Once the bed was stripped and we'd removed some of the boxes around the truck it was time to do some torsion testing. We were hoping that the DAF rubber mounted bed was rigid enough for us to avoid investing in a torsion-free subframe.
The test is simple: lift a wheel off the ground, then jack the opposite wheel up until a third wheel lifts off the ground, finally measure the twist of the bed.
We had few resources available to undertake the test so we gathered some bricks to make a ramp onto which to drive and lift off the front right wheel.
We then used one of our 2 tons jacks to crank the rear left wheel up. We kept jacking it up until one of the 2 wheels still on the ground came off; it was the rear right wheel. We stopped once the third wheel was about half a centimetre off the floor, mostly because we where worried about the precarious setting of the first wheel (these bricks did not look like they could hold it together much longer).
We then used two different techniques for measuring the twist angle:
1. We measured the distance between the lowest angle of the bed and a levelled beam resting on the highest angle. We then used trigonometric functions and the known distance between the angles to calculate the angle (angle = tan¯¹(distance from bed/distance between angles).
2. We placed 2 box sections along the front and the back of the bed and took a picture of the angle they formed which we then measured digitally.
Both techniques gave us a 3˚ angle.
Recommended maximum torsion is 10˚. Considering we are not planning to do any hard off-roading but mostly african roads and tracks we were happy that the DAF bed is rigid enough to not use a torsion-free subframe.
The test is simple: lift a wheel off the ground, then jack the opposite wheel up until a third wheel lifts off the ground, finally measure the twist of the bed.
We had few resources available to undertake the test so we gathered some bricks to make a ramp onto which to drive and lift off the front right wheel.
We then used one of our 2 tons jacks to crank the rear left wheel up. We kept jacking it up until one of the 2 wheels still on the ground came off; it was the rear right wheel. We stopped once the third wheel was about half a centimetre off the floor, mostly because we where worried about the precarious setting of the first wheel (these bricks did not look like they could hold it together much longer).
We then used two different techniques for measuring the twist angle:
1. We measured the distance between the lowest angle of the bed and a levelled beam resting on the highest angle. We then used trigonometric functions and the known distance between the angles to calculate the angle (angle = tan¯¹(distance from bed/distance between angles).
2. We placed 2 box sections along the front and the back of the bed and took a picture of the angle they formed which we then measured digitally.
Both techniques gave us a 3˚ angle.
Recommended maximum torsion is 10˚. Considering we are not planning to do any hard off-roading but mostly african roads and tracks we were happy that the DAF bed is rigid enough to not use a torsion-free subframe.