I know there are a few fans of Fuller gear boxes on here and I don’t mean to offend any of them. I myself spend the best part of 11 a day 5 days a week stirring the cogs in them.
At the moment we are pulling plantation pine out of the top end of the Weld Valley in Southern Tasmania, we’re using baby B’s, as the road isn’t suitably for anything bigger, and are running them at 57.7 tons. One of the climbs as 1 in 5 and it’s on gravel, the road clings to the side of the mountain and is no wider than 4 meters. The method of getting up this section is to select first low at the bottom of the climb and just walk the truck up the 3 k’s which takes about 10 minutes.
Last week a tourist in a camper van got lost in the forest and found one of trucks about half way up this section the driver of the camper van panicked and caused the truck to halt, this is what happened on the re start.
There was quite a bit of faffing about to recover the truck…
Hey, maybe it carried on home for an other 1000 miles after the explosion without oil on wet and sandy tracks.
AND THE FULLER DRIVER WAS HAPPY BECAUSE IT DROVE HIM HOME
Once we had an Fuller with a strange noice as the subs driver called us after several 100km. We went off and saw it was without oil, filled up and it lasted the rest of the trucks life.
Not as once one of our subs forgot to fill up again after a service change, the ZF’s blocked after 30km with the same sight of the box here shown.
Eric,
That looks similar to a gearbox from a Volvo FM 8 wheeler I was sent to recover a couple of weeks ago, what was left of the box was resting on the second steer axle and the A42
Jelliot:
I know there are a few fans of Fuller gear boxes on here and I don’t mean to offend any of them. I myself spend the best part of 11 a day 5 days a week stirring the cogs in them.
At the moment we are pulling plantation pine out of the top end of the Weld Valley in Southern Tasmania, we’re using baby B’s, as the road isn’t suitably for anything bigger, and are running them at 57.7 tons. One of the climbs as 1 in 5 and it’s on gravel, the road clings to the side of the mountain and is no wider than 4 meters. The method of getting up this section is to select first low at the bottom of the climb and just walk the truck up the 3 k’s which takes about 10 minutes.
Last week a tourist in a camper van got lost in the forest and found one of trucks about half way up this section the driver of the camper van panicked and caused the truck to halt, this is what happened on the re start.
There was quite a bit of faffing about to recover the truck…
Jeff…
57 or 58 tonnes shouldn’t do this to a Fuller. I wonder was there excessive wheel spin/suspension bounce or did it get caught between two gears?
The first and second photographs show corrosion on the broken face at the top. I wonder if it was a fatigue crack which had been propagating for some time?
I would have to agree with Diesel Dan on this one or the hornets down your way Jeff are fast workers and built their nests in the bolt holes of the air change valve as soon as it was unbolted lol.
It’s probably closer to 3 or 4 weeks, we don’t have termites in Tasmania, it’s has been sitting outside round the back where they have been tipping ■■■■■■■■■, ( demolition that’s been through the crusher ) to extend the yard. So not only has it been covered in dust but it gets sprayed twice an hour by passing the water tanker.
I don’t know the exact circumstances of the event as I was working in a different coupe, but the guy that was on it at the time has been driving Fullers full time for the best part of 30 years.
It’s hard enough to get up that section of road with out spinning if all is going good, and that’s with the inter lock in and the tyres at 35 PSI.
50t on a 1 in 5, are you sure it didn’t screw off the prop shaft which then put an eccentric load on the box busting off it’s end section?
It’s a big ask to lift off fully laden on such an incline.
Jelliot:
It’s probably closer to 3 or 4 weeks, we don’t have termites in Tasmania, it’s has been sitting outside round the back where they have been tipping ■■■■■■■■■, ( demolition that’s been through the crusher ) to extend the yard. So not only has it been covered in dust but it gets sprayed twice an hour by passing the water tanker.
I don’t know the exact circumstances of the event as I was working in a different coupe, but the guy that was on it at the time has been driving Fullers full time for the best part of 30 years.
It’s hard enough to get up that section of road with out spinning if all is going good, and that’s with the inter lock in and the tyres at 35 PSI.
Jeff…
I wasn’t referring to a termite Jeff and we don’t actually have a hornet in Aus either I was referring to a wasp we do have that builds its nests out of mud in any oriface it can find i.e. bolt /stud holes air lines etc annoying little devil and often referred to as a Hornet.
DIG
Had a few Foden 12 speed boxes explode like that when a tooth has broken off one of the epicyclic planet gears, with nowhere to go it jams in the steel track ring and then bursts the casing open. Not a driver error, just metal fatigue. The main gearbox was normally unaffected.
The Foden 12 speed, a lovely box to work, on but oh that nut on the rear of the mainshaft, loctite, staked and a circlip and it still came loose, as did the bolts and dowels?/pegs? for the Foden patent clutch brake.
I’m just wondering whether the auxiliary drive gear on the back of the Fuller mainshaft came adrift, some had a circlip and some had a plate with two bolts to hold it in place or am I having a senior moment?
cargo:
50t on a 1 in 5, are you sure it didn’t screw off the prop shaft which then put an eccentric load on the box busting off it’s end section?
It’s a big ask to lift off fully laden on such an incline.
There’s been a few screwed props in this area, not an uncommon thing when your on this job, hence most of the trucks round here have a fairly short wheel base. But the prop was fine and wasn’t replaced this time.
This thread wasn’t meant to be a dig at Fuller boxes, all I said was “look what happened to this one”.
The truck I’m on at the moment has a Fuller Road Ranger in it, the same box that’s been in since it left the factory, and there is 1.3 million hours on the truck. It’s bit on the sloppy side, and sometimes has a few quirks, but other than that it gets along just fine.
Personally my favourite box was the 16 speed Volvo that they put on the back of F 12’s and F16’s
cav551:
The Foden 12 speed, a lovely box to work, on but oh that nut on the rear of the mainshaft, loctite, staked and a circlip and it still came loose, as did the bolts and dowels?/pegs? for the Foden patent clutch brake.
I’m just wondering whether the auxiliary drive gear on the back of the Fuller mainshaft came adrift, some had a circlip and some had a plate with two bolts to hold it in place or am I having a senior moment?
Agreed about the Foden box problems, a nightmare to keep things together internally and never really resolved! The only problems we had with the Fuller was the PTO shaft drive to the blower on the powder tanker’s vibrating loose and shearing the bolts off of the main gearbox, a fairly easy repair. I remember we did have the rear end off a couple of boxes as we made a special adapter to keep the rear end hanging in line when lifting it off with the crane, cannot remember just what the problem was though.
The most common problem I recall was the high/low range synchroniser would break one of the pegs, after that it would be that it simply wore out so that there was a loud crashing on engagement, if that was left too long then the auxiliary drive gear’s ■■■■■ pegs got burred over. Only other fault was the already mentioned bolts or circlip. The odd one that had a ham- fisted driver would burr the dog clutches making it a bit of a ■■■■■ to change gear cleanly.
The Roadranger was a really good box which gave little trouble, which was more than could be said for the early Twin Splitters and the SAMT… modifications and problems with yes/no valves.
