Method of Rebuilding Off-Highway Truck Bodies
OwnerLeRoy G. Hagenbuchinventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method of rebuilding an off-highway truck body by replacing the entire body floor with a replacement body floor specifically built for the intended application of the truck body. Custom-built replacement body floors are thus used to successfully rebuild the off-highway truck body to specific applications with minimum effort.
Claims16
A method of rebuilding an off-highway truck body having at least a 100 ton payload hauling capacity, the method comprising:
- disconnecting a front wall and side walls of a truck body from an original floor of the truck body so as to remove a connected wall assembly including the front wall and side walls from the original floor;
- assembling an entirely new floor that is separate from the original floor;
- coupling the front wall and side walls of the wall assembly to the entirely new floor so as to form a rebuilt off-highway truck body that includes the entirely new floor.
The method recited in claim herein the at least one additional feature includes at least one of:
- a layered bolster structure attached to two frame rails of a frame of the new truck body floor, the frame rails extending along a longitudinal length of the truck body floor, and the layered bolster structure extending across a width of the new truck body floor and including an inner bolster and an outer bolster that is at east partially flush with and attached to the inner bolster,
- a stiffener disposed in a channel formed in a bolster that extends across a width of the new truck body floor, or
- a half funnel extending from a side surface of a frame rail of the new truck body floor to a surface of a respective bolster structure of the new truck body floor so as to distribute loading between the frame rail and the respective bolster structure, the half funnel including a tapered channel with an narrow end that fits tightly on a surface of the respective bolster structure and wide end configured to abut the side surface of the frame rail.
A method of rebuilding an off-highway truck body having at least a 100 ton payload hauling capacity, the method comprising:
- removing a wall assembly including a front wall and two side walls from an body floor of a truck body;
- assembling an entirely new floor including at least one additional structural feature that is absent from the original floor so that a configuration of the new floor differs from a configuration of the original floor;
- and
- coupling the front wall and side walls of the wall assembly to the assembled new floor so as to form a rebuilt off-highway truck body.
A method of rebuilding an off-highway truck body having at least a 100 ton payload hauling capacity, the method comprising:
- removing a wall assembly including a front wall and two side walls from an original body floor of a truck body at a first location;
- constructing a new truck body floor at a second location;
- shipping the new truck body floor from the second location to the first location;
- and
- coupling the front wall and side walls of the wall assembly to the new floor so as to form a rebuilt off-highway truck body.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.