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Fodens to show new design
Page 22
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of half cab by Tony Wilding
• Three of the chassis to be exhibited by Fodens Ltd. at the Commercial Motor Show will have a new design of half cab. This type of unit has normally been considered as solely applicable to dump trucks and similar vehicles used principally off the road where the greatly improved visibility to the nearside is of considerable importance. Two vehicles with the cab inside Earls Court will spend part of their lives on sites, but on the demonstration park, Fodens will have a vehicle unlikely to do so—a 32-ton-gross tractive unit fitted with the same unit.
This goes completely away from normal practice but from the aspect of better visibility and less cab to get damaged in an accident this seems a sensible development. And it is pointed out by Fodens (correctly) that trunk vehicles rarely carry passengers and the company rules often expressly forbid it.
Following Fodens' practice over the pastfew years of concentrating on steady development of existing models rather than the introduction of completely new vehicles, most of the changes to be seen at Earls Court apart from the half cab will not be immediately obvious to the visitor. All vehicles to be exhibited will have components that have undergone slight changes to make them more robust and give longer life while others will have components fitted with the intention of assessing operators' reactions.
An eight-wheel 24-ton-gross tipper that is to be shown is perfectly standard, however, except for the new half cab. The engine is a Gardner 6LX driving through the Foden 12speed overdrive gearbox to a double-drive rear bogie. The half cab is now offered on all Foden vehicles except for crane carriers. It is of all-steel construction and although space inside is obviously limited, the driver's personal belongings are catered for by the fact that a fitted suitcase is supplied as standard and this can be located behind the seat with special straps provided to hold it in position. The same type of cab mounting is used as on the all-metal cab including the recently introduced design at the rear which incorporates springs surrounding hydraulic dampers and large rubber bushes.
The nearside of the cab has been designed to give good access to the power unit and the nearside wing forms a good platform for a fitter to stand on while servicing the power unit. There are no complex shapes in the cab structure and the windscreen slopes outwards to the top. The cab is completely lined and is fully insulated against heat and noise.
The front panel of the cab below the bottom line of the windscreen is hinged and can be raised completely to gain access to electrical components, the rear of the instrument panel, a number of auxiliaries and the radiator.
The second chassis with half cab which will be on the Stand is a six-wheeled concrete mixer for 20 tons gross and suitable for a 6 cu. yd. mixer. This will have a Gardner 6LW engine driving the Foden 12-speed gear box to the double drive rear axles. The chassis has been designed to have the lightest possible specification in keeping with a heavyduty outfit. Bottom ratio in the gearbox is 12.5 to 1 which allows the vehicle to be driven very slowly-1 mph with the engine idling—which is a great asset with this type of vehicle. One change aimed at keeping down unladen weight is in respect of the braking system. Fodens Ltd. has departed from the normal practice of a transmission brake in conjunction with triple-diaphragm chambers for the secondary and parking functions. On this particular model there will be spring brakes at the rear bogie to meet these two functions.
Two of the Show exhibits will be two-axle tractive units for 32 tons gross combination weight but apart from this they will be completely different. One will be fitted with a Foden Mk. VI 175 bhp diesel driving through a 12-speed gearbox while the other will have a Leyland 0.680, 200 bhp power unit with a Self-Changing Gears 10-speed semi-automatic transmission. An interesting fitting on the Foden-engined exhihit will be a "ceramic" clutch which is one where the friction pads are made of sintered powdered iron. The clutch plate is interchangeable with the normal Foden fabric type and advantages of using sintered iron—proved on extended tests—are that up to four times the life is obtained and that performance improves as heat is generated which is particularly important in heavy-duty vehicles. In the Leylandengined model the major interest is in the transmission.
The fifth exhibit by Fodens Ltd. will be a six-wheeled tractive unit for export. It will be
an 80-ton model fitted with a. Cummins NH 250, 240 bhp diesel driving through a Foden 12-speed overdrive gearbox strengthened internally to increase the torque capacity from 600 to 700 lb. ft. It will be fitted with the latest full-width all-steel cab—hydraulically mounted—and air conditioning equipment will be installed. The cooling system has been revised to allow the vehicle to be operated in temperatures up to 160deg F and an interesting fitting will be a load-transfer device for the four-spring rear bogie. This new development is intended to prevent the tendency for the front axle to lift when extremely heavy loads are being transported. It consists of Dunlop air bags located over the rearmost axle of the double-drive bogie and by operating a small lever in the cab weight is transferred onto this unit.
TFS to leave Tilbury
• The Transport Ferry Service is to concentrate all its capacity for roll-ory'roll-off traffic. containers, and other unit loads to Europe through Felixstowe.
Announcing this on Saturday. Mr. G. A. Ashley, deputy general manager of the Transport Ferry Service, said: "The decision to concentrate our Continental services to Europoort and Antwerp through Felixstowe is the culmination of a gradual process which has seen the growth of traffic on these routes since we opened our Felixstowe terminal in 1965.
"Although the Tilbury service will be suspended from September 13. this does not rule out the possibility of TFS returning to Tilbury at some time in the future should commercial needs warrant it."