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NG THE CHANGES
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When truck manufacturers cannot keep up with demand, and when additional equipment is required, chassis converters come into their own. Bryan Jarvis spoke to several, including MA\is new partner.
Anyone unfamiliar with the phrase 'bespoke engineering' should take a trip to Darwen. Lancashire and look around Wheelbase Engineering's workshops. Four years after switching to the 42-bay factory site it now occupies,close to the M65 near Blackburn, the family-owned firm and its product portfolio have grown beyond belief. This success story has been helped by manufacturers' inability to supply what many operators need at the time they need it.
Although manufacturers go to enormous lengths to design and produce vehicles for use across entire continents, the wheelbases offered in the UK are not always extensive enough. Here, operators determine a particular spec for a specific contract, when the vehicle has to be longer, wider or higher than the norm to manage particular loads. When the dealer can't supply from standard stock or there are none available, it will turn to chassis converters such as Wheelbase Engineering, which can shorten or extend chassis and add extra axles and other equipment.
MD Simon Pickles is particularly pleased about the latest feather in the firm's cap — its appointment as an official 'conversion partner' for MAN.That enables Wheelbase to access the chassis data files in order to bring it into line with the manufacturer's own information system. Over the past few years truck / manufacturers have developed their relationship with chassis converters; not least because of the technologies, particularly electronic braking. that feature in the latest vehicles Now, before any conversion takes place. they must apply to the manufacturer for the relevant data file and seek its approval for any changes to a vehicle's parameters.
Wheelbase's 'approved partnership' with MAN allows it to apply for the data file against the chassis number for the work due to be carried out. Once completed, the dealer can access the updated tile, prior to PDI and delivery to the customer.
This type of arrangement should finally put paid to the sort of backstreet garage work that has plagued the road transport industry since trucks were invented.
-Thankfully the UK just isn't like other EC markets," says Pickles,"In Germany, for example, a set number of wheelbases are offered and the haulage industry by and large accepts it.
But here in the U K, hauliers constantly examine their clients' operations in order to improve their own. Fewer long-term contracts are handed out these days, so it's often a way of cementing such 'loose' agreements and underwriting the inevitable hefty investments in new equipment.
IK dealers and manufacturers routinely arrange to have wheelbases changed on stock chassis rather than turn customers away. Wheelbase is always busy making these changes and converting tractive units to rigids, mostly because of the shortages of new vehicles. When some contracts expire, batches of three-to five-year-old tractors find their way to Darwen, only to re-emerge in an altogether different configuration.
For those with high residuals, a change of wheelbase often adds further value too.
Off to foreign climes When contracts are concluded many tractor units are downgraded,stripped of their ABS/EBS and shipped to Middle Eastern or African markets.
Wheelbase is very much into niche markets and its product offerings get ever wider. The North-West is extremely good for demountable or swap body system business and it takes lots of orders from blue chips including Silentnight and Harvey's Furniture.
There's also been a sizeable increase in operators wanting their standard rigid chassis converted into drawbars, simply because of the current dearth of new ones.This involves the addition of an extra braking system and fittings, and usually comes about when a haulier has an urgent need and the dealer doesn't want to miss a deal.
This year there's been a wide variety of chassis work, including hook-loader conversions, skip loaders, fork-lift and plant drawbars for bodybuilders as well as specialist trailers for motorcycle racing teams, boat transporters and others. Wheelbase has recently begun to convert a batch of chassis into NHS breastscreening trailers for WH Bence. Wheelbase's other main source of work is the add-on third axle market. It will convert any make of chassis during CM 's visit there were Dal; Hino, MAN, Mercedes, Scania, Volvo and even Dennis municipal chassis being worked on.
The company converts quite a number of Daf CF65.250s to 6x2s with mid-lift axles.The cost of raising its original 18-tonne GVW limit to 23 tonnes is more than justified by giving the end-user a substantial increase in payload, and it doesn't take too long to pass the payback stage.
Naturally. the manufacturer must satisfy itself that the quality of the conversion meets its own standards and doesn't impinge on the original warranty before issuing the usual `letter of no objection'.
But for Wheelbase, MAN's decision to appoint it as a fully approved partner in respect of all chassis modifications to its products is a huge leap forward.Winning approval entailed a lengthy series of vigorous exams, audits and quality checks of the entire reengineering system at Darwen, covering such areas as material selection, CAD, work methodology, traceability, paint finish, workmanship, trade training and the workflow system. Modern LGVs are highly sophisticated, valuable items of equipment with electronic braking, lighting, pneumatics and the like:not surprisingly the manufacturers value their products and reputations most highly.
"It's understandable that they need to be satisfied that the entire build path can be traced for warranty and quality considerations," says Pickles,"but we're extremely pleased to have come through such a stern examination and earned MAN's full approval."
Current work
Wheelbase handles work from a pretty wide sector of industry: from manufacturers to owner-drivers, and from one-offs to series contracts. For example, it recently completed a contract to carry out wheelbase extensions on 100 MAN rigids. But it is also fitting midlift axles on Scania tractor units for Scania as and when required, using small (215/75R 17.5in) tyre equipment.
It is also equipping 42 Mercedes-Benz Actroses with a similar configuration.This is purely an interim measure until the manufacturer brings it on-line but it's good, steady business Mercedes-Benz produces a mid-lifter, but only with the full sized 295/80R 22.5in wheel.Wheelbase's conversion with the smaller wheel saves around 400kg without affecting its 44-tonne gross plated weight. It also leaves more frame space for any extra ancillaries such as 'wet packs' and, just as importantly, it's readily available.
Another contract involves fitting hydraulic powered rear steering axles to ii Daf FA LF55 250 4x2s for plating at 23,000kg gross.
Once again,the manufacturer does offer such an axle configuration but it's rated at only 21,000kg so the owner asked Wheelbase to convert an equivalent 4x2 rather than waiting until Daf could chip into its busy production schedule and handle the job on-line.
Pickles points to another request from Mercedes dealerWestern Commercials, which has tasked it with converting 11 Mercedes 1824 chassis with a tag axle, raising their 18tonne G VW limit to a plated 25 tonnes.
"We're averaging 80 modifications a month, but this is so typical," he remarks. "The operator, a soft drinks manufacturer, needs non-standard vehicles fairly quickly, so the dealer or manufacturer turns to a reputable converter to supply its immediate needs — that's us." •