Atkinson will show 8-wheeler with Velvet Ride
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• Although Atkinson Vehicles Ltd. will not be featuring a completely new design at the Commercial Motor Show, the concern is showing chassis with various detail improvements and two chassis of special interest.'
One of these is the heaviest vehicle that Atkinson has made for some time—it is a six-wheeled tractive unit for 100 tons gross. The second is an eight-wheeled tipper with an all-plastics cab made in Australia and often fitted to Atkinson vehicles in that market.
Another feature of the eight-wheeler is that it will have American Velvet Ride suspension for its rear bogie, this now being marketed in the UK by Holset Engineering Co Ltd. It is likely that the eight-wheeler will be on the demonstration park but accompanying the 100-ton tractor on the stand inside Earls Court there will be a second more conventional eight-wheeler and three different types of tractive unit. These will be a six-wheeled 38-ton-gross model with double-drive rear bogie, a six-wheeled rear-steer tractive unit for 36 tons gross and a four-wheeled tractive unit for 32 tons gross.
Designation of the 100-ton tractor which has been built for Pickfords Ltd. is BT.10066C. It is powered by a Cummins NH250 250 bhp diesel which drives through an Allison torque converter automatic transmission. The rear bogie is a Kirkstall heavy-duty design with doublereduction axles on a two-spring suspension. A bonneted crew-cab is fitted and three-line trailer brake couplings are mounted on the front and rear crossmembers.
The Australian one-piece reinforcedplastics cab on the eight-wheeler was specifically asked for by the operator—Hanson of Wakefield—who has ordered the vehicle. The chassis has a Gardner 6LX engine driving through a David Brown 6-500 overdrive gearbox.
The Velvet Ride rear suspension is marketed here as the Holset Willetts and was fully described in Commercial Motor of December 22 1967. Two spring units are employed in the system and each comprises a central torsion-bush assembly attached to a special chassis cross-member through rubber suspension units from which two radial arms extend forward and rearward to rubber bushes attached to axle brackets. Axle location is by upper and lower radius arms and a feature of the suspension is that it has a self-steering effect when cornering. The six-wheeled 38-ton-gross tractive unit will have a Rolls-Royce Eagle 220 bhp diesel driving through a ZF six-speed gearbox to a Kirkstall T.48 bogie. This exhibit will have the Atkinson View-Line cab introduced two years ago but the rear-steer 36-tons-gross tractive unit will be shown without a cab. This chassis will have a Cummins NH220 diesel engine with a ZF six-speed gearbox and the rear axle is a Kirk stall,
The fifth exhibit on the Atkinson stand—the four-wheeled 32-ton gross tractive unit—will have a Gardner 6LXB engine, David Brown 6-500 overdrive gearbox and Kirkstall axle. This chassis will also have a View-Line cab.
The normal-haulage models to be shown by Atkinson will have certain aspects of their specification in common. For example, all will have Kirkstall axles with 15.5in. by 8in. rear brakes and 15.5in. by 7in. fronts. Load-proportioning equipment for the brakes at the rear is now standard on all models and lock actuators are used in conjunction with dual-diaphragm chambers to provide for parking and secondary brake-efficiency requirements.