Vehicle-mounted side loader
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A VEHICLE-MOUNTED system known as the Side Loader for picking up a detachable body or container and setting it on the ground beside the vehicle has been added to the product range of Ray Smith Demountables of Peterborough.
The system features hydraulically-operated booms mounted transversely at each end of the chassis which lift the body using a simple chain arrangement. Electro-hydraulic power is provided by the vehicle battery.
The side loader can normally tackle items weighing up to four tonnes but is more suited for handling site huts or skips which are not equipped for use with conventional demountable-body systems.
For regular use, the sideloader installation can be mounted directly on the chassis or alternatively fitted to a conventional demountable underframe for use with one of Ray Smith's existing swop-body systems.
Equipped this way, a vehicle could, for example, handle ordinary swop-bodies (with support legs) most of the time, then pick up the side-loader modules when needed to move a site office or canteen.
Initial versions of the Side Loader can handle bodies up to 6.1m (20ft) long and have lifting capacities of four tonnes (3.94 tons). Larger versions will be offered to suit individual requirements.
Ray Smith Demountables has ,co-operated with Rollalong of Wimbourne, Dorset, to produce a demonstration vehicle with a demountable Side Loader carrying a 6.1m Rollalong mass hut.
• Ray Smith Tail Lifts claims that its purpose-designed underrun bumper kit, which is designed to accommodate all normal variations in chassis height and body overhang without modification meeting all impending dimension and strength requirements, does not impede normal operation of the company's cantilever tail lift.