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Quality must last longer
Page 126
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Peacock & Archer has developed its own equipment for stripping down seized units and for straightening bent piston rods
• The heavy use of trucks with bigger payloads in Britain today, coupled with the vast improvements in running gear, chasis design, and braking performance, mean that not only do these vehicles need proper service when maintenance is due, they need it over a longer period of time.
The extra mileages and the extra lifetime of many vehicles will mean that ancillary equipment such as the hydraulic rams or pumps used in steering equipment, tipping and tilt cabs and so on, where safety standards need to be kept high, will now be replaced many more times during a vehicle's lifetime.
One company which specialises in the high-quality remanufacture of vehicle hydraulics, both for on-highway and offhighway equipment, is Peacock & Archer of Leek, Staffs, and Rochford in Essex.
Peacock & Archer started in business 12 years ago as remanufacturer of powersteering equipment for commercial vehicles. The company later expanded its business into the remanufacture of manual steering boxes, tilt cab equipment and a wide and comprehensive range of hydraulics from forklift trucks, cranes, rolling mill rams, the off-road mobile market to shops' door actuators.
Brian Peacock, the managing director of Peacock & Archer, told Workshop : "We set our stall out from day one to be a high-quality remanufacturer. In fact we spend a lot of our time considering improvements to original equipment to make it more serviceable and offer a longer work life. Remember, we see it after it has been in service and when it has been abused and neglected by the customer, often before the original maker does.
"I happen to hold the view that much original equipment could have been better designed in the first place with such simple components as chrome-plated rods as standard, in my opinion, an essential requirement for equipment which works in hostile environmental conditions. A nonchromed rod left exposed will quickly pit and rust and when reconditioned will quickly deteriorate again.
"All hydraulic equipment has to be manufactured to fine tolerances and any pitting or scoring on sealed surfaces will quickly provide an escape route for pressurised fluids and cause collapse. It might cost a little more in relative terms to chrome a piston rod in the first place but the extra lifetime it will give more than outweighs the costs." The remanufacturing process at Peacock & Archer follows a clearly defined route. First, it promises to remanufacture a customer's own unit within seven days whenever this is possible. Generally, a unit is available on a service exchange basis and an alternative unit will be available off the shelf.
On receipt of the damaged or worn unit it is carefully cleaned in a special area, then stripped down to its components parts, carefully examined with all items being measured to check to OE & CETOP tolerances and dimensions. Cylinders and rods are checked for straightness, and all end fixings are checked for cracks and misalignment.
All seals are discarded and any parts which need replacing are remanufactured in Peacock & Archer's own machine shop which is well equipped with an array of computer controlled machine tools.
Stripping seized units
The company has developed its own equipment for stripping down seized units and for straightening bent piston rods. Rods are re-metalled and/or re-chromed and refinished. The most up to date welding techniques are used to ensure that the process can be carried out to avoid distortion and the very often neglected aspect of heat-affected zone cracking through welding dissimilar materials or high-grade steels with incorrect preparation, reheating and incorrect filler rods.
Back to Brian Peacock, who commented: "Even when you've got all the engineering right and got the metal back into the most perfect state, the final repair will depend for its longevity and operation on the quality of the seals used. We, unlike many others, maintain a very high and expensive stock of quality seals of all kinds and we source these for 'quality first' from the leading manufacturers in the UK, or often overseas.
"This is another area where we will just not accept any compromises on quality as the ultimate durability of the unit depends on them and, therefore, our warranty. It costs us more but then we believe it's a far better way than sending round the corner for a seal which may fit but will probably collapse after a few hours' use. The company has exceptionally low warranty returns because nothing leaves the factory unless we are absolutely 100% satisfied that the assembly and perform ance are correct to specification."
It is of significance that Peacock & Archer, because it has instituted its own very high-quality test procedures, and apart from testing all equipment up to one and a half times its originally designed operating pressures and/or loads, has developed a number of sophisticated test rigs. The company has its own fully procedurised quality assurance standards which have been assessed and approved to BS 5750, Part 2, and MOD AQUAP and various OE quality assessments.
Remanufacturing, of course, demands the exploitation of techniques to suit the products. Cleanliness is of the utmost importance. Peacock & Archer allows nothing into the remanufacturing area which hasn't been thoroughly cleaned and inspected. It never tries to reclaim any component which has been over-stressed or severely damaged; it has a fetish about • quality and because of this has been chosen to manufacture new units for particularly high-quality applications and where standard equipment has proved unsuitable.
What of the future? Hydraulics have become more and more sophisticated. The demands put on them are extremely high. The high cost of original units, if they are available, compels many operators to turn to the remanufactured alternative. And, of course, some problems are solved by operators and the smaller reconditioner by fitting new seals.
Peacock & Archer clearly does not consider that to be the best way. Brian Peacock said: "Having taken the trouble to remove a unit and expensive equipment not earning for periods of time, the last thing the customer wants is to have to do it again all over within a matter of weeks so, in my opinion, a thorough job is essential and with a thorough job we can, of course, give a proper warranty which protects the customer."
As more and more equipment, original vehicles, cranes, dumpers and forklifts are imported into the UK, particularly from the Far East, the cost of shipping a component thousands of miles, together with the high cost of a new spare, make them prohibitive, not to mention the many weeks delay in time in getting the units to the UK. For this reason it operates a remanufacturing business to satisfy not only the end user customer but also many of the original manufacturers and importers who again most appreciate that only a quality job will be satisfactory for their equipment.
Peacock & Archer Turbo 65