Manager: James Williams
Title: General manager
Company: J&L Contracting LLC, Springfield, MO
Operation: Fleet hauls rock and dirt as well as rental construction equipment and other oversize loads
Problem:
Hauling heavy loads not only puts a regular beat-down on commercial equipment, they also often require the use of some old-fashioned truck specs such as 18-speed manual transmissions.
James Williams of J&L Contracting understands such issues intimately. His fleet of 40 trucks, including 13 dump trucks, four tractors hauling “end dump” trailers, four “roll back” trucks, and 14 Caterpillar-brand tractors equipped with 13L engines, works quite hard hauling construction-related materials throughout Oklahoma and Missouri.
While some of that equipment is outfitted with Caterpillar’s CX31 automated mechanical transmission (AMT) and Eaton Corp.’s UltraShift AMT, the rest feature 18-speed manual transmissions. This is because all those gears are necessary to get a 100,000-lb. load up and moving—often in some not-so-nice conditions.
To keep those Cat trucks up and running and in great shape takes some extra work on the part of J&L’s drivers and technicians—with an unusual twist thrown in where the 18-speed transmissions are concerned.
Solution:
To start with, the fleet tries to attract veteran drivers skilled in manual shifting. Williams also specs the company’s trucks with “a lot of chrome and a lot of stainless steel.”
“Getting drivers to take pride in their ride means that they will want to take care of [the truck],” Williams explains. “We have our own wash bay on site, but our drivers will clean up their rigs on their own, too.”
Keeping a truck clean and sharp looking helps at the weigh scales, Williams adds, as it’s the vehicles coated in grime with rust on the wheels that are the ones usually more apt to be pulled over for inspections.
But that doesn’t mean J&L just goes for surface impressions, skimping on maintenance along the way.
“We change our engine oil every 15,000 mi., check our filters frequently, and make sure all of our maintenance is up to date,” he stresses. “We have our own shop, but we also use our local Cat dealership, as they can take care of almost everything on our Cat trucks under one roof.”
When it comes to an 18-speed manual transmission, Williams says, how it gets shifted day in and day out will determine how much maintenance it will require over time. That’s why when J&L brings on a new driver who’ll be piloting one of the company’s tractors equipped with an 18-speed manual, they get a co-pilot during their first few weeks at the helm. And that co-pilot often tends to be one of J&L’s maintenance technicians.
“First, we run our new guys through a detailed overview of how we do things. We go over all of the paperwork that is required. [We explain to them] that they need to wear a hard hat, jeans, and boots on the job. They need to know how to run any heavy equipment that they’ll be hauling, as they’ll need to load and unload it at jobs sites,” he says.
A technician co-pilot will then be assigned to the new driver, and it is his job to closely monitor how that driver shifts the 18-speed manual gearbox. Not only will the co-pilot make sure that the driver does not overwork the clutch, he will go over other details as well.
“Those are the guys who will be tagged to fix those transmissions should anything go wrong, so that’s why we send them out with our new drivers,” Williams points out. “They will be very blunt and tell [the new drivers] exactly how to shift those 18-speed manuals properly. It’s a very good way to get the right shifting habits established at the front end, and that helps us reduce our maintenance costs over time.”
