just bought a ford cargo 813 c reg horse lorry?

gees boy are you in for shock... Buy mine it is already done// welded. motd £2500 tel 07970 412 555

john muirhead
February 2009

Re the welding:
Requiring welding sounds bad!
One should not weld the chassis side and cross members. When a body is being attached it is done using bolts in the holes already drilled in the chassis by the manufacturer.
The chassis is made of a cold pressed fine -grained steel. Fine grained means it's good for fatigue resistance. The heat from welding could cause grain growth which will alter the mechanical properties of the steel.
Welding the cab or other sheet metal components is a different story.
Also if welding is to be done the alternator and battery should be disconnected first.

JD
January 2009

The best approach is to put the truck in for the test. If there are defects and it fails, the tester will provide you with a list of the defects. You can then work on getting those items sorted out. If the defects relate to items which require a test lane and use of the equipment such as the brake tester etc, you will have to pay a retest fee but if they are visual items, there is no retest fee. It will then pass "defects rectified".
This is better than trying to decide yourself what the defects are. You could spend a lot of time and money trying to make sure that everything is perfect and the truck could still fail the test. Apart from that you might have spent time on items that wouldn't actually have failed at all, because you don't have the experience of the tester and some items are to some extent subjective.
The other chaps suggestion about getting hold of a testers manual is a good idea also - from the point of view of increasing your knowledge about trucks and keeping them safe and roadworthy.

JD
January 2009

you can purchase an hgv testers manual that will show you what items are tested and to what standards/limits of wear etc that are allowed-contact your local test station for a copy.

k
January 2009