The Hard Realities of Fleet Maintenance

Though the rough-and-tumble environments at transfer stations and dusty, gritty, pothole-filled landfills might be what’s first envisioned as the most abusive settings for MSW vehicles, more mundane realities are right up there on the list as well. What could be tougher in the long run on suspensions, transmissions, hydraulics, and brakes than their five to six days weekly, 1,500 stops—every few feet? The brakes never have a chance to cool down. And when the linings heat up, that’s when the wear really accelerates.

There’s not much that can beat the pounding a trash truck takes. Operators and dealers from around the country talk about the techniques and products they use to keep their fleets on the route to a longer useful life.

Diagnostic Tool for Tracking Maintenance Needs
Floyd Noel, shop supervisor for the city of Salem, OR, uses the Allison Transmission in the company’s Freightliner truck, which is used for pickup at Salem’s parks. Allison is the only transmission made for the size vehicle that the company has, a medium-duty Class 6 with a small packer on the back. The city has used and serviced its Allison equipment for over 30 years, changing the fluids every 25,000 miles. “Maintenance is very cut and dry,” says Noel. “This is a reliable product that has worked out for years for us.”

Allison Transmission has developed a Prognostics system that enables operators to know when it’s time to service the filters and the fluids, according to Greg Chastain, technical advisor for W.W. Williams, distributor for Allison Transmission. Its systems are commonly used in transit buses, school buses, fire trucks, refuse trucks, and many other vocations.

Photo: Chalmers Suspensions International A low-maintenance, lightweight Chalmers suspension protects the truck body.

The Prognostics system monitors a number of variables to determine and notify those monitoring the system as to when definite maintenance tasks are called for. “These features remove the guesswork and extra effort involved in scheduling routine vehicle servicing, at the same time getting rid of any unnecessary oil and filter changes,” says Chastain. “That said, it’s important to note that Allison Approved TES 295 transmission fluid is required for use of the 2009 Prognostics. The Prognostics help by avoiding unneeded costs while ensuring that transmissions are properly maintained. Prognostics also gives the environment a break by avoiding extra waste.”

This user-friendly electronic monitoring for the Allison 3000/4000 Series transmissions features a wrench symbol on the shift selector’s digital display. All three variables—oil, filter and clutch—may be checked simply by moving through the shift selector’s display. If fluid is due for a change, the wrench picture stays lit for two minutes after the drive range is selected. When any of the filters are ready for a change, the wrench flashes for two minutes after the drive range is selected. Clutch maintenance is indicated by a wrench icon that comes on in all ranges.

“Our Oil Life Monitor helps operators get maximum oil life, at the same time protecting the transmission in this harsh MSW environment, while the Filter Life Monitor alerts users of the need for filter replacement,” says Chastain. “A Transmission Health Monitor helps avoid costly repairs and downtime by taking the hassles and second guesses out of routine maintenance—especially when routine maintenance may have been less effective because it was formerly done at incorrect intervals.”

Training Raises Awareness
Wayne Engineering Corp. in Cedar Falls, IA, is a manufacturer of refuse truck bodies, and the majority of its products are in the automated line or automatic collection process, according to Doug Halbur, chief operations officer. The company does a lot with mobile hydraulics products.

WEC uses the power hydraulics for the Allison Transmission products for the Curb Tenders and also uses small PTO applications. “We’ve had a good relationship with Muncie Power Products and Chelsea Power Takeoffs, and they’ve both provided exceptional service,” says Halbur. “Whenever we’ve had any problems out in the field, they’ve been very good at working with me to get to the bottom of it. We also work with Chelsea Power Takeoffs, which has a hydraulic power system that works with the Allison Transmission.”

After putting together the trucks as new products, WEC then sends along the recommendations with the products to its customers. “I’ve been very pleased with how much Muncie Power Products and the Chelsea Power Takeoffs have helped us out with the glitches,” says Halbur.

Muncie manufactures power takeoffs, hydraulic pumps, and other hydraulic components. The company has always had products focused for use in the MSW and refuse industry in general, products including dry-valve-type pumps, live-pack pumps, and an electronic over-speed control device. These have been available for some 30 years now.

The company has done a lot of training of operators and mechanics to help them keep the hydraulic systems operating longer, according to Dave Douglass, marketing manager. “We’ve always conducted seminars and training events, and our sales people work with maintenance garages, teaching them good practices as far as maintaining oil and changing filters and pointing out the importance of maintaining the system to make not just the pump, but all the hydraulics last much longer. Helping people make equipment last longer builds up trust.”

On the hydraulic pump side it’s been something of an evolutionary progression from the power-takeoff-driven hydraulic pumps, to crankshaft-driven pumps and dry-valve pumps, to the latest generation in the line, the live-pack pump. Muncie’s electronic over-speed device is perhaps its newest equipment, in itself the evolution of a previous product.

The company’s System Protection Device, SPD-1000 is an electronic box allowing the managers to set limits on the speeds at which equipment may be operated. It also permits the integration of safety devices, such as pressure or temperature switches, into the circuit to try to keep the operators using the equipment in a safe manner and at a safe speed. The SPD-1000 registers the truck engine speed in miles per hour if it’s a mobile application. It lets the maintenance directors set safety parameters in which the hydraulic equipment on the truck can be operated.

“This is designed to keep operators working within a certain speed range, and in the long run this keeps downtime to a minimum,” adds Douglass. “On the refuse side of our business, we work primarily with the truck body manufacturers. Another large test in maintenance comes in keeping the hydraulic oil clean and cool to provide for longer component life, not just for the pumps but for all the hydraulic equipment.”

For hydraulics, much of the maintenance consists of keeping the oil clean and cool, monitoring the operating temperatures of the oil, and doing periodic oil sampling to determine when conditions are such that oil needs to be replaced. Those points, along with changing the filters on a regular basis, are chief to remember, according to Douglass.

Muncie’s other products related to the MSW industry include the Power-mizer pump, Power-Pro pump and the CS-20 and CS-10 power takeoffs. The idea behind the dry-valve pump is that the more oil flow to the pump that is being produced, the higher the horsepower draw on the engine.

“So the purpose of the dry valve is when you don’t need to use the hydraulics and the user is simply driving from the transfer station to begin a route or from the end of a route back to the transfer station where they don’t need the hydraulics, the pump can be turned off, in a sense,” says Douglass. “This lowers the horsepower draw on the engine, thereby conserving fuel.”

Self-Lubrication Helps
Land and Lakes is a private family business in the Chicago area, involved with landfill operations and refuse pickup and has seven communities that it services, as well as rolloffs and some 10,000 commercial accounts. The company has been working with Perkins Manufacturing to test that company’s new tipper, going through a number of different units.

Photo: KLAM America Corp. An overhead view shows a typical KLAM drive-line retarder installation.

“Though we’ve had a few hydraulic issues with some fittings, hoses, and a couple of electrical issues, Perkins has always been exceptionally responsive,” says Jim Cowhey, Land and Lakes president. “Perkins’ Manufacturing’s service is great, and those things I just brought up are simply items related to us being something of a test company to work out the bugs with their new product equipment.”

Land and Lakes has been in business since 1966 and has approximately 65 vehicles. The Perkins lifter has been of great use to the company for residential and commercial lifting work, according to Cowhey. “We’ve worked with Perkins for some 40 years,” adds Cowhey. “Overall, the amount of maintenance involved with the Perkins lifting product is fairly minimal. Also, the fact that we’ve been dealing with Perkins since the start of our work as a refuse hauling business says a lot about the quality of their hardworking lifters.”

Through the years, Perkins has geared its equipment toward minimizing routine maintenance as well as simplifying preventative maintenance, according to Robert Mecchi, president of Perkins. The key is catching small damages before they force the equipment into failure, whether in the landfill or anywhere in between.

“Some roads in landfills tend to have large bumps the trucks sometimes catch,” says Mecchi. “If the lifter has made contact with something during one of these dips it’s important to check the lifter to make sure everything’s fine before it becomes a major problem or failure.

“Our manuals include the information that lifting equipment needs to be inspected on a routine basis: eyeballing it should be adequate. For the most part, most of the models are designed to prevent that type of damage.”

On the actuator, the hydraulic portion of the lifter, everything is hardened and heat-treated to prevent rust and greatly reduce wear and tear. Most of Perkins’ semi-automated units are self-lubricated and powder-coated, though they still provide grease zerks, as some places still like the ability to grease them; but a lot of times it’s unnecessary, according to Mecchi.

“Another of our self-lubricating components is our fiber-glide bushings, composed of a composite material which feels sort of oily, because it’s impregnated with lubrication. As movement takes place across it, it maintains its lubrications,” says Mecchi.

“From the hardened and heat-treated materials and the sealed hydraulics for the motor, we keep contamination to a minimum. Our motors could be completely submerged and they’d still work.

Contaminated fluids are the death for hydraulics and by keeping everything out of the motors we’re making sure nothing gets contaminated. Contamination could come from the roads, the landfill, and trash from the hoppers or the fluids coming from the carts being emptied. Through simplistic designs we try to keep everything real simple.”

Photo: KLAM America Corp. This McNeilus truck has been fitted with the KLAM retarder.

Perkins has come out with new innovations, including the practice of automating existing trucks—front loaders and side loaders—to extend the life of the equipment. “This happens to be very important in this economy, as the taxpayers are demanding it,” says Mecchi. “It’s all about extending the equipment—not just our equipment, but side loaders, rear loaders, or front loaders.

The municipality does not have to contemplate keeping the current truck and route using semi-automated equipment or going out and purchasing a new $300,000 fully automated truck. Instead, it can take a semi-automated side loader and turn it into an automated side loader, reducing costs.

“The big items to look for with our equipment are anything having to do with preventative maintenance, not allowing a small nuance to become a large problem where the lifter comes down,” says Mecchi. “This can make the truck inefficient, have downtime, or become dangerous.”

Through scales and a radio frequency identification (RFID) on the truck, Perkins can now track the number of cycles being used per lifter. This lets the user or operator track the use of equipment to be aware of when preventive maintenance is needed based on lift cycle, such as at the end of 3,000 cycles, or when a cursory check is needed.

Keeping up with Lifting
Diamondback Products produces cart lifters (also referred to as cart tippers or cart dumpers) for trash trucks. “They work as much as anything on the truck,” says Eric Surratt, owner. “If someone is servicing 600 homes a day that’s 600 dumps; if it’s 1,200, 1,200 dumps. We heat-treat all of our hinge points that have shafts and pins running through them. All of our hinge points are also outfitted with grease fittings.

“Some others make a greaseless version, using composite bearing or bushings, which are maintenance-free. We don’t necessarily believe in that, our thinking being that if it moves, it’s got to be greased. It’s as much about getting the dirt out of there as getting the lubrication in.”

Surratt recommends users check for loose hoses and loose bolts frequently. He recommends greasing once a week, depending on the model of lifter or cart lifter, or most likely greasing once a month.

“Our products use steel-on-steel ball bushings, no ball bearings, and no brass bushings—all steel on steel. They’re also self-aligning and corrosion-resistant. The same types of ball bushings are used as those that are used in the packer cylinders of trash trucks.

“Our satisfaction doesn’t come from the initial sales but rather when a satisfied customer orders their third, fourth, fifth, or tenth lifter from us,” says Surratt. “Our products are built keeping maintenance in the back of our minds, keeping all grease fitting accessible, cutting down on moving parts, and keeping our lifters as simple as possible. Our slogan is: Simple is better.”

Suspensions
As a rule the best-run, most intelligent fleets have a maintenance program in place, according to Livio Luchini, manager of sales administration for Chalmers Suspensions International Inc. “That said, our suspension system is not something you need to be checking every 15 minutes. With our suspensions there is no oiling, no greasing, and no air bags to maintain, so it comes down to mainly checking your bolts every year. Because we have rubber components and suspensions, the protection is not such of an issue with grit, grease and grime in the MSW environment.”

The Chalmers suspension is lightweight, low-maintenance, and protects the body of the vehicle, according to Luchini. Chalmers’ products are involved in any vocational vehicles in a wide variety of applications, such as refuse trucks, trucks used in mining applications, and even tow trucks. “Many municipalities are using our product as well as hydro trucks for utility companies such as the electric company or fire departments.”

In 2005 Chalmers won the Frost and Sullivan Award for product innovation, and it has recently learned it will be receiving another award from Frost and Sullivan: the Trucks Product Line Strategy Award. The award is based on questionnaire responses looking to see which trucking companies and suspension manufacturers are best prepared to move forward or aligned properly for the future, according to Luchini.

“We are getting support of our product from all different levels, including the OEMs as well as word of mouth from independent smaller outfits,” says Luchini. “In this business people tend to follow the leader. If they see one guy doing something and it seems to work, they will end up doing their homework and then get all the information they need to make a decision. Often many of these individuals we sell to have been leaders and they seem to have realized the many benefits of the Chalmers Suspension.”

Special Fastening Keeps Things Running
“As a general rule, probably, waste-type applications are as tough as it gets because trucks are constantly stopping and starting, putting tremendous pressure on brakes and axles,” says Tim Hudak, sales manager with Watson & Chalin Manufacturing. “Our suspension products are the same as those used in any other vocational application. Many of the things we provide are the same as those used for a cement mixer or a dump truck.”

Their pivot connections are “huck-fastened.” This is a special nut and bolt arrangement. “We are the only manufacturer which huck-fastens our pivot connections to virtually eliminate maintenance of bushings—clearly a plus in the refuse industry in helping prevent premature wear on the bushings in the pivot connection points on the auxiliary axle.”

Auxiliary or lift axles are only used when the vehicle has a full load. These lift when the axles and wheels are not needed. “Every state may be different in what they permit you to carry and the auxiliary axles help an operator to be able to carry whatever the local laws will allow them to carry. Ours is a very basic product that’s been around for many years; they’re durable, do the job, and that’s all you need. We also have the longest and strongest warranty in the industry,” adds Hudak. “This has to do with the reduction in the cost of ownership.”

Easing the Stress on Brakes
Jim Davis, director of general services for the city of Corpus Christi, TX, mentions that the city has just started using both the Telma and the KLAM brake-retarder systems. “I haven’t done the analysis on exactly how much this saves us, but it does save the brakes,” says Davis.

“What we do is we basically do a brake change as needed when the brakes wear down. The bottom line is they’re expensive up front, but they pay for themselves very quickly. I think they’re real good and our goal is to eventually get them on our entire fleet.”

KLAM America Corp.’s general manager, Rich Ludvigsen, points out that KLAM’s retarders have been around since 1962. The company’s electromagnetic retarders are referred to as frictionless braking systems. No brake pads that wear are involved with the company’s products. There are no wear points on the KLAM brake retarder. The action is done through electromagnetic coils and can be mounted either amidships or within the drive train of the vehicle, within the drive shaft or mounted to the differential face.

“Probably the biggest difference with our system is the use of all copper coils rather than aluminum,” says Ludvigsen. “Copper dissipates heat better and handles temperature fluctuations better, because obviously this is a system which absorbs a lot of energy that would normally be going out to the wheel ends. Anytime you are keeping the brake pads cool you will also be keeping the rotors, drums, sidewalls, tires, and everything else associated with this operation much cooler and safer.”

In conjunction with the standard contact controls for the retarder, the company also offers an electronic control system. This has really become a state-of-the-art feature as far as being a troubleshooting aid, diagnosing problems and being able to change power settings so that the retarder can be made more or less aggressive, according to Ludvigsen.

“We offer features like temperature and voltage monitoring, which has never been done before. In addition to that we also have what is referred to as a brake-cruise feature. On long downhill grades, a speed can be set; this is ak