AT THE HEART OF THE ROAD TRANSPORT INDUSTRY.

Call our Sales Team on 0208 912 2120

I n their anxiety to persuade operators to shut their in-house

11th January 1996
Page 46
Page 47
Page 46, 11th January 1996 — I n their anxiety to persuade operators to shut their in-house
Close
Noticed an error?
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.

Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

workshops and subcontract servicing to franchised dealers, truck manufacturers often ignore the fact that many in-house teams do much more than just maintain vehicles.

As well as looking after a truck and trailer fleet, timber merchant Timbmet's workshop services and repairs the company's 13 cranes and nine side-loaders. It also converts ageing tractors into yard shunters for the company's 26-acre site at Cumnor Hill, Orford.

Works engineer Jim Pitts and his team of seven fitters are responsible for maintaining the premises too.

"We also fabricate what we term lobster pots 4m-long pallets which we use to deliver machined timber to double-glazing companies," he says. "We've got a milling machine, a lathe, a pillar drill, a folder, and a former." When they're not occupied with that, adds Pitts, they're working on the firm's car and van fleet. What little idle time they have is often devoted to the construction of security doors for one of Timbmet's subsidiaries Building a shunter out of, say, a time-served Leyland Cruiser takes about a week, says Pitts. The body panels are stripped off, the cab interior is stripped out, and the floor is raised by about 6in to give the driver better all-round vision when manoeuvring The pedals and various other components. including the clutch master cylinder and the throttle linkage, have to be remounted or resited. "We also blank the gearbox off so that only crawler and reverse can be used, and cut the engine revs by about 50%," he adds.

The whole lot is topped off with a crush-proof cage and a plywood roof to give the driver some protection from the weather, with mesh around all exposed moving parts to prevent injury

Shunters

Timbmet has 25 shunters, many of them based on vehicles that have come off its own fleet after more than eight years' service hauling timber around the country

Although he's experimenting with Bandag remoulds on Bridgestone casings (with quite reasonable results), Pitts admits that he's not a great remould fan. "It's probably more beneficial in cost per mile terms, but you still have that niggling doubt that it might just throw a tread," he observes. He prefers to take tyres off the roadgoing vehicles once they're approaching the legal limit and let them spend the rest of their working lives on the shunters. "After all, they're travelling at very low speeds and are only used on our premises," Pitts says. Handling around 18 loads on a weekday out of Oxford alone—Timbmet also has sites in Bioester, Rochdale, Birmingham, and Glasgow—the 32-strong own-account roadgoing fleet is dominated by ERE.' E.8, EC8 and E10 tractive units.

"We used to be 100% Leyland Daf, but things started to change seven years ago, when the Cruiser tractor was being replaced," says Pitts. "What I really wanted was a Cruiser with a Currunins C-Series engine, but I was told I had to have a Daf 1900.1 didn't want a Daf engine so I refused that and began to look elsewhere. I looked at ERFs, and to be honest it was like a

breath of spring air." Fond though he was of the old Cruiser—three 24-tonners are still running in Timbmet colours alongside two Leyland Freighters and a Roadtrain—he admits that it had its drawbacks: "I bought Cruisers from when they were first launched to when production finished. Initially I ran 1615s, then 1617s when the power output went up.

"Leyland insisted on siting the air filter and inlet on the offside of the front wing," he continues. "As a result the spray comes up off the road, goes straight into the air inlet, and after a couple of hours of driving on the motorway the air filter is full of water. On our Cruisers I did a modification which consists of a stack pipe which runs up the back of the cab."

Timbmet has traditionally adopted a cycle of spending five years purchasing trucks, then three years buying plant and equipment. "In effect we were running vehicles over an eightyear life," says Pitts. "When we bought our first batch of Cruisers we bought eight within two years but in year four/five of their lives it became obvious that they were going rusty, and Leyland gave us an allowance to cut the rust out of the panels and have them redone.

"But rust is like a cancer, he points out, "and it began to attack the main structural members. Mechanically they would have been capable of doing nine or 10 years but we had to dispose of them earlier than that because of the corrosion. With the EREs, of course, you get a 10-year cab life guaranteed anyway" The later Cruisers weren't so bad, he says, but they were let down by the 12-speed 2F gearbox. "We specified that because we knew they were a little bit short on horsepower, but after three years, regular as clockwork, the bearings failed. They might as well have had a zip fastener on the side of the casing so that they could be taken out and put back in."

He believes in having as near to 100% availability of the fleet at any one time as is humanly possible so the firm holds an impressive parts stock so most jobs can be tackled immediately an ailing truck returns to base.

"I've got virtually an entire Cruiser on the store's shelves and I'll probably finish up with an EC8 on the shelves too," he smiles. "We clear all defects on vehicles on a nightly basis. One of the beauties of standardising on one make is that you can learn the weaknesses of vehicles, and engineer them out. And although dealers are saying that operators like ourselves won't be able to cope with the increased use of electronics, a fleet the size of ours can afford to make the necessary investment in equipment and training."

After 24 years with the company, Pitts doesn't favour high-powered tractors for the sort of work Timbmet specialises in. "I'm currently going for EC8 4x2s with a 240hp Cummins fiCTAA engine and that's about right if you put an Eaton 6109 box in," he explains. "I'm getting around llinpg, the gradeability is good, and the truck is superb at 56mph." Speed restrictors and the 56mph limit have helped improved fuel economy on Timbinet's trucks by roughly some 5%, says Pitts, without harming productivity Although it runs some 36ft tandems, most of Timbmet's trailers are single-axle 30-footers. Short trailers are used because Timbmet often has to drop timber off at small premises run by joiners, furniture makers, and shop fitters, where good manoeuvrability is essential. Almost all the trailers are flatbeds, and the load has to be sheeted and strapped down.

Timbmet bought 40 from Taskers between 1985 and 1990 with reinforced fifth-wheel rubbing plates and specially-designed side raves. "We'd refurbished secondhand ones for years but we began to find that there were fewer and fewer around," says Pitts. The EG6 and the Freighters are used with dropside bodies to handle some of the consignments.

Plated

The EC8s and E8s are plated at 25 or 28 tonnes. The Roadtrain, which is about to complete a million kilometres on its original engine, is a 32-tonner, as are the ElOs; one at 275hp, the other at 325hp. "They're for when slightly heavier loads than usual have to be delivered," he says.

The fleet delivers countrywide, with the Oxford depot covering the territory up to the M62. Rochdale takes over from there and Glasgow covers Scotland. Drawing on its huge stockpile, Oxford also feeds Glasgow and Rochdale with any less common timbers that their customers may require, often trunking loads up overnight.

Timbmet trucks cover 100,000km a year, although the 32-tonners can cover 200,0001cm because they're often used on overnight trunking work. Six trucks are based in Rochdale and four in Glasgow, where an outside contractor looks after their maintenance.

Bicester is primarily a kilning operation, with 15 kilns to dry wood, while Birmingham is the centre of the security door operation.

"I have a philosophy that your trucks and drivers are vitally important ambassadors to your customers," says Pitts. "Both need to be clean, tidy, and reliable. "Every driver has his own truck and I paint his name on the side," he says. "It helps give him pride in the vehicle, and if he wants polish or dashboard dressing to clean his vehicle then I'll get it for him. If you can ensure that the driver has a dependable truck with a comfortable seat and a comfortable driving environment overall, then productivity improves. And if you've got the drivers on your side, that's half the battle won."

E by Steve Banner


comments powered by Disqus