Quote:
Originally Posted by C00LR
"The bus has automatic chains installed"
That sounds great! But whats are AUTOMATIC chains?? Something to do with automaticly chaining the tires in snow???? I bet the Ice Road Truckers would love to see something like that! OK But seriously.... what are automatic chains??
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Hey, a question I can answer!
My bus also has automatic chains, and I crawled under there and figured out how they work one day. On my bus, they are actuated via a pneumatic setup (air).
When activated, the arm swings down. The arm has a disc on the end with lengths of chain hanging from the disc. The disc will be approximately parallel to the ground, and really close to the rear tires when engaged, causing a chain to get pulled under the tire. The rotation of the tire will cause the chain to end up coming out from behind the tire, turning the disc, thus swinging more chains into position. They're close enough to each other that you will end up with more than 1 chain under the tire at a time.
My bus had a sticker that said to only use the chains at low speed, and to be careful when braking with the chains engaged. Seems to me that "real" chains wrapped around the tires don't have these same warnings. Unfortunately, I don't know *why* this warning exists. I can say that the automatic chains are helpful when spinning tires on wet grass.
The chains make rattling noises hanging out back there. From behind, it looks like you're dragging something.
Here are some interesting links related to automatic chains:
http://www.insta-chain.com/
http://www.onspot.com/indhisfr.htm
I hope this helps,
jim