Hazlemere's new handling systems for D-mounts
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• Hazlemere Motor Co. (Waltham Abbey) Ltd. has introduced two hydraulic handling systems for use with its D-mount swopbody units. One is built into the body, enabling it to be removed from the chassis and landed to ground level if required. The other is built into a chassis and will handle standard D-mount bodies being landed on stillage legs, as has been the practice with the mechanically lifted versions.
The systems are powered by I 2V electro-hydraulic pumping units supplied by Smiths Industries Ltd. With the body-mounted gear, fluid is circulated via four separate valves mounted vertically in a bank in upper and lower pairs controlling the front and rear legs respectively. Special valve handles, operated in tandem or separately, allow individual control in situations such as uneven ground and uneven loading.
The legs are double-acting rams, powered both up and down; the forward pair are hinged to the front corners of the body, which is recessed so that they fold up flush with the sides. The rear legs are brought into the rear corners of the body and take up no more than 6 sq. in. in each case. All the hydraulic equipment is situated behind the nearside rear wheelarch and is accessible through a removable trap in the floor. At a demonstration this week this body unit was demounted, landed to ground level, elevated and remounted on its chassis in seven minutes.
The chassis-mounted unit utilizes identical electro-hydraulic equipment, but the lifting rams in this case are of the single-acting type, retracted by powerful tension springs. Vehicles using this system can only demount bodies on to stillage legs and cannot lower them to ground level. This system can be used with any standard D-mount body.
The body equipped with the built-in hydraulic gear is being supplied to Alston's (Long Melford) Ltd., Suffolk, the transport group of the Altar° Furniture Manufacturing Co. Ltd., of Ipswich, a spokesman for whom claimed that productivity had been increased by some 30 per cent since commencing operations with the D-mount system.
The cost of the body-mounted gear is approximately £690 complete and fitted. The chassis-mounted equipment costs £350 plus £75 for a set of legs. All these prices are ex-body. Delivery takes about six to 10 weeks.