Anyone still driving around with an old trailer??
Drove last week with this beauty from 1977.
Curtains are relatively new.
Hello Vosa
Empty position.
Partly loaded.
Fully loaded.
Some of the old tank trailers we had at Meulemeester were lovely to work and pull around, cable handbrakes, leaf springs and non stain stainless steel.
Coo, haven’t seen one of those manual trailer brake pressure adjusting valves for well over 30 years, we had them on bulk artic tippers back in the day before load sensing valves became de rigueur, they worked well.
First time i found out, as a youngish driver, if you presented a case well pointing out how it was of benefit to the company and not just another driver winge about something, that you could get things changed for the better, the whole fleet was retrofitted with them.
A set of staybrites and that trailer would look the ■■■■■■■■, and is just me who would want to soak those poor rusting springs in grease and wrap them.
Juddian:
Is it just me who would want to soak those poor rusting springs in grease and wrap them.
I did suggest last week to grease them. I’m still waiting for their answer.
A general purpose trailer is a pretty simple thing (any modest sized engineering company should be able to churn one out) and as such you can keep them running nearly forever. It’s just a matter of how much money you’re prepared to throw at them over the years.
Pulled one of our oldest tankers Friday, built in 1992. 1992 doesn’t seem that long ago until you realize it’s 27 years ago, I imagine even Carryfast was working back then it’s that long ago! 
Sign of getting old I guess.
1977 is mightily impressive though, year I was born and it certainly looks in better condition than me
Forgive me for asking but I wasn’t even born in 77. What is the pressure adjusting valve for? And when would you alter it between the positions and for what reason? I take it this is something that’s electronic and automatic on modern trailers?
And there was me thinking our 2003 Schmitz euroliners were a tad on the old side!
Rowley010:
Forgive me for asking but I wasn’t even born in 77. What is the pressure adjusting valve for? And when would you alter it between the positions and for what reason? I take it this is something that’s electronic and automatic on modern trailers?
It’s there so you can alter the amount of air going to the brakes eg:-
:- when loaded you’d change the valve to the loaded position which in turn forces more air to the brakes.Depending on weight loaded.
You wouldn’t want to drive empty with the valve in the loaded position because the brakes would lock up leaving a 1000km of tyre tread on the road.
So once you were empty, you change the valve to empty.
With multi drop work, you would change the setting to part load once you had unloaded the first 5/6 ton.
Todays trailers pretty much do all this automatically.
Geoffo:
Rowley010:
Forgive me for asking but I wasn’t even born in 77. What is the pressure adjusting valve for? And when would you alter it between the positions and for what reason? I take it this is something that’s electronic and automatic on modern trailers?It’s there so you can alter the amount of air going to the brakes eg:-
:- when loaded you’d change the valve to the loaded position which in turn forces more air to the brakes.Depending on weight loaded.
You wouldn’t want to drive empty with the valve in the loaded position because the brakes would lock up leaving a 1000km of tyre tread on the road.
So once you were empty, you change the valve to empty.With multi drop work, you would change the setting to part load once you had unloaded the first 5/6 ton.
Todays trailers pretty much do all this automatically.
So I’m guessing that the opposite to leaving it in full position when empty, so leaving it in half position when fully loaded would mean you’d end up ■■■■■■■■ your pants trying to bringing it to a stop?
Oldest I had is 1999, one of the bosses mates trailers. Still in good condition, due to on site garage repairing any problems straight away.
Sent from my SM-G903F using Tapatalk
Would these ancient trailers connect easily to modern units? Wasn’t there 3 air connectors with a blue one and taps instead of the plugin connectors? (Basing this on summut during my theory test stuff).
Still waiting to find a unit with a blue line.
In 2016 when working for probably the best brewer, they had a whole fleet of tankers all dating back to the mid 80s, and I used to pull them. They’re still using all of them them. Although they’re all a bit like Trigger’s broom.
And if I recall correctly, that bloke who runs the F88 on logging work uses a 1973 trailer.
Rowley010:
Geoffo:
Rowley010:
Forgive me for asking but I wasn’t even born in 77. What is the pressure adjusting valve for? And when would you alter it between the positions and for what reason? I take it this is something that’s electronic and automatic on modern trailers?It’s there so you can alter the amount of air going to the brakes eg:-
:- when loaded you’d change the valve to the loaded position which in turn forces more air to the brakes.Depending on weight loaded.
You wouldn’t want to drive empty with the valve in the loaded position because the brakes would lock up leaving a 1000km of tyre tread on the road.
So once you were empty, you change the valve to empty.With multi drop work, you would change the setting to part load once you had unloaded the first 5/6 ton.
Todays trailers pretty much do all this automatically.
So I’m guessing that the opposite to leaving it in full position when empty, so leaving it in half position when fully loaded would mean you’d end up ■■■■■■■■ your pants trying to bringing it to a stop?
Something like that. Yes.
trevHCS:
Would these ancient trailers connect easily to modern units? Wasn’t there 3 air connectors with a blue one and taps instead of the plugin connectors? (Basing this on summut during my theory test stuff).Still waiting to find a unit with a blue line.
This trailer only has 4 connectors. Red, Yellow, lights & fog light. So no Abs/Ebs connections.
Taps for air lines were on the old tractor units ,not the trailers.
The last Tractor unit I saw with a blue line was back in '88.
You sometimes see 3 line trailers, but if it has a belly tank, don’t put any pressure through the blue line 
Those valves are handy for TUV / MOT testing, instead of tying the load sensing valve up like we do, the Dutch designed a valve for it. 
Wheel Nut:
Some of the old tank trailers we had at Meulemeester were lovely to work and pull around, cable handbrakes, leaf springs and non stain stainless steel.
So you worked for Meulemeester ? The company from Tielt?
When I used to work for the red and yellow army (Haverton Hill depot) up till I left last year (and since the “special products” division was bought by Sutton’s back in the spring), the majority of the GP tankers they ran were between 20 and 30 years old, some still with steel suspension and ratchet handbrakes!
A good chunk of the vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) tanks were built in 1995 (they have since been refurbished with new running gear), along with later builds from 2006, 2009 and 2012. Plus, the Acrylonitrile trailers come from 1994 (with a couple from 2006).
Oh! And not forgetting a tandem-axle low loader dating from 1977 and an incident response trailer from 1980!
Geoffo:
Juddian:
Is it just me who would want to soak those poor rusting springs in grease and wrap them.I did suggest last week to grease them. I’m still waiting for their answer.
Problem with greasing them is the geease attracts dirt which then mixes with the grease to make a grinding paste, only springs that benefit from oiling/greasing are classic cars and thats only really to stop them seizing up or the leaves spreading apart.
As these operate on a sliding spring hanger, wrapping them to stop dirt ingress will be almost impossible, plus you cannot then inspect the leaves for cracking.
Trickydick:
Geoffo:
Juddian:
Is it just me who would want to soak those poor rusting springs in grease and wrap them.I did suggest last week to grease them. I’m still waiting for their answer.
Problem with greasing them is the geease attracts dirt which then mixes with the grease to make a grinding paste, only springs that benefit from oiling/greasing are classic cars and thats only really to stop them seizing up or the leaves spreading apart.
As these operate on a sliding spring hanger, wrapping them to stop dirt ingress will be almost impossible, plus you cannot then inspect the leaves for cracking.
Did the benefits of leaving them dry outweigh the downsides, for years we had autolubed shackles on tractor units, invariably the oil spread down through the spring leaves.
You’d have thought some clever bugger would have come up with a quick release plastic or rubber sleeve for multi leaf springs, so they could be lubed, protected from the elements and inspected without too much aggro.