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  1. #1
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    Default New towball ratings for heavy vehicles.

    You may or may not be aware that there have been changes to the ratings for both 50mm towballs and combination pintle hooks when installed on vehicles over 5000 Kg GVM. This also has implications for equipment fitted with a 50mm coupling when towed behind a vehicle in this class. To illustrate the potential implications, let me use the example of a 15,000 Kg GVM vehicle. A 3500 Kg rated ball or coupling derates to 2242 Kg, a 2000 Kg coupling to 1524 Kg and finally a 750 Kg. rated coupling to only 682 Kg.
    Anyone who tows a mini excavator, Dingo or even a mobile welder could easily find themselves outside the law. I have included a link to the relevant guide so you can be aware of the various ratings.
    https://www.nhvr.gov.au/files/201709...-couplings.pdf

  2. #2
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    This sounds like a new racket to rip money out of people. How can the weight of the towing vehicle affect the strength of the towball . It's the mass hanging off the towball that creates the inertia of pulling and pushing against the tow ball . This goes against physics .
    So a 15 000 kg truck with a 750 kg rated tow setup can't legally pull as much as my 1500 kg 4x4 with a box trailer which is legal at 750 kg . What an utter nonsense of a law .
    The volume of a pizza of thickness 'a' and radius 'z' is given by pi z z a.

  3. #3
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    Default

    What is the justification?

    Someone making sure their job is relevant and needs to come up with some scaremongering?
    Gold, the colour of choice for the discerning person.

  4. #4
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    Default

    That's a bit like every few years the ADR's change (updated it's called) just so that some shiny butts can keep their jobs. What a load of crock???
    To grow old is mandatory, growing up is optional.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by KBs PensNmore View Post
    That's a bit like every few years the ADR's change
    That's right.

    I should be able to buy a new car without seatbelts, belching out pollution, noisy, zero star safety rating etc.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by .RC. View Post
    What is the justification?

    Someone making sure their job is relevant and needs to come up with some scaremongering?
    the justification?
    It's hard to say.

    I've had a quick read of the regulatory impact statement for the ADR behind the rules on couplings.
    In essence the underlying ADR was written to allow Australian tow bar and hitch manufacturers and installers to use off the shelf hardware manufactured for the US and European markets.
    It's quite possible that the US and/or European standards/requirements have changed necessitating a corresponding change to the applicable Australian standard.


    If you believe the formula presented in the Vehicle standards guide, the inertia and torque exerted by a 20 tonne truck on an unbraked trailer can easily snap a 750 kg coupling.
    regards from Canmore

    ian

  7. #7
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    Default

    Where I currently work, we are an approved heavy vehicle inspection station as an adjunct to our core business of constructing truck bodies and associated fit ups. When this rule came out, we reacted exactly the same way that you all have and posed the question to the Transport department as to why this was so. Had there been an accident caused by ball or coupling failure? Did the regulator have a bucket of snapped or stretched 50mm balls? No on both counts. Even they were unsure what prompted the move.
    What it does mean though, is that your typical tradie or council truck just got their tow set up derated sufficiently to preclude towing most plant trailers unless they step up to a 70mm ball (their rating is unchanged). Transport authorities will no doubt start issuing infringements at goodness knows what cost.
    I understand that a truck will be a far more rigid tow platform than a car due to their greater weight and heavy suspension, but a properly braked trailer shouldn't be pushing that hard on the coupling anyway. This seems like an unneccesary law.

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by Karl Robbers View Post
    Where I currently work, we are an approved heavy vehicle inspection station as an adjunct to our core business of constructing truck bodies and associated fit ups. When this rule came out, we reacted exactly the same way that you all have and posed the question to the Transport department as to why this was so. Had there been an accident caused by ball or coupling failure? Did the regulator have a bucket of snapped or stretched 50mm balls? No on both counts. Even they were unsure what prompted the move.
    What it does mean though, is that your typical tradie or council truck just got their tow set up derated sufficiently to preclude towing most plant trailers unless they step up to a 70mm ball (their rating is unchanged). Transport authorities will no doubt start issuing infringements at goodness knows what cost.
    I understand that a truck will be a far more rigid tow platform than a car due to their greater weight and heavy suspension, but a properly braked trailer shouldn't be pushing that hard on the coupling anyway.
    perhaps this is the "problem" being addressed. There's too many unbraked trailers running around loaded to the max 750 kg or perhaps that little bit more. With the same true for 2000 and 3500 braked trailers -- too many are loaded to the max.
    regards from Canmore

    ian

  9. #9
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    formerly from Sydney (north of The Harbour), NSW, Oz
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    Quote Originally Posted by Karl Robbers View Post
    Where I currently work, we are an approved heavy vehicle inspection station as an adjunct to our core business of constructing truck bodies and associated fit ups. When this rule came out, we reacted exactly the same way that you all have and posed the question to the Transport department as to why this was so. Had there been an accident caused by ball or coupling failure? Did the regulator have a bucket of snapped or stretched 50mm balls? No on both counts. Even they were unsure what prompted the move.
    What it does mean though, is that your typical tradie or council truck just got their tow set up derated sufficiently to preclude towing most plant trailers unless they step up to a 70mm ball (their rating is unchanged). Transport authorities will no doubt start issuing infringements at goodness knows what cost.
    I understand that a truck will be a far more rigid tow platform than a car due to their greater weight and heavy suspension, but a properly braked trailer shouldn't be pushing that hard on the coupling anyway. This seems like an unneccesary law.
    having now plotted the new trailer ratings (for 50 mm balls) against towing vehicle mass, perhaps the change has less to do with what a 5000+kg GVM truck can haul and more to do with changing the ratings so that 2 and 3.5 tonne plant trailers are forced to upgrade to a 70 mm ball (or ring and pintle) coupling making them incompatible with your typical tradies' ute or 4x4 with 50 mm ball.
    regards from Canmore

    ian

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by Karl Robbers View Post
    Where I currently work, we are an approved heavy vehicle inspection station as an adjunct to our core business of constructing truck bodies and associated fit ups. When this rule came out, we reacted exactly the same way that you all have and posed the question to the Transport department as to why this was so. Had there been an accident caused by ball or coupling failure? Did the regulator have a bucket of snapped or stretched 50mm balls? No on both counts. Even they were unsure what prompted the move.
    It apparently is the standard itself. The standard said 50mm balls were apparently never allowed to be used on vehicles over 5000kg GVM.

    It gets stupid when you look at say a 6500kg truck, which can be derated to 4495kg with no changes at all. It can now tow more on a 50mm ball.

    It is like a lot of things these days, rather then the government pay to do the engineering, they will instead take the easy way out and who cares who it inconveniences, it is not going to be the ones making the decision, as they are white collar office workers, unlikely to be driving a truck ever in their lives.

    I have come across similar things in other government regulated things.
    Gold, the colour of choice for the discerning person.

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by .RC. View Post
    It is like a lot of things these days, rather then the government pay to do the engineering, they will instead take the easy way out and who cares who it inconveniences, it is not going to be the ones making the decision, as they are white collar office workers, unlikely to be driving a truck ever in their lives.

    I have come across similar things in other government regulated things.
    I think it's called "user pays". If the user doesn't like the ruling, then the user can fund the engineering to justify a "common sense" change.
    regards from Canmore

    ian

  12. #12
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    I wonder what the ruling is in the US. In some states at least they can tow up to 13.6 tonne gross behind a ute (truck to them). I saw Brian (bcbloc02) working on a new (to him) 5th wheel trailer and saw that the attachment is just a ball in the centre of his truck tub. I wonder how big it was?

    Dean

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Oldneweng View Post
    I wonder what the ruling is in the US. In some states at least they can tow up to 13.6 tonne gross behind a ute (truck to them). I saw Brian (bcbloc02) working on a new (to him) 5th wheel trailer and saw that the attachment is just a ball in the centre of his truck tub. I wonder how big it was?

    Dean
    those beasts are a bit bigger than a "ute".
    e.g. a RAM 3500 might be able to tow something like 13.5 tonnes, but the vehicle itself with a 6.7 litre diesel weighs in at something like 4 tonnes.
    from what I can see on-line ex-factory the vehicle comes equipped for a 75 mm ball coupling or similar
    regards from Canmore

    ian

  14. #14
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    Ask any yank and he will tell you he's got big .....

    Nev.

  15. #15
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    I believe that SWMBO's Rodeo weighs about 2.5 tonne and has a towing capacity of 2.5 - 3 tonne (not sure). There is a bit of a difference in vehicle mass / towing capacity ratio or does Oz have higher capacity for 5th wheel towing?

    I watched a video of a tractor and gator being towed on a 5th wheeler and the tractor was at the front with the gator at the back over the axles. That truck must have had some serious rear suspension.

    Dean

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