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Three go into two
Page 24
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HOW TO turn three old rigid tanks into two new artics for the price of one is a question which has been answered by Berkshire haulier Frank Edwards, writes the Technical Editor.
He has just put into service two Crane Fruehauf 21,000 litre (4,650 gal) stainless steel milk tanker semi-trailers — and it could be argued that he got one of them free.
He wanted to replace some of the fleet's existing rigid tanks with higher capacity articulated tankers but the 15,000 litre (3,100 gal) tanks, although 10-12 years old, were hardly scrap. In fact the stainless steel barrels were in excellent shape, so he asked Crane Fruehauf if they could be re-used.
Although CF make a lot of tankers, the production methods at their Norfolk fac tory are not geared to allow for customers supplying their own barrels, so their service centre at Ossett, Leeds, carried out the conversion.
They removed the tanker barrels from the three old AEC rigids, cut one of them in half, and, using stainless steel bands, stitched one half to each of the other two complete barrels, thus providing the basis for two articulated tankers.
The barrels were then insulated with glass fibre and finished with outer shells of aluminium sheeting. To these structures they fitted a subframe equipped with Crane Fruehauf suspension and ROR axles.
The unladen weight is 5.42 tonnes (5tons 7cwt) and they are plated at 27.7 tonnes gross for use with AEC Mandator tractors.