ID defends rear bogie by Charles Young • Leyland Daf
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denies there is a fault in the materials on the rear bogie of its 85 tipper chassis, saying the recent failures were caused by poor maintenance (CM 12-18 March).
Owner-driver John Blower's trunnion pin was returned from Eindhoven with a clean bill of health and the VI is happy with Dots report.
The findings follow three cases of trunnion-pin failure on 8x4 tippers operating out of collieries in South Wales.
The company says that the grease surrounding the trun nion was hard and had not been re-applied often enough. The function of this grease is to keep grit out of the oil—failing this the part can corrode.
Leyland Daf also points out that there are 5,000 examples of these parts in service and it has only supplied five replacements. Three were for the vehicles mentioned above; the others have yet to be traced.
A possible cause of this problem is the wheel washes that the trucks go through on their way out of collieries. These are particularly harsh and may cause the grease to perish. However, all three operators insist that their trucks are very well maintained. Richard Westcott of R Westcott and Son services his truck every 10,000km which, he says, was the advice of Swansea Truck where he bought the vehicle.
John Blower says Swansea Truck advised him to grease the rear bogie more regularly if the truck was going through a wheel wash—he subsequently greased the trunnion nipple at least once a week.
The three operators are still waiting to hear the results of the test from the dealership.