Taking the search for maximizing service life and reducing service time to vehicle hard parts.

Cole Quinnell

 When you operate a fleet of vehicles, you know the dollars and sense of every operation. You know how many miles you can get out of typical components before it is time to replace them, how much it costs to have the vehicle serviced and the cost of downtime during the service. Unfortunately, you also know how much it costs when you have unplanned downtime. There are a lot of complex variables, but a pretty simple reality: a truck that is in service is making you money, and one that is out of service is costing you money.

One of the highest expenses of fleet operations is unscheduled repairs that disrupt the normal vehicle use, the planned maintenance and repair workload, operator hours, as well as wasted and lost productivity. That’s why as a fleet manager, you do your best to know the service life of all the specific components on your vehicle and change them out before there is a failure. You walk that fine line between saving costs by only replacing things when they are truly worn out, and avoiding unnecessary costs created by component failure and vehicle downtime. And that’s even more challenging in the waste management industry because the vehicles operate in harsh environments that degrade hard parts as well as wear items such as tires and shocks.

Fortunately, there have been a lot of improvements in both components and in the data that tracks and determines the optimum time to replace serviceable items. There is software dedicated to tracking hours, miles and even trends to help fleet managers predict when to service systems and components to avoid unplanned downtime. There have also been improvements in components and systems, such as oil sampling systems that tell you the actual quality of engine oil, letting you change the oil when it’s really needed instead of at arbitrary intervals.

Auxiliary Shafts

There’s another avenue of improving efficiency in fleet management: reducing the service time of specific systems and components. The auxiliary shaft in most waste management trucks is considered a wear item. In fact, it’s not uncommon for the shaft to need replacing two, three or more times per year on each vehicle, depending on hours of operation and the quality of the components used. By taking a two-pronged approach to solve the problems seen in the waste truck fleets, better, more durable auxiliary shafts have been built. Heavy-duty, quick-change auxiliary shafts address these specific and demanding requirements.  They extend the time between replacement, makes the service life more predictable and keeps the vehicles in service longer.1

Thickness and Balancing

Tubing wall thickness, tubing construction and the quality of the auxiliary shaft components, welding and balancing all contribute to the overall durability of the shaft. Auxiliary shafts generally have a wall thickness (the thickness of the metal that the actual tube is made from) that ranges between 0.060 to 0.065 inches. The more durable shafts available have a tubing wall thickness of 0.085 to 0.120 inches to tolerate the engagement/disengagement harshness for an overall more durable auxiliary shaft. When it comes to balancing, industrial equipment such as the machines used at vehicle manufacturing facilities can provide balancing at a level far beyond what repair shops are capable of. Better balanced shafts extend the life of the CV joints and other related components. This exponentially better balancing has another benefit: less driver fatigue. Reduced vibration and harmonics in the vehicle means less impact on the driver and reduced driver fatigue.

Quick-Change Shafts

The development of a quick-change flange reduces the time it takes to replace an auxiliary shaft by 80 percent, giving maintenance personnel a great opportunity for improvement because it significantly reduces the time that the vehicle is out of service and reduces the man hours required to change the auxiliary shaft.2 This is where the engineering expertise of a component provider proves extremely valuable. Instead of simply building a stronger auxiliary shaft, some component providers are able to look at the whole picture and develop a unique solution that can address a bigger part of the problem. In the case of the quick-change coupler, a completely new shaft flange enables a much quicker removal and replacement operation.

With a typical auxiliary shaft, there are six bolts per end that need to be unthreaded before the shaft can be removed from the vehicle. A quick-change shaft uses two bolts that apply clamping force onto a splined shaft for quick and easy removal and installation, getting the truck back into service 80 percent quicker compared to the traditional procedure. While it’s ideal to do the replacement at the fleet’s normal service facility, it can be done in the field, even reducing emergency repair times.

Between extending the service life of the auxiliary shaft and reducing the time required to replace worn shafts, a great difference in these vehicle fleets shows up in the balance sheet.3

Cole Quinnell is a contributing writer for several magazines with more than 25 years of experience in a variety of automotive industry marketing and communications positions.

Raven Engineering provides dynamic-balancing solutions with decades of OEM, racing and military experience. It is a total driveline solution provider with a broad product line of industrial balancing equipment, driveshafts, gauges and equipment. Raven Engineering is a problem-solving partner for dynamic balancing projects, and the company provides true cost project estimates, saving customers time and helping them stay within budget. For more information, call (248) 969-9450.

Notes

  1. Lee Petrimoulx, Corporate Sales and Marketing Executive, Raven Engineering.
  2. Ibid.
  3. Ibid.

 

 

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