Thunderbird band brake

[THI]

So in our tmy70s we run an adjustable pop off valve for air. Seems like 135-155psi is good for holding the skyline up in tight line situations. As soon as the air pressure drops below around 145psi the pop off kicks the compressor back in. It auto shuts off with the adjustable regulator on the compressor. Seems to work good. The factory 1986 manual says that band brakes should be adjusted to the point that they are able to wiggle slightly when released. I usually run ours slightly tighter than that but loose enough they don’t get sticky when pulling out the skyline in road change. I didn’t think anything about it until a guy I know with a 6170 told me he doesn’t run into issues peeling line off the drum unless he drops below 80 psi. Am I worried to much about it or is there something else I am missing? Does the 6170 have a larger band? I think the 70s all had 6x36 band brakes.

 

[Hallback]

So in our tmy70s we run an adjustable pop off valve for air. Seems like 135-155psi is good for holding the skyline up in tight line situations. As soon as the air pressure drops below around 145psi the pop off kicks the compressor back in. It auto shuts off with the adjustable regulator on the compressor. Seems to work good. The factory 1986 manual says that band brakes should be adjusted to the point that they are able to wiggle slightly when released. I usually run ours slightly tighter than that but loose enough they don’t get sticky when pulling out the skyline in road change. I didn’t think anything about it until a guy I know with a 6170 told me he doesn’t run into issues peeling line off the drum unless he drops below 80 psi. Am I worried to much about it or is there something else I am missing? Does the 6170 have a larger band? I think the 70s all had 6x36 band brakes.

You probably have your band too tight. When you tighten them up too much they will actually hold less. The whole design of a band brake is to clamp down and then the drum is to render a little bit camming over effectively self-energizing that band into the drum itself.

 

[Hallback]

And if you're running upwards of 150 lb plus on the band for that skyline you are asking for a whole hell of a lot of trouble.