THE DEFINITIVE TRUCKING SITE

September 2008

TSE – Big Max are heavily invested in trailer brake drum stock. The level of investment is magnified by the quality of the inventory.

My financial journalist neighbour, Flip Meyer, comments drily: “There are two things that drive the markets, fear and greed.” He’s right, and it’s not just small businesses that falls into these traps but huge businesses as well. Just look at Eskom where, resulting from their greed  or profit above power generation coupled to the desire to pay executive bonuses, current market estimates add up to a stunning R50-billion loss to the South African economy. Greed knows no borders or time zone – it’s speeded the downfall of Empires and small business. Beware it does not lead to the downfall of your business warns FleetWatch technical correspondent Dave Scott. 

The Ford Pinto is a USA classic. Time magazine included the 1971 Pinto on its list of the 50 worst cars of all time. As Time said: “Of course the Pinto goes on the Worst list but not because it was a particularly bad car - not particularly - but because it had a rather volatile nature. The car tended to erupt in flame in rear-end collisions. The Pinto is at the end of one of ‘autodom’s’ most notorious paper trails, the Ford Pinto memo, which ruthlessly calculates the cost of reinforcing the rear end ($121-million) versus the potential payout to victims ($50-million). Conclusion? Let ‘em burn.” 

There may be controversy about who actually generated that famously callous memo equating the cost of life against modifying every Pinto at $11 per car but history and perception has pinned this on Ford – ouch! A fuel tank is, after all, a safety critical item. 

The South African road transport industry is also easily and rapidly trapped into safety compromises when cost pressures mount – as they have of late to the point where operating expenses are horrendous. 

Spiralling diesel costs have dragged up many other costs while accelerating steel prices have impacted on components like brake drums and trailer connectors. The price of a machined, high quality trailer brake drum has doubled in the past 18 months and word is out in the market that attitudes have changed in some quarters towards the ready acceptance of cheap, inferior, uncertified drums so as to retain trailer manufacturing and transport operating margins. 

A humble trailer brake drum that retailed for around R450 now easily goes for R800. It’s no wonder the short term view is ‘give-methe-cheapie’! And from what I hear, some original equipment trailer manufacturers (OETM’s) are taking up this position. When challenged, they are prepared to replace brake drums that suffer premature failure under warranty but what of the consequences? A brake drum collapse can result in a wheel-hub fire, a jack-knife incident, tyre destruction and loss of life. Does being prepared to replace lowquality foundation brake equipment make up for these situations? 

Omar Essop, CEO of transport equipment suppliers TSE-BIG MAX, makes a valid point: “Wellplanned maintenance is the key to making savings in road-transport, not buying cheap. For example, many trailer load-sensing valves are incorrectly set or disconnected, resulting in wheel lockup. This results in abnormal trailer brake lining wear which drives the linings down to the rivets which, in turn, scores a brake drum. Aside from abnormal tyre wear, this means that a drum will most likely have to be discarded and price rules the day for frequent replacement flowing out of bad maintenance.” 
 

“The 80% increase in the steel price has meant that the pressure is on to return to so-called cheap transport spares and components. But a cheap drum remains inferior and  does not fail just prior to a service – it will most probably fail on the road with extra  downtime adding to cost stress.”  Omar Essop CEO - TSE Big-Max

Providing the proof

TSE-BIG MAX was challenged. If a cheap machine-finished drum shows no external inferior qualities, then how do you know when the expensive material in quality casting has been, as classified in metallurgical terms, either cut short or excluded? The cheap drum was submitted to a lab-test and in brief the following was found: 

• For starters, at 45,5kg it weighed in a kilogram lighter than the standard drum cast to SABS 1034. 

• The lab test found the cheap drum to ‘contain centre line macro shrinkage’ – porosity. The lab report regarded the ‘macro shrinkage’ as severe enough to cause complete drum failure. 

• The cheap drum had a Brinell Hardness (BHN) of 163 while SABS 1034 calls for a BHN of between 187 and 241. Based on the idea that a material’s response to a load placed at one small point is related to its ability to deform permanently (yield), the hardness test is performed by pressing a hardened steel ball (Brinell test) or a steel or diamond cone (Rockwell test) into the surface of the test piece. 

• The brake drum submitted was found to have very high carbon content and a very low Brinell Hardness. The casting is therefore very soft and would not last long in service as it will wear very quickly. 

Aside from the obvious dangers of using inferior quality drums, mixing cheap trailer brake drums with standard high-quality drums presents another set of problems – unequal wear rates which means that forecasting replacement becomes a nightmare. 

With non-discernable differences between quality and inferior drums, the obvious question is: How do you tell the difference? On this point, the buyer is entitled to a copy of a lab certificate covering the batch of brake drums purchased. Note that this must be a laboratory that can stand scrutiny – there are certificates out there that are not worth the paper they are written on. TSE-BIG MAX has supplied over 300 000 brake drums to the road transport industry in its 22-year history and claim no comebacks through adhering to strict quality standards that include supplier certificates. 

At a time when truck accidents are receiving much negative attention, trailer foundation brakes are key to preventing trailer jack-knifing and the road transport industry, cost beleaguered as it is, cannot afford to compromise on this issue. 

The camera clearly identifies the  orosity – the small starred spangles – in this 90 degree cutaway of a ‘cheap’ trailer drum import. This is where early failure starts.

This section cut from an imported, low-cost trailer brake drum was cut at a sloping 45 degree angle on the left and at 90 degrees on the right. When cut at a sloping 45 degrees, structural faults are not easily discernable as these flow with the grain. But when cut at 90 degrees across the grain the faults – in this case porosity – are clear even to a naked eye.

Kingpin quality 

And it’s not only brake drums where the problem exists. Kingpins not conforming to any quality specification are also being sold into our market. 

A kingpin is exactly what it means – it is the ‘king pin’ of final connection between a truck tractor and semi-trailer and a focal point of gross combination mass stress. When 5th wheels are serviced, nothing gets as frequently overlooked as kingpins. Lack of attention to kingpins is magnified when trailers are parked off while truck tractors are cleaned, checked and lubricated. It’s shocking to even contemplate cast iron locking bolts being used to retain a king pin in a semi-trailer rubbing plate - but this does occur. 

An attempt to rebuild a worn kingpin is certainly the bottom scale of trailer maintenance. The recommendation is never, and I repeat never, rebuild a worn king pin. A new ‘2-inch’ kingpin has an outside diameter dimension at 50,8 mm and when this is worn to 49 mm, it is time for replacement. 

It seems that nowadays, when profit is at stake, truck safety - including the safety of all road users - is negotiable. Lowering safety standards can become an entrenched way of doing things when price versus profit becomes the over-riding consideration. In such a culture, even when the economy is strong, a tendency remains to gravitate to the lowest standard. 

A challenge for any maintenance system is not just to track aggregated costs in a lump sum account but rather to manage a segmented analysis of maintenance incidents causing those expenses. A further vital aspect is segregating and flagging safety critical items from routine maintenance for immediate attention. 

Failure of a safety critical component is an advance warning of a rash of problems that can result in loss of life or cargo, personal injury and vehicle downtime. Unplanned replacement of a safety critical component can be likened to one case of rabies – a single incident should be treated as an epidemic. 

In these financially stressed times for road transport, take care that making a profit in the bank does not end up in losing the rig in service. Survival is the key and that does not mean lowering of safety standards.
 

All kingpins must be manufactured from minimum standard SABS approved steel to an EN19T or EN23U specification. The problem is that the difference cannot be seen by casual observation between a mild-steel kingpin and an EN19T kingpin in newly machined condition. Beware – mild-steel kingpins are floating around our market.