, the set up I have works OK.
Most of the time I pull our Ledwell 48 x 102 equipment trailer and the loads run fairly light.

 

Exhaust brakes do work pretty well - provided the driver selects the right gear. They need a lot of RPM to work at all, unlike a true Jake which brakes pretty well at any RPM. The Sterling tandem axle I drive for work has a 3126 with a PacBrake. It has fan braking enabled, too - the ECM kicks the fan on when the PacBrake has been engaged for 2 seconds. If you want hill holding with no service brake application in that truck you need to be at least a gear lower than you'd use to go up, and often 2 or 3 gears lower if the grade is steep.