FOUR DECADES ON………HARSH UNDERFLOORS ARE STILL THE ONLY TIPPING GEAR FOR PEACOCK BROTHERS

Some products just suit their intended applications perfectly, and due to that they become iconic. There’s never a good reason to change or improve them, even if these were possible. One such example is the HARSH underfloor tipping gear – a keynote product now approaching its 40th year of UK sales. Acknowledged for its unrivalled performance, it’s still finding its way onto all the latest tipper truck chassis!

A perfect example being two of the latest Iveco X – Way 8×4 tippers that have recently gone into service with Peacock Brothers of Minskip, North Yorkshire. Having bought tippers of most makes and types over the years, every tipper has nonetheless been specified with the HARSH K110 twin ram underfloor. Why? Because for heavy duty work such as earthmoving and site clearance, there’s nothing to touch them for stability and safety when working on uneven ground and / or tipping out difficult loads such as clay and soil.

The key feature of the K110 is its integral stabiliser arms, located outside of the twin lifting cylinders. The stabiliser arms keep the raised body rigidly inline with the truck chassis, adding significant protection to the whole vehicle from potentially hazardous sideways pressures, whether those be from uneven ground, sticky loads or high winds.

“Having a built-in stabiliser makes the HARSH underfloor unique” says company boss Chris Peacock, “it just gives us an extra margin of safety in any operating environment. Compared to any other gear, it’s really in another league. The K110 has been our only tipping gear from even before the 1990’s – that long!”

Aside from its unmatched stability, the HARSH underfloor has other advantages too.

On Peacock’s trucks, the tipping gear is mounted further to the rear of the chassis so as to give the highest possible tipping angle which enables heavy, lumpy and sticky loads  to simply drop out of the body quickly and cleanly. The raise / lower sequence is fast too, being powered in both directions, minimising the time the body is in the air.

The K110’s twin ram configuration also makes routine maintenance easy – if you need to change a seal, the empty body can be raised on one ram, be propped, with the required work then being carried out on the opposite cylinder.

“But best of all is the HARSH underfloor’s exceptional reliability and durability” says Chris’ son Robert, who plans the daily workload. “Our tippers get a hard life, and they need to be ready for work each and every day. With their HARSH gears these new Ivecos look ideal for our job, and we’ve given them our standard – fit Townend steel bodies as well. The result looks like an ideal heavy duty tipper specification, and they are already well liked by their drivers.”

Based in the village of Minskip near Boroughbridge, Peacock Brothers has been trading for over 100 years and is today fully involved in earthmoving, site clearance, plant hire, haulage, crushing and screening. As such its extensive tipper fleet has been specified to carry the full variety of arduous payloads from muck and rubble through to demolition spoil, stone and crushed concrete.

Despite offering a first class service, the company’s website modestly says “We don’t promise the earth, just to move it!”