W Midlands fires up on Tadchurch
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• The West Midlands Fire Service has retrofitted Tadchurch rubber suspension on the rear axles of its swapbody support vehicles to bring their handling up to the standard expected from its fire appliances.
Senior brigade engineer Brian Pipkin says, "We uprated the suspensions to achieve consistent handling across the operational weight range from seven to 14.75 tonnes. The progressive action of the transversely-mounted rubber springs suits the demountablepod swap-body operation. Height difference between the empty and fully-laden conditions is small, and roll with heavy loads is reduced."
Static tilt tests showed only 5.50 of body roll with the Tadchurch system, compared to 13° of roll with the original Dennis 16-tonners multi-leaf steel springs.