Engineers look to the problems of the 80s
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)OWN-TO-EARTH day-to-day problems luch as exhaust smoke, parts supply, vehicle iesign shortcomings and the roles of fitter md driver took precedence in delegate nterest over the possible influences of iuropean legislation at the Institute of Road Transport Engineers annual conference held Lt Solihull last week. The conference took 'vehicle maintenance and inspection" and 'vehicles for the Eighties" as its twin themes md of the two sessions the one on naintenance and inspection was undoubtdly the best received.
To set the tone of the discussion on naintenance and generally arouse delegates; ach of the six invited speakers was allowed ,ve minutes to state his views before the liscussion was opened to the floor.
In his introductory remarks Mr R. R. ack son, chairman of the South Wales and Vest Midlands Traffic Commissioners, and A for both areas, emphasized that only fit ehicles earned money and that taintenance should be carried out by ualified people. Many operators it seemed till relied on drivers' defects slips and, while tese were valuable, they were not in temselves sufficient check, particularly in le case of one truck, one driver where the rivers could easily miss a slowly eveloping fault. He was equally doubtful of le value of a neat printed form for monthly hecks which had every item ticked on very sheet, implying a total check showing o faults.
lirect test booking?
Mr R. G. Lewis, the West Midlands DoE enior area mechanical engineer, concen-ated on the goods vehicle testing scheme. le said that in the relatively short period of tree years of operators' licensing annual ;sting had become a way of life and most perators accepted it and met with few roblems. The failure rate on the first ttempt had stabilized over the country as a thole to 27 per cent, and the variation cross the country was small. Mr Lewis nesaw that, in the future, booking rrangements for the test would be made rith the stations direct, making for greater exibility.
Exhaust smoke needed no scientific istruments to see, and was thus the focus f public attention. Mr Lewis warned that le department would be "hotting up" its ttention on smoking vehicles in the next lv months.
Mr K. P. Wakefield, DoE senior 1echanical engineer from the Metropolitan 7ea, said that most operators were now inning reasonable maintenance and ispection schemes but weaknesses were
still evident and GV9s were still being issued. Mr Wakefield asked, who checks the inspector? It was the transport engineer's job to see that the inspector was doing his job properly and to lay down a checking procedure which had a logical pattern.
Mr Wakefield enumerated specific common faults such as the leaking brake hose which is simply tightened into the back plate, thus causing a twist in the hose, whereas both ends should be loosened and retightened so as to maintain the original set of the hose.
Very few if any inspection checklists included the steering-box bolts and yet these were often found to be loose. Brakes were often adjusted only on shoe clearance without proper reference to the actuator piston position and so on. Mr Wakefield was in favour of the driver defect slips being returned even if they were returned with no faults to report.
Mr L. G. Reed, a director of UBM Transport and an operational transport engineer, described himself as a fanatical supporter of area maintenance committees and keen to promote safer commercial vehicles. He was particularly concerned that a good liaison should be formed between the users and the manufacturers of vehicles.
The maintenance advisory committee to which he belonged had provided 200,000 vehicle maintenance sheets and drivers' defect sheets to small operators in 1972.
As well as "debit GV9s", said Mr, Reed, why not introduce "credit GV9s" which would give an operator a standard to aim for? The windscreen exemption stickers given at roadside checks already gave drivers a considerable fillip, he thought. Mr Reg Brown, technical services manager of the FTA, said he had been very pleased to see the Association mentioned in the heading on a DoE test sheet until he was told that FTA stood for "failed to arrive". The FTA, he said, would make 70,000 inspections at 3200 sites this year and against the 73 per cent test-station pass rates (27 per cent failures) mentioned by Mr Lewis earlier, FTA-inspected vehicles had achieved 85 per cent in 1971, 88 per cent in 1972 and 91 per cent in the first six months of 1973. The success rate in roadside checks had been 85, 90 and 91 per cent in corresponding years. Immediate GV9s were now down to one per cent.
He gave these figures, he said, not so much to show how good the FTA system was but rather to show how results will improve if the quality of the inspection is high.
Mr C. R. Hodgson, chairman of the North Western Traffic Commissioners and NW Licensing Authority, summed up and referred to the bad spare parts situation which had been associated with some manufacturers for years.
In the ensuing lively question and answer session Mr F. J. Richardson, of Canada Dry, wanted to know if Mr Lewis could provide a breakdown of the 27 per cent DoE test failure rate; Mr Lewis said the figures were available but he could not give them from memory. Many vehicles failed for more than one fault but certainly the commonest failure was connected with the braking system.
Mr B. Martin of Western BRS wanted to be sure that the DoE was on the side of the operator who ran a legal business, as it seemed to him at times that such operators were still up against less well run organizations who were nonetheless business competitors. Mr. Jackson assured him that the LA's looked at all operators and applied the same standards to all, large or small. Reg Brown wanted to know if Mr. Martin was making the best use of the skills he had available. For example, the best men could be used to diagnose faults and the less experienced could then get on with the basic work of putting them right.
Mr. John Green (Wakefield Centre, NBC) said that he was an advocate of good maintenance and asked whether the DoE realized that good men were hard to come by, and expensive to hire, that today's vehicles were defective and that spares were not easily available. He asked for better designed and better built vehicles.
How to get spares
Mr. Lewis felt that Mr Green's problems were not his. The bus industry had been setting its own standards for 43 years and must know the minimum standards it required. Mr Reed said that a surefire way of getting spares was by completing the area maintenance committee complaint forms and Mr Jackson commented that no one had to be an operator and no one had to buy a particular type of vehicle.
Mr M. J. Pickering of the RTITB added that although there were some 17,000 fitters in the bus industry the annual intake of apprentices was only 450, whereas at least 1000 would be needed to ease the labour problem.
Mr John Hanlon, Chairman of the Northern Traffic Commissioners, was in favour of making drivers shoulder more responsibility for the vehicle. Too many operators, he said, were in the hands of the drivers; was it not time that drivers had their hgv licences suspended or revoked for not reporting obvious vehicle defects?
Mr Reed echoed Mr Hanlon's comments on the driver — he thought the driver had got away with things for too long.
Mr Cobb of Swindon Corporation was worried that the forecast increase in commercial vehicles would overload testing station capacity (his own local station was already 25 per cent over capacity); were the necessary steps being taken to build more? Mr Lewis said that the quick answer was no. The existing stations could meet the national need, though individual stations might be overloaded, but the last group to be involved — municipal vehicles — were not catered for and the situation was unlikely to get worse.
Inadequacies, deficiencies
The session on Vehicles for the Eighties was led by three speakers, Mr J. S. Smallshaw, transport executive with Hanson Dairies, Liverpool, Mr J. A. Davies, assistant general service manager of ERF Ltd, and Mr M. V. Ellis, a senior engineer in the vehicle inspection division of the Department of the Environment.
Mr Smallshaw saw today's problems as inadequacies of components; inadequacies of design; inadequacies of liaison between Government departments, manufacturers, distributors and operators; deficiencies of operational management; deficiencies of fitters; deficiencies of drivers.
As examples of inadequacies of components he took items from the cooling system — for instance, radiators often having bolts in place of drain taps so that the base of the bottom tank was torn when the bolt was undone; hoses of poor quality, which perished very quickly; hose clips that were just bits of wire, would not tighten and were often badly routed; and system operating pressures that led to burst hoses, leaking heater elements and burst header tanks.
Among inadequacies of design he pointed to everyday examples such as vans with rear lights that were blanked off from approaching traffic when the rear doors were fully opened, and light commercial vehicles with bumpers fastened to the front wings.
On the inadequacies of liaison between Government departments, manufacturers, distributors and operators, Mr Smallshaw said that Statutory Instruments at times were incomprehensible and forms are difficult to understand.
Until recently, for example, there was a very simple form for applying for an excise licence but now the new form had lost its simplicity, was in triplicate and in order to understand it one had to read and testify to having read a publication of 15 printed pages.
While relationships between distributor and manufacturer and an operator were excellent when vehicles were being purchased, the relationship changed when the operator tried to get work done under warranty. The attitude of some reception and stores staff indicated that the customer had assumed a nuisance Value.
Management deficiencies were fewer bul still evident. Senior management waE beginning to accept that distribution and transport really were a profession, but there were still too many people whc regarded a transport manager or engineei as a promoted driver or mechanic. Thk was borne out by advertisements for very demanding managerial jobs offering aroune £2000.
Talking of the deficiencies of fitters Mr Smallshaw said that a fitter's jot had long been underestimated, and al too often the initial training had beer lacking. There were far too many basic mistakes and a lack of diagnostic ability Costs, vehicle and component design vehicle life and unit exchanges had alteret the style of a mechanic's work, but then was so much more than exchanging unit or component.
The majority of garage work concen trated on preventive maintenance schedules and for much of their time mechanic were not called upon to exercise othe skills. They spent a high proportion o their time checking and adjusting, o replacing, and irregular faults often de feated them.
Mr Smallshaw considered deficiencie of drivers to be a major problem.
Much interest, he felt, was lost b] drivers when the five-day week was intro duced, and when vehicles began to b used more intensively on shifts. Driver lost their personal vehicle on which the: probably did driver maintenance. To pu these deficiencies right, manufacturer would have to work more closely wit] the operator. Fitters and drivers woull have to be better trained. Vehicles woull inevitably become more expensive to bir but an overall operational improvemen could be achieved if the vehicle had genuinely better maintenance level an' life.
Mr Smallshaw said that he would pei sonally like to see on the vehicles e 1980 improved suspensions, particularl for light running conditions; cadenc braking; some form of road speed governoi power steering which was operative onl at shunting speeds; automatic transmissior and a standard lay-out of switches fc all vehicles.
Tomorrow's trucks
Mr Davies of ERF said in his addres that vehicle design considerations wet twofold, namely vehicle legislation an operator requirements, and those cot straints would shape the next generatio of vehicles. He foresaw in Europe vehicle similar in configuration to those that hav been operating in Australia and the US) for many years; with a transport syster where super heavy duty highway truck were used between large European /Britis terminal centres and where smaller "inte city" trucks were used for local distribution.
He spoke of engines being developed in the 400-600 bhp range and envisaged demands for automatic transmission and even better driver comforts. The basic chassis as we know it, Mr Davies thought, would remain but an anti-skid braking system would be fitted. "Cart" type suspension would eventually give way to air or even hydraulic forms of suspension, with lighter vehicles taking advantage of independent suspension coupled with constant height sensing units.
He stressed the importance of customer / manufacturer co-operation and thought that an executive of any company should be available at any time, to solve particularly difficult problems. ERF, said Mr Davies, considered the small man and the big man equally important; one man "running one truck lost 100 per cent of his fleet if it broke down. Driver sympathy was all-important, he thought, and to this end ERF provided a driver trainer scheme.
In his paper, "The legislative parameters within which ideals and aims should fit", Mr Ellis said the overriding factor affecting the future was Britain's membership of the EEC. Looking at legislation developments, he said a type approval system for vehicles would evolve and, while no indication could be given as to the final form and compulsory implementation dates for all vehicles, it had been announced that the scheme will commence on July 1 1973 in the UK.
Production models of type-approved vehicles or components would receive certificates of conformity to the type. While the manufacturer accepted the responsibility for conformity, DoE officers would have the power to spot-check production and act in case of default. These checks would be additional to the normal in-service checks made by vehicle examiners.
EEC directives already in existence covered type approval; sound levels and exhaust systems; emissions from sparkignition engines; fuel tanks and rear bumpers; rear registration plates; steering equipment; door locks and hinges; audible warning devices; rear view mirrors; braking; radio interference suppression; emission from diesel engines; while others under discussion included lighting; safety glass; vehicle trailer connections; weights and dimensions; agricultural vehicles; head restraints; anti-theft devices; protective steering; interior fittings; technical inspection; tyres; seat strength and anchorages.
In parallel with EEC, UK was a party to ECE (Geneva) discussions, whose outcome was not legally binding domestically. But under the ECE the following regulations had been issued: European beam headlights; reflex reflectors;Tear registration plate lights; sealed beam headlamps; direction indicators; side, rear and stop lights; halogen headlights and lamps; noise; radio interference suppression; door latches and hinges; protection of drivers against steering column; braking; safety belt anchorages; emissions from positive ignition engines; safety belts; strength of seats and anchorages; protection against unauthorized use; anti-theft; Tog lights; interior fittings; reversing lights; emissions from diesel engines; head restraints; external projections; advance warning triangles; audible warning devices.
Under discussion The UK had accepted some ECE regulations and those which are under discussion were: driver's field of vision; impact head-on collision; installation of lighting and signalling devices; compatibility of drawing vehicles and trailers; windscreen defrosting and demisting; prevention of fire risks; occupant protection; commercial vehicle cabs; pneumatic tyres; snow tyres; supply voltages (lamp voltages); impact in a lateral collision; impact in a rear-end collision; impact when overturning; caravans.
Mr Ellis emphasized that, while the UK was bound by the Treaty of Rome to acceptance of EEC directives, we were now an equal partner in discussion on the formulation of these.
The principal change was greater legislative control over the manufacturers' design and quality but at the same time still leaving him free to express his own individuality and style in the products he produced.
Despite the efforts of the designer or the objectives of legislation, ultimately it was the user who would always shoulder responsibility for the condition of his vehicle in use. It was therefore essential, said Mr Ellis, that if the transport engineer was going to realize his ideals, he must make his voice heard and fully exert his influence in all quarters.
Mr R Dennis, of Bass Charrington, opened the discussion by commenting that on one hand operators were overwhelmed by legislation but on the other hand the manufacturing industry was suffering from the indecision on vehicle sizes and weights on the part of the Government.
Mr R. B. Daniel thought that part of the lack of good diagnostic fitters was due to the technical colleges, who seemed to concentrate more on practical repairs than on diagnosis as such. Mr Davies agreed — adding that in his company's experience some 70 per cent of all the service exchange parts received at the company's stores were in perfect condition, indicating that they had been changed in an attempt by the mechanic to overkill the problem.
Mr J. Bradbury told of his troubles in getting Ford parts. After getting seven exhaust systems for a D800 he had been asked if he could bring the old part in for positive identification even though he had supplied the chassis number and manufacturer's plate details. On another occasion he was told there were 28 different throttle cables specified on the Transit van — which did he want?
Mr G. Jones, head of auto engineering at Paddington Technical College, referring to the diagnosis problem, said this was the hardest subject to teach and, unlike doctors, mechanics could not bury their mistakes. Mr Smallshaw said that too much diagnosis depended on sophisticated equipment. Perhaps it would be wiser to develop instinctive diagnosis.
Mr B. J. Moss wanted more thought to be given to the layout of equipment with servicing in mind. Mr Davies said that the tilt cab had made servicing a whole lot easier, and detail layout was improving all the time. Mr Smallshaw thought it important in vehicle design to be practical first; sophistication could come later.
Mr M. Delane, of Bass Charrington, was interested in road speed governors as mentioned by Mr Davies and wanted to know if they were generally available.
Mr. Davies knew of no British manufacturer who made one since Hepworth and Grandage had stopped making theirs, but ERF could offer the American Dana-Spicer governor on their vehicles. The use of a governor, said Mr. Davies, definitely cut down wear, and fuel savings in the order of £300 per year could be expected from a large vehicle covering 100,000 miles per year. Mr. Smallshaw, who had personal experience of the Hepworth and Grandage governor on 19-tongcw tractive units, agreed that they brought fuel savings.
Mr. R. Escombe, of Bedfordia Haulage, wound up the discussion by saying that he and many others would be prepared to pay extra for the trucks they bought providing there was a proven maintenance or repair cost benefit.