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quicksilver

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It has pros and cons.

As said above, if the mirrors go through so does the vehicle (bus or wagon), without that marker judging the gap is more exciting*. At least twating a low branch shouldn't result in having a view of the sky, or no mirror at all. Especially, certainly coach wise, where some of the multimirror arms cost unbelievable amounts.

I just wonder what happens when the camera decides to doo one and you're no rear vision and nowhere to tape a temporary one.

 

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16 minutes ago, busmansholiday said:

It has pros and cons.

As said above, if the mirrors go through so does the vehicle (bus or wagon), without that marker judging the gap is more exciting*. At least twating a low branch shouldn't result in having a view of the sky, or no mirror at all. Especially, certainly coach wise, where some of the multimirror arms cost unbelievable amounts.

I just wonder what happens when the camera decides to doo one and you're no rear vision and nowhere to tape a temporary one.

 

Think our breakdown lads are getting equipped with magnetic mirrors to attach to the door in cases where the camera fails. They can then be taken back to a dealer for repair. 

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That Dodge's cab is lush, wish modern car interiors were like that rather than the macho-handbags that they are.

As for those videoscreen "mirrors", they concern me because of the time it takes to refocus the eye from looking ahead into the distance to looking at a screen a metre or so away. This is a much slower action than just flicking a look at a mirror when no re-focussing is required. Much harder to do when eyes are tired or when eyes are older.

image.jpeg

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Guess this is the right thread for this? Lad I know at work who's into classics found this thing on eBay the other week down south near Cornwall or something. Been sat in a barn for yonks now, but it's got a lot of history.

mWWByq5.jpg

It's a 1938 Crossley, the exact model is unknown because it seems to be a weird mix between a few. Not sure if anyone here actually knows anything about these, but I did a lot of googling at the time and it seems to be a mix between a Crossley "FWD" of which production didn't start until 1940, seemingly, and the earlier Crossley Beta. It's got a big 100BHP 4 cylinder petrol (I believe 5.3L as that's what the FWD had), a 4 speed gearbox with a 2 speed transfer box (FWD meaning four wheel drive, for the record), manual locking diffs, PTO, vacuum servo hydraulic brakes etc etc. In some ways it actually seems quite sophisticated for the time, in other ways it seems extremely primitive, but overall it's a very interesting beast. 

i9a9aW3.jpg

Having been in contact with the company who's name is all over the cab (yes, they're still in business), we've learned that it was used as a balloon winch during the second world war. If I recall correctly, the company owned it twice and it was restored some time in the 50s. The rear tyres are dated 1959 and 1957, so that seems to add up.

E33yIE0.jpg

Now, after some starter motor fettling it does actually run. I haven't witnessed it running in person yet, but I've been dying to know what a 1930s 4 cylinder with a horrendous exhaust leak sounds like. It isn't perfect by any means and there's a fair bit of work to do on it before it'll drive down the road under its own power again, but mechanically it's all there and structurally it is very solid with only a couple bits of rot on the chassis. The cab is mostly wood and the chassis is covered in very thick old paint, so I'm not really surprised its lasted so long. The biggest issue, I think, is going to be finding any spare bits that it needs aswell as the fact that there is almost no documentation on the internet for these things, so we've no idea what fluids to be putting in it or anything. I have however read on a forum that the Science Museum in Manchester has a complete service manual for one of these things, so might be worth chasing that up. I'll try and get some videos of it running when I can, for anyone who might be interested in such a thing.

rupW6kp.jpg

Just as a final point, someone briefly mentioned to us recently that RSJ763 isn't actually the right plate for one of these, possibly due to it being a military vehicle. If you put the reg into the DVLA website, it brings up the correct vehicle with the correct year of manufacture but it tells you that the date of first registration was June 1976. Can anyone help shed some light on this weird discrepancy? 

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In years gone by, a good number of ex military stuff used commercially used to run unregistered with just a set of trade plates as a badge of legitimacy. The rules on this changed around the early 80s and everything that was still running got registered, usually with a Q plate. Some folks have since successfully re-registered stuff, as they passed into preservation, with an age related plate as long as they can prove its real age.

1976 is very early for a registration under these circumstances and going on the series used on this, I’d suspect that it was just re-registered with an age related plate with 76 being when the firm bought it back the second time? I’ve known AEC matadors - ex bus corporations with that series of registration and they would have been given this in the late 80s early 90s when the new private owners managed to prove its real age and get it off the Q they were registered in the 80s with.

 

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1 minute ago, rml2345 said:

Could it have been in forestry/off road use at some point? They had a tendency to use AWD military kit and cobble stuff together from bits.

The company on it is “W. Wood Tree Felling”, so yes. Interesting to know.

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9 hours ago, Microwave said:

If you put the reg into the DVLA website, it brings up the correct vehicle with the correct year of manufacture but it tells you that the date of first registration was June 1976. Can anyone help shed some light on this weird discrepancy? 

iv seen this happen when say you have an old car thats been off the road since before the DVLA was centralised

with it never being registered with the DVLA

then say you unearth it and want to register it with the DVLA, if you can prove the reg belongs to your car etc etc

then the DVLA will do so, but it will still say first registered wherever you did so with the DVLA rather then when it was made etc

see for example this Peel P50 that had been off the road since 1969 but in 2017 Stuart Cyphus got it registered with the DVLA and claimed its original registration number

Screenshot 2019-04-14 at 19.34.40.png

 

what im not 100% sure on is if say you have such a vehicle, but do have the old logbook for it, i dont know if it will say Date of first registration, by what the old 1960s logbook says or if it will say date of first registration when you register it with the DVLA in say 2019 or whenever

 

 

the 1976 thing might also just be an artifact of when the DVLA system was centralised then or computerised

I have seen some Invacars with such dates ie Made in 1973 but date of first registration as 1978 or such

image.thumb.png.0b1dde0390202d522da820f4f4de9432.png

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When a vehicle has it's original number transferred the DVLA will generally issue an age related plate from unissued stock, usually some remote part of Scotland as not many car were registered there. In this case SJ code is the Isle of Bute in origin.

Presume the same applies when an ex-military vehicle is registered for road use or a vehicle is imported.

SK is another common one being Caithness, look around any show and you'll see them everywhere including some pretty exotic stuff.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

It could be a custom bonneted conversion. The US-market VNs share some styling features with the EUropean models but the cabs are fundamentally a different design.  That looks like it's a modified FM/FH cab, similar to how this is made:

726.jpg

If it was a US market truck it would most likely have the 6x4 driveline too, only small distribution type trucks without sleeper cabs are 4x2. RHD also and Australia is the only other big Volvo RHD market - and they get sold European models.

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I understand it was a one off built by a local coachbuilder/haulage firm just for shits and giggles.

IVECOs made their own bonneted truck for the Australian market, they didn't put much effort in though.

IMG_0303.JPG

There are a couple of other lazy OEM bonneted conversions that I know of:

1024px-2003_freightliner_fl70_24_ft_box_

Freightliner FL using an old Mercedes-Benz cab

HinoXLSeries-1024x490.jpg

Hino somethingorother using a 500 series cab

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Big engine is big...

C3EFB772-DF05-4862-ABF4-E9C2B5C20CAE.thumb.jpeg.26913dc5b480cc534835d6084bd2e57b.jpeg

I actually forget just how tall they are. When packed under the cab and in the chassis you loose perspective of how tall it is. And I service them daily!

PS - I blanked out the company name, if you know who it is please don't say out aloud! Thanks. 

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20 hours ago, 17-Coffees said:

Big engine is big...

C3EFB772-DF05-4862-ABF4-E9C2B5C20CAE.thumb.jpeg.26913dc5b480cc534835d6084bd2e57b.jpeg

I actually forget just how tall they are. When packed under the cab and in the chassis you loose perspective of how tall it is. And I service them daily!

PS - I blanked out the company name, if you know who it is please don't say out aloud! Thanks. 

We’ve got a scrap one of them V6 engines in the yard at work. I did consider turning into a coffee table but I’d need a bigger house. 

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34 minutes ago, quicksilver said:

I think that might be an NH12, the European normal-control version of the FH series.

Looks like a RHD (Australian?) example of the Volvo 'big rig' which is popular in the States and Canada.

Pawnote: for the past week and a bit, I've been driving a  2015 Volvo FM 330 flatbed (due to landing a new job with a steel stockholder which is a nine minute drive from home), which is a very nice truck indeed. I get my own truck from tomorrow, which will most likely be a DAF CF, as DAFs outnumber Volvos on my company's fleet by a fair margin.

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On 7/12/2019 at 9:32 PM, doug said:

A Shelvoke P-series carrying a Shelvoke W-type with F&A tip body towing a Series 1 Freighter.

The Shelvoke P cab was shared with the Dennis Delta - both S&D & Hestair Dennis commissioned Ogle to design a cab for their new chassis and were sent the same basic design. Front panel and door windows were about the only major difference.

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On 7/11/2019 at 4:59 PM, busmansholiday said:

Quite an impressive landmark now just north of J24

It also has headlights on at night :)

Walkers used to be about a mile up the road from me but they outgrew their yard, that place has been taken over by another ex-fleet truck dealer. At least Walkers used to occasionally have some random ex-military stuff that they'd park against the fence for a bit of interest, the new one is just lines and lines of ex-Stobart Scanias etc.

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