MEMORIES OF FINLAND

December 15, 2010 Vol. 6, No. 25

Way back in time, like 1985, I had a day that remains one of the best ever, and it involved a truck that I'll bet most of you have never heard of. A Sisu.

A plain, simple, and seemingly mighty rugged cabover made in Finland by a little company launched in 1931. Sold nowhere else outside that small and very foreign country neighboring what was then the USSR, Sisu was a marque I'd never heard of either. I remember thinking at the time that there were probably other tiny truck makers serving only local markets elsewhere in the world. Resolved to seek them out but never really have.

I met that truck and its owner/driver at a crossroads in the serious boonies about 50 clicks north of Tampere, which is itself two or three hours north of Helsinki. In February. Minus 45. Nothing but white snow and green trees in every direction.

An engineer with the company I was visiting -- Nokia, the tire side -- had arranged for me to spend a day with this fellow, a logger whose wonderfully resonant name I now forget, a rough-hewn sort of middle-aged guy in overalls and no coat who spoke not a word of English. And my Finnish, a strange language related to no other except maybe Hungarian distantly, consisted of a couple of lines I'd been taught to help me pick up girls in clubs. They were going to help me no more there in the bush than they did in the town. Gonna be an interesting day, I said to myself.

But the point here is the truck. When we walked over to it and I realized it was a Sisu, I was excited. My wish to drive something a little exotic had been answered. Imagine, then, my chagrin when I climbed up into the shotgun seat, looked around, and spotted a little shifter plate on the dash that I'd seen often enough before. The truck had a Fuller 13! And imagine my further chagrin when I somehow realized that power was being made by a Cummins 400!

So much for exotic.

Anyway, my Finnish friend didn't let me drive right away, but hauled us further into the bush where we loaded a bunch of logs and headed to the mill. We unloaded eventually, amidst the steam and smoke and wonderful odors of such places in winter, first stopping for lunch at a tiny little cafe where I had to guess at the menu and never did learn what I'd eaten.

I did eventually get to drive that manly Sisu, on snow-laden roads with crowns higher than I'd ever seen. It was a heavy three-axle truck pulling a full trailer at the end of a drawbar as long as the Queen Mary, and it stuck like glue to the frozen road beneath me. Must have been the Nokia tires.

I won't bore you with the rest of the day's story -- it does go on -- but I should explain that all this comes up because I had a missive from Daimler headquarters in Stuttgart the other day announcing that Mercedes-Benz has begun supplying components to Sisu for its new Polar model (pictured here) to be introduced next March. It's headed for the forestry and construction markets, where Sisu excels, though it might be best known for its super heavy-duty military trucks with as many as 10 driven axles.
 

The Finnish outfit is, of course, too small to make its own major components or its cabs. So for this tiny production run of between 200 and 400 Polar vehicles, Sisu will supply the frames, axles, and drive shafts, while cabs, engines, and transmissions will be components from the Mercedes-Benz Actros. The trucks will be assembled by Sisu and sold in Finland under the Sisu brand. It's a tiny market, with just 2900 medium- and heavy-duty trucks sold there this year, up from 2600 in 2009. About 3500 trucks are sold there in a normal year.

Anyway, that's all for Sisu for now. Just thought you'd like to know a little about an obscure company in a far-flung place.

BACK IN NORTH AMERICA but still on the Cummins front, I was reminded today of a great little booklet on fuel efficiency published by the engine maker a couple of years ago. I came across it in the course of researching a feature story I was writing and thought it was worth passing on.

A 37-page booklet called 'Secrets of Better Fuel Economy: The Physics of MPG', it's online and downloadable as a pdf file but you might be able to find a paper copy if you talk nicely to a Cummins distributor.

It's not the only such booklet out there -- other very good ones have come out of Bridgestone and Kenworth, for example -- but it has a slightly different take on things. Here's a taste, what Cummins calls the 'Rock-Solid Rules' of fuel economy:

* Every 2% reduction in aerodynamic drag results in approximately 1% improvement in fuel economy.

* Above 55 mph, each 1 mph increase in vehicle speed decreases fuel economy by 0.1 MPG.

* Worn tires provide up to 7% better fuel economy than new tires.

* Used lug drive tires can get up to 0.4 MPG better fuel economy than new lug tires.

* Ribbed tires on the drive axles provide 2 - 4% better fuel economy than lugged tires.

* Every 10 psi that a truck’s tires are underinflated reduces fuel economy by 1%.

* The break-in period for tires is between 35,000 and 50,000 miles.

* Tires make biggest difference in MPG below 50 mph; aerodynamics is the most important factor over 50 mph.

* The most efficient drivers get about 30% better fuel economy than the least efficient drivers.

* Idle time is costly. Every hour of idle time in a long-haul operation can decrease fuel economy by 1% because you’re burning fuel and not moving.

AND FINALLY, WHAT THE HECK IS SPIF? I'm going to get regionally specific for a little bit here, and maybe I shouldn't, but I'm told that Phase 4 of this Ontario-only regulation has come upon some people like a painted-face commando in the dark. Yeah, so what's new? Never heard of such a thing.

This arises because you'll notice that the lead product item today is the nifty Phoenix self-steering axle from Larry's Custom Trailer that can get Ontario aggregate haulers into a SPIF-compliant trailer without buying an entire new one. It's not the only conversion system out there, I should add.

OK, so what's SPIF again? The acronym refers to 'Safe, Productive, Infrastructure-Friendly,' the collective name for a set of truck and trailer standards aimed at protecting Ontario roadways, launched in 2000. Phase 4 of the new size-and-weight regime takes hold next month. And if folks aren't ready, which describes a bunch of operations apparently, they'll suffer a weight penalty that would render them uncompetitive.

The Phoenix system is compatible with "practically all makes of semi-dump trailers," allowing the conversion without having to modify the chassis or relocate crossmembers and re-paint the frame. You avoid the cost of a new SPIF-ready semi-trailer but get the same payload advantages while spending 75% less money. Sounds good to me.

SPIF isn't just about size and weight, I should explain. In some cases, the mandate calls for design and spec improvements. For instance, the heavy 5- and 6-axle SPIF semi-trailers must have an enhanced braking system to minimize the risk of brake failure and warn the driver of potential problems. Another example: tri-drive tractors have been introduced for situations where greater traction is seen to be needed.

There's actually some sensible stuff in there but this isn't the place to get into the detail, of which there's lots.

So I'll leave it at that and wish you all a Merry Christmas. Back in a couple of weeks.

THIS NEWSLETTER IS PUBLISHED every two weeks. It's a heads-up notice about what's going on with trucking technology as well as what you can see at  www.todaystrucking.com where you'll find in-detail coverage of nearly everything   that's new. Plus interesting products that may not have had the 'air play' they deserved within the last few months. Why not subscribe today?

I should remind you that I don’t endorse any of the products I write about in this e-newsletter, nor do I have the resources to test them. What you’re getting is reasonably well educated opinion based on three decades in trucking. And in the case of the individual product items, I’m just presenting simple news from the manufacturer or service provider, with the hyperbole mostly removed and   clarification applied.

If you have comments of whatever sort about Product Watch, or maybe you've tried a gizmo I should know about, please contact me at rolf@newcom.ca.