Yes, the wax is hauled at about 200 degrees. When the tanker was originally delivered the wax was not at the proper temperature. It wasn't hot enough to get it all out of the tanker. So, they parked the tanker there overnight running stream through the pipes that surround the tanker just under the skin you see when they travel down the road. There are a series of pipes and insulation under the skin. Once they brought the tanker full of wax up to temp, they called us to come hook up to it and move it to where it could be offloaded. That's where I came in. I bobtailed over there and hooked up. Moved it for them and they offloaded it.
The weight and viscosity determine it's movement. Antifreeze is thin making it move a lot as the truck starts, stops, turns, brakes. It seems like it takes very little movement by the truck to make the antifreeze surge, big time. Every single time I started it stopped moving it continued to knock me around in my seat. I had to press hard on the brakes at stop lights to stay stationary. If someone from another vehicle sitting beside me would have looked at me they could have seen me getting tossed around in my seat.
Take a clear bottle half full of some kind of liquid. Hold it sideways in you hand. Start moving it in one direction and then stop moving. Watch what the liquid does. That's what's happening behind me. What makes it more intimidating is that I can't see it. I haven't learned yet when to anticipate the hit. At some point I'll learn that.
The surge also plays part in how you enter and exit turns hauling a tanker. You really have to get slowed down before and not in the turn. The liquid is already going to be riding high on the outside of the turn. Like when you turn right, it's running up the left hand side of the tank. If you as hard braking on top of that, now all the liquid is riding high left and in the front. Not a good combination unless you want to roll over.
I do feel for the people riding behind me sometimes. I'm not going slow because I'm getting older. I'm just trying to be safe. For everyone and the environment. 6000 gallons of antifreeze uncontained can't be a good thing for anyone or anything.
It does get tough driving defensively all day long. The stress level gets high when motorists cut you off. They don't always realize what we do to try and protect them from themselves. It's amazing what some of these people are doing in their cars traveling down the road. Some truckers too. The Super Truckers. There are a lot of a holes out there.
