- Today, we're going to give you an introduction to the truck.
This is a class one class A highway tractor.
On the back goes a semi trailer
for those of you going to truck driving school
and getting your CDL license,
starting your career as a truck driver.
So introduction to the switches,
gauges can be a little intimidating
when you first get inside the truck.
It can kind of look like a cockpit of an airplane.
Not quite as much.
We're going to sort that out and simplify that for you.
Many of the gauges and switches are the same as in your car.
Some are unique to highway driving in a tractor.
So let's get started and start here on the door.
You have power windows on both sides of the truck,
not like in the old days where you had an air switch
for the passenger side and you had a crank handle
for the driver's side, it's all power now.
Mirrors are adjustable as well. They're electric.
You can adjust both sides of the mirrors
and that's handy when you're backing up trailers
into docks and those types of things as well.
You have a switch here for heated mirrors
in the wintertime to keep them clean
from ice and snow and those types of things.
And then finally, there's a switch here for each side.
So you pick the left mirror, right mirror.
On this side, gauges are simple.
Same as in your car, oil pressure,
water temperature in the radiator, and then volts.
How many volts the electrical charging system is going.
And most of these should be 1314 when it's running normal.
Now most of these gauges are going to have a red line
and if it's in the red line,
something's wrong with the vehicle
and you need to take it to a technician and get it fixed.
Power locks on the vehicle as well. Same as your car.
Down here on the left side of the steering wheel
you have your interior lights.
You turn those off and on and then you can also turn
on the engine fan for the radiator.
So if you're pulling hard in the mountains
and the engine starts heating up as diesel engines will
when you're pulling hard,
pulling super bees or those types of things,
you can turn on the engine fan as well.
Another little trick, if you're going downhill,
and the Jake brake's, ah,
kind of holding, not quite holding,
you can turn on the engine fan and that'll pull out
out another five or six horsepower out of the engine
and just slow you down a little bit.
Now, when you do turn on the engine fan,
let me tell you it sounds like
you're spooling up jet engines,
'cause it's quite noisy when the engine fan
comes on in these big diesel engines.
The other gauges here on the vehicle,
obviously you're tachometer tells you
how fast the engine is spinning
and then your road speed,
how fast you're going up and down the road.
We'll do the gauges here in the middle.
These are your air brake gauges
which is essentially your primary air tank.
How much air is in the primary tank.
How much is in the low or the secondary system.
And we'll tell you how much air pressure
is in there and then your brake application gauge
which may or may not be a very good gauge.
It's certainly not something that you should be looking
at while you're going up and down the road,
but great for training students
when you're teaching about air brakes
and how much pressure is going to the service brakes,
essentially the brake pedal, when you're pushing down on it.
And while you're coming to a stop in a big truck
you're not going to be looking at it.
You're just going to be pushing down
on the brake pedal but it's there as well.
Okay, fuel gauge. How much fuel you have in the tanks.
Same as your car and then you have
some other gauges here which are not so important.
And that's probably why they're
off over to the far right here. Okay?
Front drive axle and your rear drive axle
gives you the temperature of the oil in the axles.
And again, these have red lines on them.
If it's in the red line then there's something wrong
with the vehicle and it needs to be fixed.
Now, if you're pulling mountains in the summertime
and it's super hot and you're are heavy loaded, you know,
it's 100 degrees in the shade,
then maybe this might go into the red line.
But otherwise, if there isn't an apparent reason,
super hot, pulling super heavy on the highway
and those types of things,
then you need to get in and get it checked.
Transmission temperature, the oil in the transmission.
What the temperature is, the boost is how much air
the turbo charger is reinforcing into the engine.
I'll put a card up here in the corner
for you have a look at that for turbocharges.
It'll give you a further explanation of that awesome device
that's on all new diesel engines.
And then right over here in the far corner
we have the engine oil temperature.
What the temperature of the oil is inside the engine.
Down at the bottom here we have the air filter.
Essentially it's a gauge that tells you when
the air filter needs to be replaced on the vehicle.
And essentially it has a red line as well.
It's telling you how much vacuum it takes to pull air
through the air filter in the engine.
Once it gets worn out, it's been in there for a while,
and it reaches its date,
then needle will go up and tell you that the air
filter needs to be replaced on the engine.
And then the last one is your DEF fuel,
diesel exhaust fluid,
and it just tells you how much fluid is in the tank.
And you'll need to keep that up
for the pollution controls on the diesel engine.
Now, starting down here with the switches.
Over on the left side of the steering wheel here
we have the cargo lights for the back
when you're hooking up trailers
and those types of things,
the on off ignition switch,
and then as well over here you have your dash lights.
You can turn your dash lights up and down.
I'll put a card up in the corner
for you on the night driving video.
And one of the things I suggest,
especially if you're running highways at night,
is to turn down your dash lights as much
as you can stand them to reduce fatigue
and having your your eyes drawn down to the dashboard
because these things can be just like crazy lit up at night.
So you want to turn your dash lights down as much
as you can at night when you're driving
to reduce fatigue and reduce distraction.
Over here on the switches, starting here.
The first one is the regen system.
Again this is the carbon that builds
up inside the diesel motor.
And when you're running up and down the highway
and the engine's running hot, it will do it automatically.
Now, if you're running, doing a lot of city running,
and I've heard stories where you've had to pull
over and you know let the truck sit here and idle crazily
at a high RPM for half an hour to regen
and kick the carbon and pollution out of the diesel engine.
Have a look at the owner's manual.
Talk to the techs that service the vehicle
and they'll be able to tell you more about that.
But most of the time
if you're running up and down the highway
for any length of time, it's going to take care of itself.
This is an automatic truck.
So you have a hill assist here.
So you're not going to be pulled backwards
while you're sitting, waiting at the light.
You know, when you're trying to get your foot
from the brake pedal back to the
the throttle and it's called a throttle in a diesel engine.
It's not called a gas pedal
'cause they obviously don't put gas and a diesel engine.
Trust me. It doesn't make the truck go any faster.
So that's hill assist.
You basically hold that with your finger
and then move your foot from the brake to the throttle,
throttle up, and get yourself going.
Power takeoff, PTO,
that's for accessories on the back of the vehicle here.
This has a walking floor.
So this runs the hydraulic pump
for the hydraulic walking floor in the trailers.
That's the purposes of the PTO. Traction control.
Excellent device, helps you out,
keeps you stable on the roads and those types of things.
You can push it. It's a dead man switch.
So you have to hold it to get it off.
If you got wheel spin and those types
of things you might need, you know,
you're in a bit of mud you might
need to push the traction control and get get that off.
But for the most part, it's going to work independently.
And it's part of the ABS system,
the anti-lock breaking system.
It detects wheel spin and will direct
power to different wheels to keep going and keep you stable
when you're going down the road
and cornering and those types of things.
The next switch here is the lock for the fifth wheel.
You can slide the fifth wheel forward and back,
moving the front of the trailer up onto the back
of the truck to put more weight on the steer tires
or you can move the fifth wheel back
to take weight off the steer tires on the tractor
so that you're in compliance with your weights.
Next switch here is the four-way flashers.
Great for backing up when you're reversing,
backing into a dock or those types of things,
activate your four-way flashers.
The next two switches here are the engine retarder,
the Jake brake, and the one is the on off switch,
and the next one sets the level.
So you can set it on low, medium, or high,
and some trucks depending on the model and the brand
will have 1, 2, 3, it's all the same. Mediums, low and high.
And the next two switches are your cruise control.
If you're driving truck you don't want to be holding
down that pedal for any length of time.
As well running on cruise control
because big electronic diesel engines
are designed to run on cruise control
going up and down the highway.
You're going to get better fuel economy
working it on cruise control.
And I'll put a video up here
in the corner for you on cruise control
so you can learn how to do that.
The next one is your suspension dump
for the back of the tractor.
When you're hooking up to trailers you want
to dump the suspension so you can get in and underneath
the trailer and then reinflate the suspension
and lift the trailer up. Let the technology do the work.
Don't be doing the work by cranking the trailer up
and then putting it back down, let the suspension do that.
So you dump it under the trailer
and just before you get into the king pin
lift it back up and then back into the king pin.
Don't make the mistake that a lot of veteran drivers
do when they're hooking up to trailers.
They just back pull up, back into the trailer,
and every now and again, it'll get you.
You'll dump the king pin over the front of the fifth wheel.
And let me tell you it's a lot of work
to get that out of there.
I've done it myself personally, got lazy,
got tired and didn't check the height
of the trailer that it was at the right height
and dumped the king pin over the front of the fifth wheel,
and it's a lot of work to get that out of there.
Last switches are your diff lock and your inter axle lock.
So on this truck you have an inter axle lock
and you have two diff locks.
So you can lock the front axle
so both tires are turning at the same time
and then you can lock the back one
so they're turning at the same time
and then you can lock the two in between
at it's like super pausey traction on the back of the truck.
If you have all of this engaged,
both diff locks and the inter axle lock,
sometimes called lockers,
you'll hear old timers call them lockers.
If you have all that locked,
it's going to compromise your steering
because the back end just wants to go straight
and you've got to everything locked up.
Now you want to be doing this at slow speeds.
You don't want to be doing it like super fast speeds.
So if you're in mud, climbing hills,
in the mountains, those types of things,
you want to be using your lockers and whatnot.
I've also heard that it helps
with auxiliary breaking, going downhill.
You can put one of your diffs on and it will just help
with traction coming downhill and those types of things.
The driver that was saying that to me
hauls tankers in and around barns 'cause he picks up milk.
So just puts on one of the diffs to get down
and help with auxiliary braking.
So here on the left side of the steering wheel
you have windshield wipers, same as in your car.
Left signal, right signal, high,
low beams for the headlights.
And then on the end here, you have a flasher.
Essentially what you can do is if you're going
down the highway and you pass another truck
and they flash you to say that you're passed
and that you can move back in because, you know,
it's a big long vehicle and it's difficult to determine
if you're passed the other vehicle or not.
You can flash these clearance lights
and it'll flash the clearance lights
to say thanks to the other drivers.
So that's the purpose of that switch there on the end.
Here on the right is the trailer hand brake.
This is to activate the service brakes
on the trailer independent of the tractor.
And it says right on it, not for parking,
and as well, you know, in most day and age,
you put your foot on the brake pedal
and it's going to activate all the brakes equally.
So you're not going to use this for too much
other than to check to make sure that the service brakes
on the trailer are in fact working.
So on the steering wheel, same as your car,
you have a city horn, your little beep beep horn, you know,
when you push it and you're driving a big truck
you're kind of like, ah, that's a little bit demoralizing.
But of course you got your air horn up here,
your big air horn here.
You want to scare the tar out of somebody
and be aggressive because they really upset you.
Or, you know, kids are on the side
of the road going like this.
You can pull the air horn and, you know,
absolutely make their day.
Down on the bottom here, of course,
new truck, all of the bells and whistles.
It has a dial here for all of the information
that's available to you for the driver,
all the systems on the vehicle, tire pressure,
air brake systems, all those types of things,
fuel and whatnot.
So that's there and then your heater controls.
And then of course you have your trailer air supply
and your parking brake for the tractor are here as well.
And then of course your selector
for the automatic transmission.
And then down here you have a couple of outlets,
four nine volt. We don't have cigarette lighters anymore.
I know some of the old drivers will say,
oh, only old five and fours.
Yeah. 50 years ago.
50 years ago we had cigarette lighters as well.
But they're not that anymore. They're for auxiliaries.
If you have a cooler in your truck or something like that
you can plug that in and get auxiliary power to that.
Down here on the floor, last piece here,
we have a little pedal underneath
the bottom of the steering wheel.
This is unique to Kenworth is that
this will help you with the tilt on your steering wheel.
So you can move that and adjust that
so that's comfortable for you.
So I think that's it in the truck.
There used to be some controls in
some of the older Kenworths,
used to be some controls up here,
you get light switches and those
types of things and whatnot. You do have independent.
You can turn on your interior lights here.
If you're working on a log book or something like that
you can turn this on and then click it off.
And as I said the other switch will turn all
of them on inside of the truck.
So it'll be like super bright for you
at night when you're working and whatnot.
But if you have any questions, you want further explanation,
leave a comment down below here and I'll get back
to you and help you out with
your new career as a truck driver.
Try not to be overwhelmed by this.
Like I said the gauges on the left are the most important
because they put them in the driver's line of sight.
The ones on the right, not so much.
If the gauge is in red zone, then yes,
it needs to be paid attention to,
it needs to be taken into a technician,
but some of them are important.
Some of them aren't important
and you'll work with your driving instructors
at the truck driving school and they'll help you
with all of this to know what they are,
how they work, and how to drive the truck safely.
Click over here for for the playlist
on truck driving school.
That'll give you all the videos to be successful
in earning your CDL license,
starting your new career as a truck driver,
and remember, pick the best answer.
Not necessarily the right answer.
Have a great day. Bye now.
- If you want the complete list,
detailed list of what you need to say,
what you need to inspect for the purposes
of passing your pre-trip inspection,
click up in the corner here,
head over to the Smart Drive Test website.