Cabovers

hi there thanks for answers

The water tank is mounted on the right hand side. Good for easy access for filling. Some trucks have them mounted like yours above the barrel gearbox, but not many.
interesting to see different things than we use

Yes the 9all is a slow speed gearbox but only in the 3 low low gears. From 1st gear to 8th it has the same, or very close to the same ratios as the 13 and 18 speeds it just doesn't have the splitter in those gears.
No the truck doesn't have any torque limiting, and actually it is very smooth in those low gears but the truck does have a strong driveline.
what is reason for such slow gearbox , if you dont go on difficult terrain and haul only 28.5t , i mean i like slower trucks but never seen rwd truck with that slow transmission , and i dont like new generation of low rev engines coped with fast transmissions , because their offroad capabilities are pretty limited

But really torque limiting isn't needed. In Australia we pull 64.5t b-doubles with only 46000lb diffs and driveline and never have any problems, and this truck has the same drive line as those trucks. Only in weights above 90t do they start upgrading the driveline, diffs and engine mounts ect.

offroad or onroad? here almost every construction truck have hub reduction axles , mixers have lighter version tippers mainly heavy, hypoid axle is not suitable for our conditions and offroad (ground clearance , on hub reduction axles reduction is in smaller steps so much longer lifetime and on hypoid axles it is not possible to use difflock when cornering , hub reduction can steer just need to be more careful when truck start to jump just press clutch little bit)

if onroad i dont see problem to pull 60-70ton on single axle but offroad....

Not too long ago, maybe 15 years, all trucks had spring suspension, now nearly all have airbags. We never have a problem with airbags. While springs for off-road are better, with the proper airbag setup they are just as good if not better in some circumstances, like sand and we have alot of sand in aus. We spec all our trucks with dual ride height control valves which gives the truck excellent stability. You can see them beside the airbags in this pic.

here only some light tippers have air, but it is not popular no body like them and hard to sale truck latter , general problems are:ground clearance ,stability when unloading, small axle articulation axle walk of only 25cm compared to 60on spring suspension, also over rough uneven terrain airbags often explode when we were working on highway back in 2002-3 one guy bring 6x4 man with air suspension , in 3weeks he blown 6bags and withdrew from the job , 3axle tractors for tipper semitrailers mainly have air

I find airbag setups more stable than springs, I have had a few scary moments going through corners in spring trucks becuase when you are on the limit going trough corners and you hit a bump they have a tendency to to throw you further off balance where an airbag truck will soak up and smooth out the bump.
do you have ecas?

and i notice your drums are much shorter than here so do you know how high is center of gravity of fully loaded truck , i know that longer drum would require lot longer wheelbase since it is hard to put weight forward on twin steer conventional truck.... or it is because of dead weight of drum?

275/70 profile tyres are small and they do have a bit less ground clearence but it hasn't been a problem for us and we have a few trucks on them. But these are mainly city trucks and they do go off road a bit on sites but they are mainly on road trucks. 11r22.5 is the standard tyre over here, only 6x4's run 295/80 on the front axel for weight reasons to get 6.5t on the steer which they are allowed to carry now. Our trucks that run in the country or do more off road have 11r's on them. We don't run big tyres like you guys becuase we don't carry the axel weights like you and they arn't needed.
Also 275/70 save around 100kg on a truck and are cheaper to replace so that is why we have them and the trucks handle like they are on rails. They are actually starting to become very popular even with highway trucks becuase with the right diff ratios they get very good fuel economy.

take a look at this strange wheel combination 305/70r22.5 on axles 1,2,4 ,axle 3 have 385/55r22.5





now this year

385/65r22.5 , i notice they exchange them for continental hsc1 on presentation (that is lightest offroad tire 72.4kg)-352kg weight saving comparing to 315/80 hdc1 and alloy rims




renault put goodyear omnitrac 495/45r22.5 on premium lander

here concrete is anything from 2200-2500kg/m3 but when calculating payload it is mostly taken 2400

in real life it is about 2200-2250

We do have semi trailer mixers but they are not popular. They are too hard to maneuver in tight places in the city and a rigid truck is much easier. Even 5 axel 10x4 trucks are not very popular in the city becuase of this. 8x4 is the best bang-for-buck truck. Also registration is very expensive for a semi, 10k versus 2.5k for a rigid

here 8x4 is also most popular 6x4 are very rare now , one company 5km from me have fleet of 6x6 mixers they deal with powerlines

here registration for 4axle would be 3900 and for 2+2combination would be 4500$

and they are a lot more expensive to buy. A rigid mixer is about 50k and a trailer mixer is about 100k. The ones that we do have run in the country where they have to travel long distances.

only 50000 is that new price or? here mixer 4axle are from 100-120 000€ can be found at dealers for 90


The thing that is different with this example to yours is it has a trailer mounted engine to drive the agitator, not pto driven off the truck so this adds extra weight.

here older trailers have their own engines as well , mainly it was deutz engines now new generation tractor-semitrailer mixers have hydraulic driven solutions ,hydrualic is mainly from saurer

 

I'm not sure, to be honest with you I havn't had anything to do with them,
But at a guess it would be 10-11m3.

 

I speced the truck with that gearbox becuase it gives the best low and high speed. The truck is geared to do 100km/h at 1950rpm, with 8th gear having a .73:1 ratio, max revs for the engine is 2100rpm, but in low low it will to 3kmh at 2000rpm. Because we don't do a lot of long highway running it is pointless too gear the truck to high it is just a waist, so we gear them that way to give more get up and go at lower speeds for driving around the city. We also have to deal with very small tight job sites like this high rise we are building.



so the low gearing is perfect for this. Also Brisbane is very hilly so it works very well for this. And we do a lot of highway upgrade works, so this involves a lot of kerb and barrier wall so slow speeds are essential.
If the truck was doing long runs to jobs on the highway you would put in a 13 or 18 speed.

That's for on road and off road. Hub reduction isn't really needed with an 18 speed which is the most common gearbox in aus unless you are doing really heavy haul, like 150t plus, even road trains don't use them.
But we use higher diff ratios, the most common being 4.11:1.

That's interesting, over here like I said everyone uses bags unless you go off road out bush a lot.
Unless the job really called for it, I would not buy a truck without airbags.

Something is wrong if you guys blow that many bags, I have 6 trucks with airbags and in 10 years I have not blow one, that's not saying it doesn't happen it is just rare.

Yes we can spec trucks with all the abs,
ebs, esc, and all that jazz, but we have a saying in aus "keep it simple, stupid". The best traction control in the world is your right foot, don't put yourself in the situation to need these things in the first place.
For me all that stuff is just something else to go wrong.
I know a few people who have put it on there trucks, some of them end up pulling the fues out cause they are more trouble than they are worth. But there will come a time where all this is mandatory.
Also all our trucks have power dividers and cross locks and if that isn't enough you shouldn't be there.

Yeah the bowls are shorter and fatter at the front to try and put more weight over the front axels. Also the people who build the mixers know that no truck can hold more than 7.6m3 so they just build them too hold this much as there is no use build a bigger heavier bowl if the trucks can't carry it. Also the shorter mixer means we have shorter wheel base which improves turning radius.
The bowls are almost the same width as the truck.



No I don't know what the center of gravity is but it is quite high. Also our bowls look to be on more of an angle to yours. Our trucks are between 3.7 to 3.8m high.

Yes that is a very different combination??

That is not including the truck, for the whole combination they are around $250,000-$280,000 depending on the model of truck for a 4 axel. The mixers brands are all around the same price.

I don't mean to sound like I am euro truck bashing, you guys build good trucks, for your market. If they could pull 1.5t out of them I would consider one, but what we have do and excellent job

 

some truckers here use trailer single rims on trucktor tandem axel and wider tires, they say it is better in winter conditions., but trailer tires are too hight so they use them with flatbeds and costenogas to avoid overhight.

I use now 315/70R22.5, and I wanna switch to 295/70-80R22.5 becouse they are cheaper. I have made in EU trailer with max 12000 kg load on fifth wheel, and I use old shaker in Europe, so I have 16000 kg tandem load limit. That's why maximum tire load is not a problem for me.

Old US cabovers here are exotic and some enthusiasts look for them on JYs to rebuild, keep cab in good shape and keep running, becouse they are exotic. Yesterday I saw very old Volvo F10 and old Mack looking really sparkly. But Volvo got D12A 420 HP engine becouse old TD101 is weak and bad on MPG, Mack was with N14 Euro2, Celect.... There is one old FLA here. Owners did swap with 3406E and it is Euro-3 now. It is cool that old cabovers run around the Europe

Other thing, new Russial laws make owners of old trucks install ABS. We did it with KAMAZ trucks made in 70-s (ex Military 6x6). We used no tone rings, we mashined hubs makeing 80 teeth!

 

I don't mean to sound like I am euro truck bashing, you guys build good trucks, for your market. If they could pull 1.5t out of them I would consider one, but what we have do and excellent job

i understand what you are talking , for you it is only important to carry more weight , you are reasonable , i am also trying to see what works in otherparts of world and what could be possible be adopted here , for example personally i would rather put air suspension than single tires for about same weight savings

also i am opsesed with weight optimised vehicles,here many operators dont care about deadweight of trucks , most 4axle tippers are 15t , record is one scania with 18.8t , one big company had fleet of mercedes with 16.8-17t

if i am buying now new tipper i would look to fit it in 13t

mixers are often above 15t as well

Something is wrong if you guys blow that many bags, I have 6 trucks with airbags and in 10 years I have not blow one, that's not saying it doesn't happen it is just rare.

that was very uneven terrain, and happened when truck sit on one axle and other still not able to reach ground so airbag extend more than it should

Yes we can spec trucks with all the abs,
ebs, esc, and all that jazz, but we have a saying in aus "keep it simple, stupid". The best traction control in the world is your right foot, don't put yourself in the situation to need these things in the first place.

i wasthinking on ecas for air suspension ,

But there will come a time where all this is mandatory.
here esp would become mandatory soon for all 3axle vehicles,many mixers already have it for 6-7years

Yeah the bowls are shorter and fatter at the front to try and put more weight over the front axels. Also the people who build the mixers know that no truck can hold more than 7.6m3 so they just build them too hold this much as there is no use build a bigger heavier bowl if the trucks can't carry it. Also the shorter mixer means we have shorter wheel base which improves turning radius.
The bowls are almost the same width as the truck.

here largest drum for 4axle chassis is 12m3 on 5axle you can fit 15m3 also you know we always load here them to waterline if possible

Also our bowls look to be on more of an angle to yours. Our trucks are between 3.7 to 3.8m high.

here 3.75-4m

 

what about 385/55r22.5 or some mega trailer tire?

there is no 295/70 only 60 and 80 , did you mean on 275/70

do you have pictures of those teeths , that is lot of work

 

We put cables or nylon straps round the axle and attach to chassis just long enough that they start to lift the axle when the air bag is at maximum strech.

 

smart, i never get such idea

although my father had one strange mercedes , it was strangest truck i ever saw 2629 M cab long distance bumpers and steps ,vertical exhaust , 6+6gearbox(although they usually come with 8+8) wider frame(double) , big 13t axles on parabolic springs 6x(which usually come with 24xx,25xx) , bogie was dry version with ptfe/teflon center which is non seen on those trucks, had rear stabilisators , steel cables to limit axle walk and rubber blocks to prevent axles to go up , i dont have idea what for truck was designed, there was no letters like K or B in model name (usually B have wider frame)

 

Thats a good idea.

98989, Don't your airbags run shock absorbers? when my axel drops to maximum length the shock absorbers stop the airbags from over stretching. which can be bad as well because if you let this happen too often the shocks will blow. It isn't much of a problem on the KW 8 bag because the shock mounts direct the the axel but on the Hendrickson HAS airbag setup because the shocks are mounted at the furthest point away from where the suspension mounts to the chassis, they can often over stretch the shocks because they travel so far.



Here are just some videos and pictures of a job which we just completed to show you some of the conditions we work in. It is he 6.7km long Airport Link Tunnel in Brisbane. Between Boral, Hanson/Heidelberg and Holcim which are the 3 main concrete companies in AUS, we delivered 1.8 million m3 of concrete in 4 years. I was only able to get a couple of videos and pictures because phones where banned on site so we had to do it very sneakily. The conditions where pretty bad down there, mud up to 1ft deep everywhere, and in the early days until we where about half way through you where walking and driving around in 2ft of water. Only about 2.5 km of the tunnels where done with tunnel boring machines the rest where done with mining machines and spray concrete so we where some of the first people in the tunnels after the had dug and blasted a new section.

This is the access ramp to one section of the tunnel, doesn't look as steep on video but it was, look at the marking on the wall to how far it drops to see. plus it was usually covered in mud from the articulated dump trucks. we used to slide up and down this all day. 5 axel trucks were not allowed on this ramp because one snapped it's chassis trying to come back out, it was pretty hard to get out especially if you had left overs on and many trucks had to get big run ups to make it out. if you listen you can here my sliding a little bit, and this is after the fixed it up, the old goat track you can see beside it on the right was alot worse

[video=youtube_share;z8VTuq9hyME]http://youtu.be/z8VTuq9hyME[/video]

This is just a short video of what it was like, dark and loud, this was about 3 km under ground.

[video=youtube_share;fjVUvF6liz4]http://youtu.be/fjVUvF6liz4[/video]

This is a video of a CAT 725 articulated dump truck trying to turn around, these are not to much longer than our trucks and can turn about twice as sharp as us so it gives you a good idea of what we had to put up with.

[video=youtube_share;KqpnMS3bIvY]http://youtu.be/KqpnMS3bIvY[/video]

This is just two of my trucks sitting there waiting to unload.



This is the face of the tunnel boring machine when it broke through. The hole in front of it is where the buried it.




and here is a video of the whole to bury it



This is just us concreting the floor you can see actually how big the hole that they dig is, this section was not done with the tbm.



If you look in the background you can see a truck rolled over, this is another access ramp to the tunnel.



This is just a picture of the tunnel, it is the same spot in the video.



The truck that i worked on this project with was the older model than i have just got. It had a Cummins ISC 315hp, with an Allison 6 speed auto and 11r22.5 tyres. These are the only differences to the new truck. All the suspension was the same.

 

Well this thread really taking an interesting turn--yall from other parts of world(outside us)please keep posting m finding what u do and how u do it fascinating!
Thank You