CF sticks its neck out
Page 17

If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
by Bryan Jarvis • Crane Fruehauf has added a high-cube dual coupling height curtainsider chassis and a skeletal semi-trailer to its product range. Both are available under its recently announced Pick-and-Tick product ordering method.
The Ultracube neck has a fabricated box section matrix with side extensions fitted within the shallow (78mm) sandwich plate flooring.
Behind the neck there's a beefy box section crossmember for extra front end stiffening. Using FEA (Finite Element Analysis), CF has produced a 13.6m floor that permits fork-lift loading right up to the front end with minimal deflection. There's a choice of laminated hardwood, birch-ply or extruded aluminium over the rear of the floor. There are 490mm-deep main rails with recesses over the running gear area to accommodate the long stroke of the dual ride (960/1,200mm) air suspension. At its lowest, the standard floor height is one metre.
For ferry work there's a neat side rave added and a new sturdily mounted rear underrun bar that flexes on tapered torque arm bushes adopted from CF's air suspension system.
rz.SkireZ
The front corners of the trailer are chamfered and there's a new long travel landing leg from Jost with heavy-duty wheel that fits behind the neck for maximum swing clearance.
With 400mm pitch crossbearers a standard Ultracube chassis tares at a maximum of 6,930kg.
Fruehauf's latest skeletal trailer has an aluminium pull-out tail section that enables it to cater for 13.6m swap bodies at up to 44 tonnes. Essentially for flat bottomed containers, it also has retractable centre twistlocks to allow it to carry French Caissemobiles or two 20ft (6.1m) swap boxes.
In standard form the triaxle skeletal has a rearsteer axle to gain full leeway on loading and to help reduce tyre wear.