Scania Cabs - Is It possible?

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
21

Paul, I did read them, that’s why I suggested buying a newer rigid, got to be easier and cheaper than poncing about changing cabs.

The words ‘very custom’ don’t mean much on their own, so without knowing the full story the answers given will reflect that :open_mouth:

If the original question was “We have just bought a 3 series for a specialist job, it has a specially strengthened chassis, a [zb]ing great big crane and specialist body on it, but we would like to put a newer cab on it to look modern, can it be done?” then there would not have been a mention of buying an alternative chassis

But, this was the question :- Scania Cabs - Is It possible? by cieranc » Sat Jul 21, 2012 7:25 pm

Can it be done / is it possible, to swap a 1990’s flat-front Scania cab for a more modern P cab.

Followed by this - Re: Scania Cabs - Is It possible? by cieranc » Sun Jul 22, 2012 6:31 am

Thanks guys, though this idea wasn’t just a whim.
A new contract we’ve just scored requires us to have another (very custom) truck.
We don’t want another truck, but we’ve got to have it, so we’re looking for the cheapest.
We’ve found one that fits the bill perfectly, it’s in top notch mechanical order and everything is ‘right’ for the job it’s got to do.

A 24’ curtainsider is right for most jobs, plenty of those around on the used market :open_mouth:

If specific answers are required, then specific information needs to be given :wink:

22

newmercman:
Paul, I did read them, that’s why I suggested buying a newer rigid, got to be easier and cheaper than poncing about changing cabs.

The words ‘very custom’ don’t mean much on their own, so without knowing the full story the answers given will reflect that :open_mouth:

If the original question was “We have just bought a 3 series for a specialist job, it has a specially strengthened chassis, a [zb]ing great big crane and specialist body on it, but we would like to put a newer cab on it to look modern, can it be done?” then there would not have been a mention of buying an alternative chassis

Well it’s pretty well known on here that the OP works for a heavy recovery firm and so I would think it’s fair to assume the “very custom” vehicle is some kind of specialised recovery vehicle and not just a curtainsider with a load of kelsa gear and a loud exhaust. I could be wrong though and I’m sure the OP will be along to clear any confusion up…

Paul

23

Sorry if I’m being stupid but…

Would you be able to find another rigid or tractor unit and do a cut and shut? Keep the original rear half of the chassis with the body and crane but graft a complete new front end on.

You should only have a few connections to make for hydraulics, lights, propshaft, brakes and fuel lines.

Just a thought.

24

Howdy All,

Yes, this is a recovery vehicle with Hiab, tilt n slide (commercial) body and independant second car lift.

Swapping/modding the chassis just isn’t an option, hence why I never mentioned it, was just keen to learn if it was possible to swap the cab.

As for cut-n-shut with a newer front end, we’ve stretched chassis’ before when building wreckers so this isn’t beyond us. But on this motor, the chassis rails are double skinned right to the front, so to chop the front end means flitching the chassis again. The body subframe picks up right behind the cab and the crane subframe sits on top of that.

So… chassis mods are just not an option.
As this is a truck we have to have for contractual purposes, we’re not wanting to spend too much time or money on it.

25

I’d just tidy it where needed.

As I’ve said before on here no-one outside the industry has a clue which truck’s which or how old it is. Since the reg no format change I bet there’s a lot of folk out there that can’t date a vehicle from the reg easily.

Old wreckers aren’t unusual WTTS in W-S-M who cover the M5 never seem to have anything younger than about 25 years and apart from an original paint job to their own colours don’t look particularly tidy either.

26

Aye, we like a bit of vintage, alongside the newer stuff we’ve got a '95 Scammell S26 and a '92 AWD.

The truck itself is in top notch condition, can’t really fault it. So the idea if putting an older front end on appeals.
Once it’s in fleet colours, it’ll look the business!

27

With that tragic landslip in Dorset I noticed the recovery operator was running an ex-mod Foden wrecker:

Do you know anything about them because I was always under the impression they’re no use under civilian regs because the train weight is not up to anything, maybe due to single tyres only on the rear axle?

The only proper wrecker the army have I think is the Foden one that used to travel with the nuclear convoy, haven’t seen it for a while and always thought it would be a good buy if it came up for disposal:

28

Nowt to do with the train weight (Dave Crouch’s UniPower ‘LionHeart’ is a 4 wheeler with 120ton train weight).
Where Bride Valley are based, I would imagine the landscape means they’ll have use for a solid winching tractor.
Witham SV / L Jackson and Co are knocking these Fodens out for £25k now, a hell of a lot of truck for the money.
Ex army wreckers are fantastic winching tractors, BUT…they’re useless for recovering civvy motors.

This is because they have very short armed underlifts, MoD trucks have lifting eyes right at the front of them (you can see them in this pic, two lugs sticking out the bumper between the headlights), so only a short under reach is needed. There’s not many civvy trucks about that you can lift by the front bumper - you need to lift the axle, wheels or springs, so a good bit more reach needed.
Some of the newer continental coaches need a massive reach (and wheel grids).

That photo above is a good bit of kit for the MoD, but to be fair, in civvy street it’s just a basic lift-n-shift motor, probably not much use for wrecking/roll-over work.

That said, the Army currently have 10 ‘10/60 rotators’ on demo, proven in civvy street to be the bees knees when it comes to wrecking work :laughing:

29

We’ve been looking for something about the £25k mark that’s reasonably tidy that could just drag an artic back to the yard from not too far away. There’s a few customers we do maintenance for and at that level could probably make it pay.

Want something good to go apart from tidying as if we embarked on something like buying a 2nd hand body and stretching a unit it would just turn into a ten year project as there’d always be something more pressing to do.

30

Aye well, as above, the ex MoD stuff is a lot of truck for the money, but the days of recovering anything other than total wrecks ‘on the hook’ are long gone.

We occasionally recover stuff on chain forks (chains around the chassis, running forward to the front of the truck, then hang the unit on the chains), but only when the front axle is knocked out so you can’t get a safe hold of the axle or springs.

On this unit (which isn’t ARR Craibs btw), the cab mounts were smashed out, NS spring snapped and the U bolts snapped/loose.
For obvious reasons, you can’t recover an undamaged unit in this fashion.

There’s plenty of ex contraflow lift-n-shift motors about.
towtrucktrader.co.uk/index.p … il&id=9927

Some things to be aware of if you’re shopping: The test exemptions for wreckers will be ended soon (the sooner the better), so make sure the truck you’re looking will take a test. Sadly, there’s still a lot of tinpot operators out there who run un-roadworthy wreckers with the get-out-of-jail-free that they’re test exempt. In theory, we could take our old Leyland Martian out on a job, on trade plates. It runs and it’s test exempt. Never turned a wheel in 10 years mind, it’s laid up in a local Historic Motor Museum, where it’s used in the yard on crane duty :laughing:

Secondly, check your insurance. Recovery is a high risk job and insurance premiums are loaded as such. Your insurers will only insure you if you’re trained and qualified and the truck is fully inspected and LOLER certified. Do the sums before you buy a motor.
Gone are the days when you could just buy a motor and go ouit and use it!
Well, actually you still can, fine until something goes wrong. To get club or police work (AA Truck, RAC Commercial, Delta FMG, Fleet Support etc), you’ll need to be PAS43 accredited, again more expense and hoops to jump through. Ask yourself, “how come every large dealership doesn’t have their own wrecker”. Answer is, by the time you’ve paid for the truck, insurance, training, kit, LOLER inspections and the like, it works out cheaper for the dealers to use an established recovery outfit. With diesel prices rising and rates staying the same, we’re on the tightest profit margin we’ve ever been on. To make a wrecker pay, they need to be out working all day every day.

31

I thought we’d get something like an early nineties Volvo 6x4 with under-lift and a reasonable winch off someone that went into heavy recovery on a whim and couldn’t make it pay but they’ll mostly be going for more like the £50k mark. I’ve also found a lot of people have based them on surprisingly gutless engined tractor units to start with.

Don’t really want to be going into the recovery business in any big way but do want to be able to offer the full service to customers a lot of whom aren’t terribly HGV clued up and rely on us for pretty much everything with their small fleets.

32

Well, if they rely on you totally (which is good from a business point of view), then you’ll have to make sure you can deliver.
If you had a wrecker, could you provide genuine 24/7, 365 coverage?

For general lift-n-shift, you won’t need a power house truck. You can’t recover a laden artic for any distance without either tipping the load/dropping the trailer or getting a movement order, so you won’t be running up and down country at 65 tons anyway.
It’ll only work locally, so no real need for a powerhouse motor!

The wreckers generally have bigger engines, but that’s 'cos they carry more weight. Out S26 weights off at 29 ton empty. There’s not many lift-n-shift motors that’ll weight more than 20 ton.

33

Yes, we would go out for things like jump starts, stuck tail-lifts, curtain repairs etc. any time of the day. Very few, if any, customers will operate at night or 24/7 apart from ourselves which generally if we do need a service van ourselves we’ll be too far away and would get someone else out if we absolutely had to. I did think about one of those fifth-wheel mounted affairs or one of those sliding axle recovery trailers (which were surprisingly pricey) to save having another actual vehicle to maintain but there might be rare instances when we haven’t got a spare unit.

34

Ah cool, we operate service vans too.

Zaklifts (that sit on the 5th wheel) - In the eyes of the law, these do not constitute a recovery vehicle, as the vehicle is not ‘permanently adapted’. As such, you won’t get any of the exemptions to the C+U regs that wreckers benefit from. So, you would have to have all trailing wheels braked. Towing an artic, you run a yellow suzie off the wrecker, around the cab and into the trailer, so the trailer brakes with you, (but the unit doesn’t). Likewise with a puddle jumper, would anyone bother trying to plumb an airline into a 7.5 tonner to operate the brakes? No.
With a ZakLift you would have to brake ALL the wheels on the road. Easier said than done.

Slide axle recovery trailers, theres a few second hand ones about now from about £50k.
Hellish bit of kit, and they come into their own if you do a lot of bus/coach work but… as they sit at 3 foot high themselves, you’re limited to 13’ casualty vehicle height.
When your customer asks you to recover a 14’ high rigid or a double decker bus, you’re back to needing an underlift.

35

repton:

newmercman:
Paul, I did read them, that’s why I suggested buying a newer rigid, got to be easier and cheaper than poncing about changing cabs.

The words ‘very custom’ don’t mean much on their own, so without knowing the full story the answers given will reflect that :open_mouth:

If the original question was “We have just bought a 3 series for a specialist job, it has a specially strengthened chassis, a [zb]ing great big crane and specialist body on it, but we would like to put a newer cab on it to look modern, can it be done?” then there would not have been a mention of buying an alternative chassis

Well it’s pretty well known on here that the OP works for a heavy recovery firm and so I would think it’s fair to assume the “very custom” vehicle is some kind of specialised recovery vehicle and not just a curtainsider with a load of kelsa gear and a loud exhaust. I could be wrong though and I’m sure the OP will be along to clear any confusion up…

Paul

Ahhh…a wrecker, no I never knew that was what cieranc was talking about :open_mouth: That does change things a bit :laughing: