Beschreibung
Though it may not be obvious upon first glance, this Sidewinder was one of a kind and there was very little of it that was actually factory New Way. I'm sure many of you will remember the IGS ASL that briefly existed in the UWS fleet; this is the fourth variation of that truck. The original IGS body was turned into a front loader and mounted on a new chassis, while the existing chassis was mounted up with a used New Way body. The body mounting was done by IGS while also retaining the original hydraulic system. The arm was assembled, mounted, and plumbed in house. We opted to keep it as simple as possible, using a Parker V20 air valve with air lines leading directly to the joystick in the cab. I don't know of another example of this arm being run with an air valve, as New Way and Labrie have both always used electric valves. The first angle of the video you can actually just barely see the spools on the valve moving, looking back I think it would have been cool to get a better angle of that. Speed was controlled by throttle, with the arm being slow enough at idle to not need any advanced form of cushioning while being fast enough at high RPMs to kill any route. Ultimately this truck performed very well for me. The simplicity of the operating system was unbeatable and this was hands down the most reliable truck in the fleet. I will die on the hill that simplicity is absolutely critical on these trucks given the severe abuse they face day in and day out, unfortunately it is very difficult to find anything mainstream being built like that these days. In the couple years since I filmed this video they ended up redoing the hydraulic system with a larger pump for increased flow at idle, and restrictor fittings on the different functions for cushioning. Basically no other driver could comprehend the old school automated procedure of two footed driving and shifting at every can, necessitating the change to an in-gear-at-idle, one footed platform that's "easier" to drive.