I am a farmer out in eastern WA and have always had smaller trucks. Last week I bought a 1990 pete 357 with a 3176 cat motor in it. It came from the Seattle area and has never seen a cold day in its life. Truck only has 215000 miles on it. Last night it got down to 18 degrees and as I was walking by this morning I thought it would be nice to see how it started cold. Started great. But wont build any air. Sounds almost like something is ratcheting at the air pump. Any thoughts? Truck came with no manuals and I have never dealt with air brakes before. Could there be water trapped somewhere that froze? Did the compressor grenade? Thanks in advance for any help.

 

It sounds like you have ice in the air lines. Go to Dollar General or any drug store that sells rubbing alcohol and buy the highest alcohol content you can find. I try to find 91%. If you have a trailer attached to the truck take the glad hands loose and pour alcohol in the lines and reconnect. If you don't have a trailer attached, then disconnect the air lines and pour alcohol directly into the system and reconnect. Get back in the truck and start pumping the brakes, blowing the air horn or anything else you can find that operates off of air. If you don't want to use the air horn, just keep pumping the brakes. You may need to do this more than once, but most of the time once will do. Once the ice melts and air builds you need to bleed off the moisture. There should be a cable around the top of the drivers side fuel tank. Open the valve until all moisture is out and you should be fine. There are de-icers on the market you can purchase at most truck dealers or truck parts stores, but I have found that rubbing alcohol works as well, if not better than the commercial chemicals and is much less expensive. A bottle of rubbing alcohol should only cost about $1. I keep a bottling in my trucks. I would drain the air tanks at least once a week. It won't hurt to do it every day to keep most of the moisture out of the tanks.

 

Thanks GMAN I will work on it. Kind of what I thought. I should have drained everything before it got cold.

 

Once you get all the moisture out of the lines you should not have a problem. If you are going to let the truck sit much of the time and don't want to start it up often, you could put a little alcohol into the lines and leave it once you initially drain all the water out.