It’s been 14 years since repairing any trailer’s “ICC bumper” was a simple matter of cutting off the damaged section and welding on a straight piece of angle iron. Most trailers built since Jan. 26, 1998, have been equipped with more complex required rear impact guards that are not only stronger but are designed to absorb shock from a collision.
What do you get when you put a group of trucking journalists in a room with three tables of engine teardown parts and ask them to choose which one is from the truck running the experimental low-viscosity oil? A lot of eeny-meeny-miney-mo.
A North Carolina fleet has been running a group of trucks on three different Shell Rotella oils -- a 15w-40, a 10w-30, and a 10w-30 that's been altered to provide a lower high-temp/high-shear number than is currently approved. A teardown of one of each after more than half a million miles shows virtually no difference in wear among the three engines. Learn more here. (By Deborah Lockridge, Editor in Chief.)
In anticipation of a new heavy duty engine oil API classification aimed at improving fuel economy with oils meeting lower high-temperature/high-shear viscosity standards, Shell did a field test of an experimental low HTHS-viscosity version of its Rotella engine oil. It shared the results with trade press editors on May 14, 2014. Here Howard Hill, engineer, lubricant technology, explains the results to HDT Editor in Chief Deborah Lockridge.
Bruce Hudson, director of corporate maintenance at Heartland Express, has a heart when it comes to the Iowa-based truckload and logistics company’s drivers, who must spend nights on the road. So he’s come up with changes to a tractor’s electrical system that will benefit them during off-duty hours.
Fleets spend tons of money on tires – so much, in fact, that bad tire management can become a competitive handicap. Find out how four well-run fleets run their tire programs to give their operations a competitive advantage.
Bruce Purkey knows where the electrons go. And, as president of Purkey’s Fleet Electric and his many activities in the Technology & Maintenance Council of the American Trucking Associations, he’s well aware that some of them flow to batteries that support the electric-over-hydraulic systems for liftgates on trucks and trailers. Usually there are two and as many as four Group 31 batteries, like the ones on a truck or tractor.
Jaltest's J560 connector allows multibrand trailer ABS diagnostics with just one tool.
Ever wonder exactly how the parts you order get to you when you need them where you need them? Aftermarket Editor Denise Rondini recently visited Meritor's Florence, Ky., Parts Distribution Center. It handles 27 different product lines comprising 161,000 parts numbers. Each day 30 to 40 truckloads of parts and components arrive at the facility. An equal number of trucks leave the PDC each day carrying parts to dealers and independent parts distributors.
Ever wonder exactly how the parts you order get to you when you need them where you need them? Meritor recently invited Heavy Duty Trucking to its Florence, Ky., Parts Distribution Center.
Ed Shea, a retired publisher of Owner Operator and The Specialist magazines, passed away April 28 after a period of declining health. He was 91. He was a founding member of what is now the Technology & Maintenance Council of the American Trucking Associations.
Unlike their human counterparts, dead tires do tell tales. And aside from underinflation and road strikes, the tales most commonly told of tires robbing their owners of full value revolve around alignment. Scrubbing and scuffing and driving tires off in different directions, poor alignment kills tires faster than almost any other mechanical malady.
Wofford Truck Parts of El Paso, Texas, has joined the Vipar Heavy Duty network of distributors as a stockholder. Founded by its president Paul Wofford in 1985, Wofford Truck Parts specializes in heavy-duty and medium-duty truck parts.
We have to stop thinking of our start/charge systems as simply a handful of separate components, and start viewing them as a system. From alternators to batteries and starters, cables and regulators, and even add-on components like low-voltage cut-off switches and DC/AV inverters, each can impact the component next to it.
Kenworth of Pennsylvania has opened a new parts and service facility in McKees Rocks, an industrial area and suburb four miles west of downtown Pittsburgh.
Rush Enterprises’ top service technicians, collision center technicians, truck sales reps, aftermarket sales reps, and parts reps from across the country converged on San Antonio to compete in the company’s 2023 Tech Skills Rodeo. Take a look inside the service and collision center competition and the expo.
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