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Letter to the Editor: Keep those old girls working

Owner//Driver reader Arnold reckons the old gear needs to stay...

 

Contrary to the call by Todd Hacking, Heavy Vehicle Industry Australia CEO, to adopt new prime movers, the undersigned advocates to keep those reliable old girls (in good working order) working hard.

The reason? The old girls are inherently safer and are void of EGR, DPF, CRs, ABS, EBS, ESC and precariously located full flow large capacity fuel filters and return line fuel coolers. Hence the old girls are inherently considerably more reliable. Hence use those old girls to haul refrigerated and time sensitive loads.

Why? Because new prime movers have the tendency to stop road side simply because a relatively trivial sensor has tripped or become inoperative due to say dirt or moisture ingress or due to excessive ambient heat load.

Definitely, keep all the old rust free chassis with chassis numbers and VIN numbers operating.

Mack V8 Diesel.jpg

Upgrade the drum brakes on the old girls to disc brakes and install or upgrade the drive air suspension to dynamic load sharing standard. The latter modification is strongly recommended as it will confidently put 30kW of extra power to the tyre road contact where it is needed. Namely, should the standard drive air suspension be maintained the 30kW of power is otherwise dissipated in the driveline so eroding fuel economy.

Another major advantage of opting for dynamic load sharing air suspensions is that the prime mover will ride and handle considerably better. Why? Because the extent of prime mover pitching will be greatly reduced. Here it must be noted pitching greatly governs the extent of driver fatigue, front axle suspension thump out, bump steer and roll steer.

So keep those smiles to yourself and your bottom line as you pass those new prime mover powered rigs parked road side awaiting an after-hours’ service call out.

Furthermore does the very mention of mandatory EGR, DPF, CRs, ABS, EBS and ESC really urge you to race out and buy a new prime mover?

Arnold McLean

Keiraville, NSW

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