Published in the November 2006 Australia’s Mining Monthly

The modifications to the Toyota Land Cruiser centre on an Australian Standard 3584, which requires all parts of the vehicle that are exposed to the atmosphere to remain below 150C.

Queensland Underground Contract Mining Services is working with Western Australian braking technology specialist Safe Effect to develop brakes that operate at low temperatures and reliably.

Safe Effect’s well-known Sealed Integrated Braking System (SIBS) will be used on the vehicle.

This means the vehicle will be provided with enclosed wet disc brakes that replace the standard dry disc and caliper brakes. All the standard fitment brake safety features of the Toyota Land Cruiser have been retained, including its load proportioning valve and split hydraulic system.

Other parts of the vehicle that could exceed 150C are the radiator and coolant, the starter motor, the alternator, the exhaust system and the exhaust emissions.

QUCMS said it was developing modifications for these components to ensure that they remained under the critical temperature, and fitted with sensors that relayed information back to a central processor.

In the event that an anomaly is recorded, the processor will issue a warning, or shut the engine down, and the vehicle will be brought to a stop with the emergency brake.

Tim Muller, managing director of Queensland Underground Contract Mining Services, told Australia’s Mining Monthly that work had been done on a water-cooled exhaust system.

According to a statement from Safe Effect, the modified exhaust system includes full-length water-jacketing from the cylinder head to the tail pipe.

This has the effect of not only cooling the surface temperature of the pipe, but also the exhaust emissions.

“It’s a fairly complicated affair, especially to get water to flow through it. That’s one of the biggest challenges, but we’ve pretty well overcome that problem,” Muller said.

“The starter motor is all right, but the alternator under that package has got to be flame-proof.

So we’re still working with one of the other manufacturers. We’ve got one that’s small enough, but we’re just increasing its capacity to run all the electrics of a normal vehicle.

“We’re developing an electronics package in conjunction with another company for the complete management system for it as well.”

Safe Effect said there are also extensive fire suppression modifications planned for the vehicle.

With the automatic system, fire or excessive heat in the engine bay is automatically detected, and AFFF (foam) solution is sprayed from nozzles in the engine bay for approximately one minute.

Upon activation, the pressure in the system will drop, and the low pressure is in turn detected by the engine management system, and fuel to the engine is cut.

Engine shutdown due to activation of the fire suppression system isolates battery power, and cuts off the fuel by way of a failsafe solenoid. Audible and visual alarms on the dashboard are also activated.

Fires can be extinguished manually via two activation points. One is inside the vehicle just inside the driver’s side door, and the other is on the front left-hand side of the vehicle beside the headlight.