How often the lorry cabs needs to be tilted? Just during service and if something broken?
How the cab is tilted? By pressing a switch which operates a motor or manually?
Do the personal belongings need to be removed/stowed first so that they don't create a mess inside cabin?
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>> How often the lorry cabs needs to be tilted? Just during service and if something broken?
Correct. Also if the driver has dropped his phone down the side of the gearstick :(
>> How the cab is tilted? By pressing a switch which operates a motor or manually?
It's done with a jack handle on one side. Like this, only dirtier:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=oL2QVOZ335M
I've been driving one of those today with a 20ft long box body on it.
>> Do the personal belongings need to be removed/stowed first so that they don't create a mess inside cabin?
Yes. It's also a good idea to take the fire extinguisher out from behind the seats, so it doesn't break the windscreen :(
Last edited by: Dave_TDCi on Sat 28 Apr 12 at 18:52
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>>so it doesn't break the windscreen :(
Yes, a loose driver's coffee flask has also caused me that particular embarrasment.
It's only since cabs have become so feature laden that they have needed hydraulic rams to lift them. Older cabs would be fitted with a torsion bar across the pivots which would help the cab when it was lifted manually.
Frequently, there is a tapping in the hydraulic system to disconnect the gear lever as hydraulic pressure builds up - this is for designs where the lever stays in position in the tilted cab.
Again, in older designs, the lower end of gearlever was fixed to bracket on the engine's block, and so the cab lifted up, leaving the gearlever in position. Fastening the gearlever directly to the engine wasn't brilliant from the point of view of noise and vibration, but, older truck designs didn't really consider driver comfort at all.
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>> the lower end of gearlever was fixed to bracket on the engine's block, and so the cab lifted up,
>> leaving the gearlever in position. Fastening the gearlever directly to the engine wasn't brilliant from the
>> point of view of noise and vibration, but, older truck designs didn't really consider driver comfort at all.
Manual gearbox MAN trucks still have that arrangement, although the newest manual I've driven was a 55 reg. There's a big rubber doughnut/grommet around the base of the gaiter which perishes with age and vibration leading to either hot or cold air blasting up the driver's left thigh, depending on the season. Good for losing phones down too.
The auto versions just have a rotary switch for D, N, R - all electronic now.
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Don't stand too close when a hydraulic pipe busts as you're pumping it up.
Pat
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In the case of Iveco Stralis about once between services too, cab has to be tilted to put oil in which is unique but stupid, fortunately the cab tilt is by electric pump once you've fathomed out the sequence...invariably when i drove one it would need oil as no one else could be bothered.
As usual i have an anecdote to bore you to tears with...;), one which aged me several years in the space of half an hour.
Roughly 15 years ago i was working nights whilst driving car transporters, broke down on the M1 but managed to limp the truck off the motorway at M1 jct 9 and get it into that bit of a pull in beside the roundabout at the end of the slip road, loaded of course.
The usual routine if you are loaded is that load has to come off to tilt the cab, but couldn't run the engine long enough to perform that task, normally in such circumstances we would have driven an empty transporter head to head or head to tail depending on design and driven the 'peak' over the cab car onto the other truck to allow tilting.
Anyway, breakdown fitter comes out and pumps the cab up about a 8" till its tight against the deck above, no problem with scratches, the flexing of the body ensured contact was frequent in normal use so well battered anyway.
He then forces himself under the cab to work on the offending part, i'm nearly in tears at this point because despite my pleading the cab is unpropped and any hydraulic or other failure will see this bloke crushed to death, he wouldn't even let me go find a plank or something to shove under the raised cab...i bet any normal truck mechanic or driver reading this is astonished.
Luckily it didn't fail but i must have aged 10 years in the half an hour he was under the cab, what the hell could i have done to help him of it had come down...had visions of inquests and bereft widow and kids etc....
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>> Don't stand too close when a hydraulic pipe busts as you're pumping it up.
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>> Pat
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05.29 am. Don't you sleep too well, Pat?
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I spent so many years starting work between 2am and 4am, and grew to love the early mornings, I simply can't get out of the habit!
We were just talking about how I'd actually managed a lie in this morning:)
Pat
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Tilting of HGV cabs - Dave_
