Exaarco Industrial Minerals at Glen Douglas near Vereeniging recently took delivery of a Western Star 4900SA off road truck fitted with a 20 000 litre water tanker specified and prepared by Liebherr Africa.

The unit was purchased for dust suppression duties on haul roads and around mining areas.

The 20 000 litre tanker was built on a Western Star 4900SA off-road dump truck chassis that lends itself to operation in harsh mining environments with slippery underfoot conditions and steep inclines.

The tanker is an eight compartment baffled design with hydraulically driven pump capable of delivering up to 2000 litre/minute. Water can be either sprayed out onto a road in a swath of up to 9m wide via the spray nozzles or onto a specific area via a monitor mounted above the cab. The monitor can be switched on and off as well as aimed using a joystick control mounted in the drivers cab.

The truck is also equipped with a suction hose and foot valve for filling the tanker from a static water source, and a well is provided inside the tank to allow the centrifugal water pump to self-prime, when filling an empty suction hose.

The Western Star 4900SA chassis is ideally suited for use as a water tanker because the powerful Cummins ISM350 engine provides 260kW of power, ensuring steady speed performance with full loads up and down inclines. The engine is also fitted with a Cummins C brake, which is a compression brake that offers retardation power almost equal to engine power when the truck has to be held in check on steep declines.

This saves on brake maintenance costs, as well as providing an extra margin of safety when operating on severe gradients.

In addition to this, the truck is fitted with an Allison RDS4500 six-speed fully automatic transmission that not only offers smooth jerk free shifts, but also makes the vehicle very easy to drive. This allows the operator to concentrate on his primary function, which is paying attention to where the vehicle is going and spraying the right amount of water down on the road where it is needed.

The Allison transmission has the added benefit of a hot-shift power take off, which allows the water pump to be engaged, whether the truck is moving or stationary without the driver having to take his foot off the throttle of the truck.

The Western Star truck was supplied to Exaarco by Liebherr Africa, one of South Africa’s foremost suppliers of heavy earthmoving equipment and exclusive distributor of Western Star off highway trucks. This water tanker is serviced and supported by Liebherr’s fleet of mobile service vehicles stationed at five branches plus five other depots nationwide.