AUTOMATION BY RIBBLE
Page 48
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Vehicles washed and refuelled at same time
BY automating some of the operations involved in cleaning and refuelling the 80 vehicles at its Aintree garage, Ribble Motor Services Ltd. has been able substantially to reduce the staff normally engaged on these duties.
As well as cutting cleaning costs, the installation is also helping to counteract an acute shortage of labour for this type of work.
The new cleaning and servicing facilities are housed in a 90 ft. long by 20 ft. wide bay built on to the garage. As a vehicle enters the bay, it is stopped short of the standard Dawson model LT mechanical washing plant. While the front and rear are being washed with water-fed handbrushes, the vehicle is vacuum-cleaned, refuelled and topped up with lubricating oil from fixtures on the nearside wall strategically located for ease and speed of handling.
The vacuum plant is a piped BVC installation, with two pairs of nozzles sited at points convenient for frontand rearentrance and middle-exit buses. Lubricating oil-feed installations are also provided at two points: one for frontand underfloorengined vehicles, and the other for buses with engines at the rear.
To save opening the oil-filler cap, the feed nozzles have half-inch-diameter extensions which fit in the dipstick apertures, oil being delivered automatically in pints.
Both the oil and fuel feed systems are connected electrically to a master recorder and control panel fixed on the offside wall. Designed and built by Ribble's engineering staff, this automatically records the amount of fuel and oil taken by each vehicle, information which is transferred by hand to record sheets provided on a desk alongside.
The panel also incorporates a lane-indicator control system, utilizing self-cancelling keys. By depressing the appropriate key, any one of 10 numbers lights up on an indicator panel headed "Park in Lane" fixed at right angles to the offside wall alongside the entrance to the pre-wash.
In the wash plant itself, vehicle roofs are cleaned by wiping them with a water-fed, heavy, long-lasting, needled felt cloth suspended from a bar between the pre-wash and the main plant. To accommodate singleas well as double-deck vehicles, the depth of the cloth is 10 ft. For economy only the bottom 54 in. is felt, the rest being canvas.
A vehicle now passes through the washing and servicing procedure in 3-4 minutes.