1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140 
THE BASIS OF BUILDING
Page 45
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Converting the previous United Trailers' moving floor design into a Fruehauf product wasn't a straightforward exercise as Fruehauf Tippers' chief engineer, John Howard, explains: "We found their information to be a little bit Wanting'. The designs were extremely sketchy, since a lot of the United products tended to have minimum engineering drawings and instead relied on the skill of the shop floor to build them.
"We have a sophisticated flow that allows for standard specification trailers on a proper volume-based production line. So we had to build it to see how it would fit into the production process." Fortunately, help was at hand, continues Howard: "If we hadn't had one of the senior guys from United now working with us, we'd have struggled we'd have done it, but it would have taken a bit longer."
It was clearly a learning process for Howard and the Fruehauf production team, not least in the fact that during the building of the 'prototype', it was discovered the United spec included rear-end reinforcements to carry a truck-mounted forklift, which naturally added unnecessary weight to the final chassis. However, like Wordsworth, Howard reports that the initial review meeting with the first customer operator was extremely positive. "There were a couple of loose hydraulic joints, but nothing much more... they said 'that's better' than what they'd had before."