Maintenance and Repair

 

By law, every employer must make sure that all work equipment (in our case, our main equipment are the delivery vehicles) are maintained in an efficient state or in efficient working order.

 Planned maintenance

Regular preventive maintenance inspections may be based on time or mileage. Each vehicle must have a regular maintenance schedule and a record must be kept for inspection and maintenance history purposes..

Planned maintenance helps to prevent failures during use. It should be thorough, regular and frequent enough to meet the vehicles road worthiness.

Special attention must be given on the following;

• Brakes
• Steering
• Tire condition
• Mirrors and any fittings that allow the driver to see his surroundings clearly
• Windscreen washers and wipers;
• Warning devices (for example, horns, reversing alarms or lights);
• Ladders, steps, or walkways
• Pipes, pneumatic or hydraulic hoses, lifting systems, other moving parts or systems
• Specific safety systems, for example, Hand brakes, to prevent the vehicle from moving unintentionally, anchor points or securing points for ropes.
• Engine noise and exhaust fumes.
• Fuel lines and tank.

 

 Safety precautions in maintaining vehicles

• Apply hand brake each time maintenance is to be carried out and as added precaution chock the wheels to prevent any truck movement in either forward or reverse direction. 
•  Start engine only while stepping on the clutch pedal, with hand brake engage and the gear in neutral position 
• Support and secure, or if possible lock raised parts so that it won’t accidentally disengage and fall to cause untoward accident.  
• Beware of the risk of explosion when draining and repairing fuel tanks. Never drain or fill fuel tanks when the equipment is hot or in a confined space, or over a pit.  
• Avoid short-circuiting batteries. Charge batteries only in well-ventilated areas. Suitable personal protective equipment (PPE) should be worn before handling battery acid.  
• Make sure that maintenance staff will not breathe (use face mask as required) asbestos dust from brake and clutch lining pads while doing repair works.
• Allow only authorized personnel who have received the relevant information, instruction and training to do maintenance work.

 Neatness

An obstruction in the cab or elsewhere is a very common cause of incident/accident. The crew should keep their vehicle as clean and tidy as possible it should be free from grease or oil specially the walking surfaces, hand support and ladder bars, so much so the platform area behind the cab wherein cargo will be loaded.

Tire Care

 

• Tire must be selected as per tire specification, and the type of driving that is undertaken.
• Considerations shall be given to the loads, environmental conditions, the weight and the tire pressure it can handle.
• Tire must be replaced if it exceeds, 2 years of age being installed, exceeds 40,000 KM driving or when the tire shows any damage(tread depth is less than 2mm, torn or cracked)
• Recapped tire must only be installed at the rear axle of the truck paired along with a good and not recapped tire. Inspection on this type of tire must be more thorough and twice frequent compared to normal

Access

People should never use parts of the vehicle not designed as hand or footholds (such as mudguards, bumpers, tracks, hooks) to gain access to any part of a vehicle. Parts of the vehicle not designed to support weight may give way, and their surfaces are likely to be unsuitable or slippery to step in to.

Retrofitting

Fitting further features to existing vehicles ('retrofitting') needs careful planning.

• Retrofitting must not significantly weaken the chassis or body structure.
• Do not consider drilling holes in the chassis and welding to it
• Retrofitting should also take account of the structure of the vehicle.
• Avoid sensitive points such as fuel tanks.