Terberg air option
Page 10
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• Drive-axle air suspension designed and built by a subsidiary of Terberg Benschop, the Dutch special vehicle builder, will soon become a factory fitted option for Leyland Roadtrain tractive units.
It is already available in France following successful operator evaluation trials by Leyland's French subsidiary of a Perkins (Rolls Royce) 340Lipowered 4 x 2 Roadtrain modified by Terberg Techniek of Ysselstein, the Netherlands. (CM's road test of this vehicle is in next week's issue.
The Terberg air suspension uses two-leaf springs, mounted on modified front hanger brackets for fore and aft axle location.
Two rolling lobe air springs are mounted behind the axle on a substantial beam transversely linking the two trailing arms. Two Koni air regulated, hydraulic telescopic dampers are mounted outboard of the chassis side members.
The suspension was originally developed by Terberg for Renault tractive units, and some Renaults with this suspension have been in service for over two years.
One refinement specified by Leyland France was air regulation for the hydraulic dampers to improve ride quality when unladen.
Tcrberg Techniek says it is now preparing to complete an order for 50 more air suspended Roadtrains for France, and is about to fit a similar prototype suspension to a Cruiser model.
Leyland says the company plans to introduce Terberg air suspension for UK Roadtrains "in the near future", but no price for the option has yet been fixed. In France, it costs between FFr 25,000 and FFr 30,000 (k2,000 to £2,700).
The first Roadtrain to have drive axle air suspension fitted by Leyland joined the Tesco fleet for evaluation trials last year (CM, July 20, 1985) but that had SAF suspension.