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Dodge KP900 on the Road
Page 103
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R.D.
ITER ii Inst BE
T the last Commercial Motor Show numerous makes and types rehicles were offered with Cummins d, VINE. VAL or VALE engines, the technical Press looked forward keen anticipation to the time m road testing of• vehicles so fitted ild start. But time dragged on and, after the other, vehicles that were ost ready for test were Withdrawn he last minute. In the background, /ever, Dodge had very quietly and iently been working hard on its
models. announced this week, on Friday The Commercial Motor 'invited to have a run in the new ?00 tractive unit fitted with the LE engine and drawing a laden kers Pedigree semi-trailer. The it grossed 23 tons 19 cwt, he new model has been well worth ting for: its performance-is good, appearance is first class, and the lity of its construction, on the face t, looks excellent Dodge say that r have tried to produce a quality :hine at a reasonable price and luse of this the vehicle is not in way fancy. The fully tilting cab no frills and the interior trim is :tly functional but nevertheless emely comfortable and service:. Vision from the driving seat is eccable, but I felt that the rearif mirrors were a poor choice, and siting of them was wrong.
he engine is a bit on the raucous and at first one feels reluctant to it the stick it requires if the more adequate performance is to be tined. But once this feeling of shing the unit has been overcome, s possible to get some fairly tling performance out of it, and of the ENV gearbox and Eaton -speed rear axle. A bit "roundabout" in sequence. the ENV five-speed box is allsynchromesh and presents no problems when changing except for the need to think: "Which way do I go now? The test vehicle was not quite so good as it could have been, owing to a fault in the throttle linkage preventing the engine revs from dying down quickly. Because of this I found it awkward to get the air-change, twospeed axle to change at the. same time is the gearbox, and consequently lost a good deal of performance. Nevertheless, when things went as planned I was delighted with both the acceleration of the outfit through the gears and •with the manner in which the engine hung on to the gears at fairly low speeds. It seems that although drivers will need instruction before they take over a \'-powered machine. this might not need to be all that extensive. I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised at this, because the engine performance curves do not point towards good tractability at low engine speeds.
Once motoring on a reasonable road the vehiale settles down to a very comfortable 45-50 m.p.h. cruising speed and at this stage the engine noise, although higher than one would like it to be, is not so excessive that it cannot be endured. The gearbox ratios are such that 9th and 10th speeds are obtained by using highaxle 4th and 5th, so once roiling it is only necessary to move the main gear lever between these two to obtain ample perfOrmance. With 170 b.h.p. under the cab seat there is no need to be behind the aueue at traffic lights and other enforced stops. A bit of smart gear-changing and to-ing and fro-ing with the two-speed axle and
one is soon back up in the thirties.
Ever since the demise of the fastrunning petrol engine in heavies, drivers have been compelled to adjust their requirements to the low-revving oil engine and this has had its effect on transmissions, which have suffered untold misuse because of the lack of revs available when an upward change of gears was desirable, but usually impossible. At these times the slipchange—popular with all good truck drivers—could play havoc with Propshaft universals and the differential and result in premature failure of these components.
The Cummins VALE engine is more like a petrol engine than any diesel I have driven, having plenty of revs and enough power to get the machine rolling fast enough to change up; and once in the next highest gear it will romp away in fine style. Of necessity the gear ratios used with this type of engine must be fairly close and I feel that Dodge have chosen wisely in the new vehicle.
Once again, owing to a fault in the equipment on the driving axle,the braking on the test machine was a bit erratic. It pulled first to the right and then to the left on several occasions, but on the few applications when it settled the braking was excellent and considered that it was purely a matter of adjustment that was causing the trouble. Of a single-pull, airassisted type the handbrake/emergency brake is faultless and extremely powerful. Only the lightest application of the lever is necessary to hold the -outfit on a slope. Emergency third-line braking is operated by a hand reactor valve applying tractiveunit front-axle and semi-trailer bogie brakes.