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New lease of life for dray wagons
Page 66
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ALAN WOOD, with the help of two of his garage fitters, Ian Caunce and Ian Hill, is saving Bass North West thousands of pounds each year. At the Leyland distribution depot, in a small service garage, they convert old dray wagons into yard shunt vehicles for use by all of the company's other depots.
Bass is a very large fleet operator having about 3,500 pieces of equipment including 1,750 Bedford 16-ton rigid platform and boxvan vehicles which it uses for local delivery work.
After about six years use most are sold off, at best for only a few hundred pounds and others at little more than scrap value. Now, though, just a few are given an extension to their service with Bass, but in a totally different role.
As a suitable vehicle becomes available it is taken into the small, two-berth, maintenance workshop where the box or platform body is removed. After this, one of the next jobs is to gas-cut the chassis in half, shortening it to 3.9m (13ft) to suit a revised wheelbase of 3m (9ft 10in).
Transmission, brakes, suspension and steering gear are stripped and rebuilt using new parts where required
The original rear springs must be relocated on the now shortened chassis, but the standard final drive is discarded in favour of a two-speed axle, locked in the lowest ratio to give the best gearing to suit the lowspeed manoeuvring and shunting encountered in yard use.
Engine and gearbox also have to be overhauled. To match up to the now much shorter wheelbase, the mountings have to be repositioned to allow realignment of the drive line. Two-line air brakes complete with ancillary tanks and valves replace the standard dual-air system.
Only service and emergency connections are provided to the trailer. This is considered quite adequate for operation within the confines of the depot. It was already equipped with integral power steering of the recirculating ball type and no further modification was needed in this area.
Rubber mudguards fitted over the drive wheels, being more flexible than steel, are less prone to suffer damage during constant coupling and uncoupling of the trailer.
A major cost in the conversion is the addition of a fifthwheel coupling. Placed just forward of the rear axle it allows sufficient clearance behind the cab for the front overhang of the trailers and at the same time provides space for a steel chequer-board catwalk. To cater for the difference in heig,ht between the yard and the road vehicle a pneumatically raised fifth-wheel plate has been used on some models.
The cab, after five or six years' use, inevitably needs some attention and rubber mats that have become badly worn or torn are replaced. If the seats need attention they are sent out to a local upholsterer.
At one time this need for yard vehicles could have been easily satisfied by refurbishing retired maximum weight road-going tractive units. Now, however, Bass operates a lease-hire policy for its trunking fleet which has led to the source of the so-called "one pound tug" to dry up.
The whole rebuild including the final respray, in a bright shade of yellow, making them instantly recognisable from the road going vehicles, takes about 200 man-hours. This fleet of yard shunters for the most part has the same demand on spares as the local delivery fleet. It has been produced at minimum cost and the vehicles are expected to give up to a further five years service.
By Bill Brock