Page 50 - Australian Paint & Panel March-April 2020

Heavy Vehicle Repair
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PAINT&PANEL MARCH / APRIL 2020 WWW.PAINTANDPANEL.COM.AU
LEFT: Comprehensive crash testing BELOW:Side curtain airbags are installed above the door on both sides of the truck.
SCANIA SAYS DIAL BEFORE YOU DEPLOY
NOT ALL TRUCK CRASHES DESTROY THE VEHICLE. SCANIA HAS DEVELOPED AND EVOLVED A SERIES OF ACTIVE AND PASSIVE SAFETY SYSTEMS TO NOT ONLY PROTECT THE WELL-BEING OF THE DRIVER AND OTHER ROAD USERS, BUT ALSO TO HELP REDUCE THE SEVERITY OF UNAVOIDABLE IMPACTS.
Scania recommends contacting its head office in Melbourne for further informa- tion prior to commencing any significant body repair, welding or realignment work.
Given the advanced electronics fitted to the NTG Scanias, as well as the raft of active safe- ty features aimed at reducing accidents in the first place, care must be taken when disas- sembling the vehicle in order to replace bent or broken components.
There are a large number of sensors placed throughout the vehicle that must be replaced in exactly the right position. And wiring is routed throughout the cab body, requiring extreme care when drilling or screwing through a plastic covered sur- face. Again, Scania Head Office can pro- vide assistance.
SCREEN SCIENCE
The windscreen on all Scanias is a bonded unit that requires 12 hours to cure when re-
SCANIA HAS FITTED LIFE-SAVING ROLL-
over side curtain airbags to all of its new truck generation models sold in Austral- ia from launch in the middle of 2018. Rollover accidents account for up to 45 percent of all accidents with severe and fatal injuries, Scania has found.
The side curtain airbags are installed above the door on both sides of the truck, and in the case of the Scania CrewCab favoured by fire authorities across Australia, above all four doors.
These airbags complement the driver airbag installed in the steering wheel of all Scania trucks for the past decade or more.
Carrying out repair work on a crashed new generation Scania truck requires
careful planning in order to avoid acci- dentally deploying the airbags. Knowing they are there is obviously the first step.
Vehicles fitted with the roll-over side curtain airbags have a large plastic cov- er above the door with the word “air- bag” clearly visible. Disconnecting all batteries, via the master switch on the dash and at the batteries fitted either be- hind the cab on the left or behind the rear axle is the first step and allowing the charge to dissipate from the capaci- tors over a period would be the next, be- fore attempting to work on the vehicle.
Scania also fits pre-tensioners to its seatbelts, which will need to be checked or replaced after an impact.