Designed to replace its previous generation VXT8, Vermeer introduced the all-new VXT300 truck vac at The Utility Expo 2021.
Like the VXT8 that it replaces, the VXT300 is an 8-yard hydrovac truck and pulls over a lot of the proven components found on that previous generation truck, such as the blower, filtration system, water pump, boom and the door for the enclosure of the spoil tank.
That door in particular is a special component for Vermeer. It’s a patented design that places all the linkages and other mechanisms outside the tank and away from debris. For the VXT300, Vermeer also beefed up some of the components of the door.
The truck features a 6-inch boom, 3,500 CFM, a 10-gallon-per-minute water pump and an 8-yard spoil tank designed to give you plenty of storage on the jobsite while not putting you overweight during transport.
With this new design on the VXT300, Vermeer worked closely with Kenworth to improve upon the VXT8 with better weight distribution of the spoil tank throughout the chassis of the T370 chassis that this hydrovac is built upon.Jake Jeffords, Director of Sales, Marketing and Global Accounts at Vermeer. “It’s very important to keep that distribution very simple and weighed out for the whole truck.”
The front axle on the VXT300 is rated at 16,000 pounds, the tag/push axle is 10,000 pounds and the back tandems are 40,000 pounds, offering plenty of support for that 8-yard spoil tank.
“So the big piece of that puzzle is how do we engineer that tank to be long and skinny to where you’re using and maximizing that front axle’s weight,” Jeffords explained. “Because most of the hydrovacs in the industry have a very heavy back end, and that’s where weight tickets come into play, not being able to cross bridges like you need to.”
Vermeer has also put a lot of design attention into ensuring that when you transport, you’re not breaking any laws, specifically the company has designed the truck around federal bridge laws.
“Each state has a different mandate depending on the chassis spread and the way the pusher sits in the back, and what the distance between the tandems are,” Jeffords said. “We don’t know know what’s going to go in a spoil tank on a customer’s job, but we’re going to get you the best spread that we can, the best distribution that we can. “Right now we’ve got a really good layout on this truck to where we believe that this will hit those federal bridge laws.”
Vermeer has also implemented improvements to the side-design PTO on the VXT300. Specifically, Vermeer engineers implemented a single-point cam-bus connection that allows operators to turn electricity and power off to the whole backside of the truck with a single easily-accessible switch.
“When I want to troubleshoot the chassis, I can turn the power off and it’s not feeding anything to the chassis. We don’t have to dig in the dash. It’s just a single cam-bus connection,” Jeffords said. “The good part about it for our dealers is we can focus on what we know and Kenworth can focus on what they know."
The other benefit of this side PTO is that when engaged you can get full suction on the boom, dig a pothole, hop back into the truck and if you keep the truck under 6 mph, the PTO stays engaged, allowing you to move pothole to pothole.
“Obviously we looked at safety aspects…but at the end of the day you want to be productive and keeping that PTO engaged and still being able to keep the truck moving is a very key thing,” Jeffords said.
The truck also features 3-stage filtration and a 4-way valve that allows you to reverse pressure to the boom to remove clogs. The truck can be controlled with either a rocket remote or a belly-pack remote.
“Between those two, the great part about this is that they’re easily paired and you can change between the two,” Jeffords said.
Reference: VXT300 Spec Sheet
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