harry_gill:
stewart196164:
Dave the Renegade:
harry_gill:
Dave the Renegade:
hiya,
Dave that towing concoction looks a bit like using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut.
surely a crossmember fixed at the very rear of the chassis with the towing eye bolted
to that would have done the job equally as well, I’ve pulled motors in with a unit set up
that way without any problems, that idea isn’t going to transfer any weight to the
fifth wheel coupling and in my opinion is a waste of time and steel and to be fixed to
“stop it lifting” with a couple of straps would do nothing in the event of an overrun
situation I’ll bet it isn’t safe and i wouldn’t want to be hooked to it, the only good
point is it can be swapped from unit to unit but a much safer method of holding down
needs to be looked into.
thanks harry long retired
That’s the general idea Harry they are thinking of updating their unit.Also they just slide that set up off by releasing the pin and use the unit for collecting customers trailers for repairs etc.They have had the set up okay ed by the local Vosa testing station.
Cheers Dave.hiya,
Dave will send the VOSA guy a phone number for his local Specsavers.
thanks harry long retired.I won’t argue Harry.I only reversed artics off the main road into the workshop,never actually drove them on any journeys so I will bow to your superior knowledge on that issue .
Cheers Dave.Hi Harry
We made that towing concoction one night as we needed to get the unit back as soon as possible to sort it out for the customer. Your right on the part its not the best at towing but we only traveled at a sensible speed and not that far. The unit was hooked up to air so had brakes to stop an overrun situation occurring. Also those straps only stop the box section from moving as it fits snugly inside the chassis rails. Its surprising that the fifth wheel does actually play a massive roll as we don’t have a full cross member in the rear of the chassis otherwise we would of just bolted on a towing eye and done it the easy way but needs must in a situation like that. We also saved the customer a massive recovery bill and also made a small profit to cover the cost of the wasted steel. We don’t normally do recovery and don’t plan on doing a great deal till we have up dated our unit. Thanks Stewart SD Commercialshiya,
Stewart just making an observation, just looking at the time it must have taken to manufacture the towing implement (choosing my words more carefully now) wouldn’t it have been a much quicker option to drop an extra crossmember in and a towing eye at the rearmost part of the chassis at the BRS most of our units was altered that way to pull new military trailers from the manufacturer to the yard where we had a crane to load them onto flat bed trailers for delivery to MOD depot’s.
thanks harry long retired.
Hi Harry,
As Stewart says they are looking to update their ERF fairly soon to get a vehicle with the Reduced Pollution Certificate (RPC) to cut their costs on taxing the vehicle.
Cheers Dave.
.
