LARGE-SCA1 OF OIL ENG SERVICING FED CHASSIS
Page 46
Page 47
Page 48
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
A Model Servicing Organization for Commercial Vehicles Represented by the New ArmstrongSaurer London Service Depot That Was Opened Last Week on the Great West Road Layout Based on Long Experience of Servicing . Problems. Latest Appliances Installed and Equipment Arranged to Permit of Fully controlled Work With No Waste of Time or Labour
MOST commercial-vehicle service stations have been extended or adapted from buildings not entirely designed for their ultimate purpose. The fact that the new London service station of Armstrong-Saurer Commercial Vehicles, Ltd., on the Great West Road, at Isleworth, has been laid out and constructed from the foundations upwards for the sole purpose of servicing heavy motor vehicles has provided the opportunity of producing a remarkable establishment and one which may well be considered in the light of a model for service stations of the future.
It is the biggest of the company's depots, of which a chain is being set up throughout the British Isles. At present the Manchester depot is completed, also that at Newcastle, which is next to, but quite separate from, the company's works. The Belfast depot is now being re-equipped, in accordance with the plan for provincial depots, and there is a programme for further depots to be established.
Each depot haS for its manager a sound engineer of commercial. aptitude, who is responsible directly • to Mr. A. Lampert, the Service manager. His department s u pplies full information and instructions as to administrative procedure a n d the construction of the vehicles. . Mr. Lampert is a member of the technical c o m
332 mittee at the works, and, when this committee decides upon design modifications, owners, as their vehicles come into the depots for servicing operations, are given an opportunity of having those alterations incotporated.
A great deal more could be said about administration, but we will add only a mention of the interesting stores-replenishment system, and then proceed to the layout of the London depot. By means of a quickacting typewriter attachment, five copies of every In-, voice for parts sales are made, and one is sent to the works at Newcastle, where a check on the stock in each depot is kept, so that, when the stock balance of any item falls below• the minimum figure, Newcastle automatically effects replacement.
The depot is never closed, and a system of four shifts of workers is maintained. Because of the changing shifts, it has been found most satisfactory to have a file, con taining full directions and drawings relating to all operations on every model, kept in a filing cabinet, where any charge hand or fitter has access to it. The file gives an explanation of the job, which is thus repeated to every man who refers to it, so that the procedure becomes memorized.
At headquarters are kept statistics of all trouble experienced with every model, also a history card for each chassis, showing modifications and repair work carried out.
The new London station is a large concrete structure, having its offices over a frontal showroom, and a large single-storey building, with roof lights, extends rearward. This has sliding doors along the whole length of one side, and these hang in sections from two rails, so that as much as half of the side can, if required, be open at one time. Outside is a concretefloored vehicle park, which, like the floor of the main shop, is to be marked off and numbered in bays and traffic lines.
The covered floor space is 150 ft. long, and 79 ft. wide, and is obstructed by only one row of five pillars, 25 ft. apart, these dividing it into six bays, each wide enough to take two vehicles. Thus two rows of 12 vehicles each can be lined up, the inner row being reserved for major operations and being served by five small pits and a large one.
With such a layout it should hardly ever be necessary to move one vehicle in order to shift another, and even a wheel-less vehicle can be handled by means of the Mann, Egerton ambulance or the Skyhi mobile jacks. In addition, there is a Herbert Morris 5-ton .overhead electric crane which can pass from end to end of the building.
Along the side facing the doors the floor is divided off into the degreasing shop, the smithy, the fitters' and machine shops, and battery-charging room, whilst behind the frontal showroom is the part store, also a store for special tools. The store has its separate entrance for lorries delivering or calling for parts, and the serving counter can be wheeled away, so that, if it be inconvenient to use the 2-ton overhead crane for loading or unloading, a motor lorry may back rignt into the stores, where the main 5-ton crane can reach it.
The stores are excellently laid out in adjustable steel bins, so high that an upper gallery is necessary, and even the largest components are accommodated in these bins, including engines, axles, etc. In all, there are some 700,000 parts, these covering all the old Saurer models, as well as the latest types.
A partitioned section of the stores is kept for special tools, such as drills, jigs, sleeve-drawing, crankshaftremoving, wheel and axle-drawing tools, brake testers, special jacks, wood blocks, hoisting clamps, etc., and these can be obtained against brass tally discs, each bearing a fitter's number.
B34 The heating and ventilation system is -particularly sound. In a separate boiler room an automatic pressure-controlled oil-burning boiler, installed by SpencerHopwood, Ltd., provides steam for heating the air in the workshop, the water for the office radiators, the doipestic hot-water supply, and the degreasing plant. In summer the boiler is not required and the degreasing plant and domestic supply are both heated by thermostatically controlled gas flames.
The ventilation of the main building is effected by a large multi-vane fan. This is located in a wind tunnel
In the boiler room, and drives air into underground concrete-lined ducts, 4 ft. wide and 3 ft. deep, which spread in herring-bone fashion beneath the floor of the building, and through which air passes to pillars of 15-in. by 12-in. section, being emitted from them at a height of 10 ft.
A coil of hot steam pipes is arranged in the wind tunnel, so that, in winter time, hot air is driven through this underground system, the advantage being that the warming of the entire structure commences at the floor. Air is supplied to every.
pit. The whole heating installation was executed by Gorfords, Ltd.
The machine shop contains a Lempco brake-grinding machine (which does not require the brake grum or the tyres to be removed from the wheels), a G.E. pneumatic riveter for brake facings (incorporating an emery grinder), a universal milling machine, a radial drill with honing attachment (suitable for honing both sleeves and cylinder bores), a lathe of 6-ft. bed and 61-in. centres, and another of 14-ft. bed and 10k-in. centres (both with geared heads), supplied by D. Mitchell and Co., Ltd., Keighley, a Black and Decker angle grinder for valves, etc. James Carr and Co., Ltd., London, supplied this plant, also the degreaser. There is a batterycharging plant, by the Lancashire Dynamo and Crypto, Ltd., a Laycock washer and Bristol compressor.
The fitters' shep contains a fitter's lathe and drilling machine, a Churchill 50-ton press, C.A.V.-Bosch injection testers, and an engine stand by F. H. Eve, Ltd. A feature of the system is that, for every component, there exists a form of wood stand, of uniform floor clearance, to suit the Slingsby elevating truck.
Each titter is issued with a complete set of tools and has his own locker. A further special device is a cradle jack on castors to facilitate the removal of a back-axle driving unit. The smithy is well equipped.