SIDEBAR: Spinning Your Wheels? Get Help Here

While every manufacturer of wheels and wheel-end products offers an extraordinary array of reference and training material, an especially good source is The Maintenance Council of the ATA.

Aside from the Red Book-the association’s huge Recommended Practices Manual-their offerings include:

A User’s Guide to Wheels and Rims, which fully describes industry “best practices” for medium and heavy-duty wheel and rim maintenance.

A 12-minute training video entitled Wheel and Rim Inspection, which informs technicians under what conditions a wheel may be returned to service, or must be removed. It also emphasizes the differences between stud-piloted and hub-piloted disc wheel systems.

A guide-in wall-chart or pocket-sized booklet format-entitled Wheel Bearing Adjustment Procedure, which offers a consistent method for achieving a verifiable wheel-bearing end-play of between 0.001 and 0.005 in. for any axle position.

To order, contact the TMC at 2200 Mill Road, Alexandria, VA 22314; 703/838-1753.

In Canada, the Ontario Trucking Association with the help of equipment manufacturers established a wheel installer’s certification training program in response to a rash of wheel-offs in the province. It’s been used as models in other provinces. Call Rolf VanderZwaag at the OTA, 416/249-7401.