Truck Shite

[danthecapriman]

Does anyone know why in the UK, we never really used this design of commercial vehicle or bus wheels?

The type with big cast hubs and you unbolt the rim from the hub. 
They were very common in the US and Europe but we didn’t often see or use them here. Why though?

[doug]

I will be taking part in the Ayrshire Classic Commercial road run this weekend. It leaves Cumnock around 12pm and heads roughly north to Neilston then south via the A78/A77 to Portpatrick. There is usually around 100 old trucks take part. If you see us give us a wave. 😁

[108]

4 hours ago, Vantman said:

Reliant Ant,i wonder what the payload of that was?😄

I remember these as mini bin lorries in Dublin in the 80’s. 

[Asimo]

7 hours ago, danthecapriman said:

Does anyone know why in the UK, we never really used this design of commercial vehicle or bus wheels?

The type with big cast hubs and you unbolt the rim from the hub. 
They were very common in the US and Europe but we didn’t often see or use them here. Why though?

This was discussed on this forum a few years ago. I can't recall where , or what the conclusion was.

[Asimo]

[martc]

On 08/07/2025 at 16:34, danthecapriman said:

Does anyone know why in the UK, we never really used this design of commercial vehicle or bus wheels?

The type with big cast hubs and you unbolt the rim from the hub. 
They were very common in the US and Europe but we didn’t often see or use them here. Why though?

Can't help with the wheel dilemma, but note the IVECO 'i' in the middle of the grille, this was a crossover lorry, very much a FIAT but now part of the IVECO group. The next model saw the disappearance of the FIAT name (and all the other members - Magrius Deutz etc).

[danthecapriman]

6 minutes ago, martc said:

Can't help with the wheel dilemma, but note the IVECO 'i' in the middle of the grille, this was a crossover lorry, very much a FIAT but now part of the IVECO group. The next model saw the disappearance of the FIAT name (and all the other members - Magrius Deutz etc).

Lots of those UK Fiats were like that. Not a common truck in the UK but they were used here (usually with those continental style wheels). Weren’t these the first Iveco’s? Basically a Fiat but rebranded after Fiat lost interest in the large truck market? 
There was also a French company called UNIC who built these Fiats, which were identical other than the badge which ended up with the ‘I’ badges too. I guess they eventually just became Iveco’s.

The Fiat Daily vans were also treated the same. Early ones wore the Fiat badge then they became Iveco Daily/Turbo Daily.

[Snipes]

Sounds a lot like Ford Tractors and the gradual rebranding to New Holland (essentially part of Fiat, funnily enough).

 

 

[aotb]

They sold them as Fiats as well, but they were brown instead of blue.

[ETCHY]

21 hours ago, Asimo said:

B series ERF. Bloody cool 😎 

[RoadworkUK]

On 08/07/2025 at 16:34, danthecapriman said:

The type with big cast hubs and you unbolt the rim from the hub. 
They were very common in the US and Europe but we didn’t often see or use them here. Why though?

Wasn't it on safety grounds? I seem to recall these actually being three-piece, with the hub sandwiched between the two pieces of the rim, making them unsuitable for tubeless tyres. I think the type has only fairly recently been dropped from use by Indian truck manufacturers.

[warch]

14 hours ago, aotb said:

They sold them as Fiats as well, but they were brown instead of blue.

They did the same with the FIAT models as well, but in reverse. I think the colour was described as terracotta, going from this;

to this. 

 

[danthecapriman]

13 minutes ago, RoadworkUK said:

Wasn't it on safety grounds? I seem to recall these actually being three-piece, with the hub sandwiched between the two pieces of the rim, making them unsuitable for tubeless tyres. I think the type has only fairly recently been dropped from use by Indian truck manufacturers.

That sounds about right. 
It’s always looked odd to me how those wheels were very common on the continent and US but British trucks never seemed to use them. 
I’ve always thought they looked really cool! Especially on big American stuff.

[warch]

4 hours ago, RoadworkUK said:

Wasn't it on safety grounds? I seem to recall these actually being three-piece, with the hub sandwiched between the two pieces of the rim, making them unsuitable for tubeless tyres. I think the type has only fairly recently been dropped from use by Indian truck manufacturers.

I think there are two types of two piece wheel. One has a centre piece which stays attached to the hub so you only remove the outer rim when you do a tyre change, presumably because its much lighter than the whole wheel and tyre combination. I don't think this is much of an issue for UK drivers, having never ever seen a driver changing a wheel at the roadside. Conversely this is apparently more or less a daily occurrence for people in the outback or similar so a wheel/tyre combo of manageable weight is essential.

The other type of two piece wheel has a removable bead on the outer face so you can fit very heavy duty tyres (which are a sod to fit on normal tyres, especially without a fitting machine) onto a wheel. You deflate the tyre completely then it is safe to remove the bead. The tyre comes straight off without the need for any levers/swearing/hammers etc. They are apparently quite dangerous to the unwary. The only vehicles I've seen with these are really big wheeled loaders like they use in quarries. 

[danthecapriman]

20 minutes ago, warch said:

I think there are two types of two piece wheel. One has a centre piece which stays attached to the hub so you only remove the outer rim when you do a tyre change, presumably because its much lighter than the whole wheel and tyre combination. I don't think this is much of an issue for UK drivers, having never ever seen a driver changing a wheel at the roadside. Conversely this is apparently more or less a daily occurrence for people in the outback or similar so a wheel/tyre combo of manageable weight is essential.

The other type of two piece wheel has a removable bead on the outer face so you can fit very heavy duty tyres (which are a sod to fit on normal tyres, especially without a fitting machine) onto a wheel. You deflate the tyre completely then it is safe to remove the bead. The tyre comes straight off without the need for any levers/swearing/hammers etc. They are apparently quite dangerous to the unwary. The only vehicles I've seen with these are really big wheeled loaders like they use in quarries. 

I was going to say, the type with the removable bead are usually found on plant equipment. When they get old the bead and wheel rim rust and seize together, but usually the bead part becomes thin and distorted after you get the off and either don’t work or are a liability if you can get them on.

I never thought about the weight to be honest! Certainly makes sense though in more remote places. In the UK your never really far from anywhere to help or change the wheel/tyre.

[Dyslexic Viking]

On truck wheels. Does anyone know how these on the Kamaz below work? It almost looks like there's some kind of clamp on the wheel.

Or is it what I think a clamp air pressure adjustment of the tires controllable from the cab?

[willswitchengage]

41 minutes ago, Dyslexic Viking said:

On truck wheels. Does anyone know how these on the Kamaz below work? It almost looks like there's some kind of clamp on the wheel.

Or is it what I think a clamp air pressure adjustment of the tires controllable from the cab?

Central Tyre Inflation System to allow the tyre pressure to be varied easily. Common tech in old military vehicles.

[willswitchengage]

22 hours ago, Snipes said:

Sounds a lot like Ford Tractors and the gradual rebranding to New Holland (essentially part of Fiat, funnily enough).

New Holland, Case and International Harvester have an unnecessarily complicated pedigree that rivals Talbot. They're all now basically part of the company that owns Stellantis and IVECO, and are made in the UK on the same production line... but with different badges. Confusingly though, International Trucks is a completely separate company which does not actually sell them internationally (unless you count Mexico and Canada).

Peak globalisation, really, yes the tractors are made in the UK but it's really just an assembly line - most of the parts will come from abroad. You can frequently see cabs on the motorway coming from ferry ports for example...

[warch]

41 minutes ago, willswitchengage said:

Central Tyre Inflation System to allow the tyre pressure to be varied easily. Common tech in old military vehicles.

I've seen this on modern agricultural and forestry vehicles, especially wagon and drags.

[Snipes]

26 minutes ago, willswitchengage said:

New Holland, Case and International Harvester have an unnecessarily complicated pedigree that rivals Talbot. They're all now basically part of the company that owns Stellantis and IVECO, and are made in the UK on the same production line... but with different badges. Confusingly though, International Trucks is a completely separate company which does not actually sell them internationally (unless you count Mexico and Canada).

Peak globalisation, really, yes the tractors are made in the UK but it's really just an assembly line - most of the parts will come from abroad. You can frequently see cabs on the motorway coming from ferry ports for example...

Yeah I see the low loaders with NH and Case tractors crossing into Kent on a regular basis. 

[warch]

37 minutes ago, willswitchengage said:

New Holland, Case and International Harvester have an unnecessarily complicated pedigree that rivals Talbot. They're all now basically part of the company that owns Stellantis and IVECO, and are made in the UK on the same production line... but with different badges. Confusingly though, International Trucks is a completely separate company which does not actually sell them internationally (unless you count Mexico and Canada).

Peak globalisation, really, yes the tractors are made in the UK but it's really just an assembly line - most of the parts will come from abroad. You can frequently see cabs on the motorway coming from ferry ports for example...

TBH very few major agricultural firms have never been bought out or merged. The only two I can think of are JCB and John Deere.

 

[Vantman]

[willswitchengage]

2 hours ago, Snipes said:

Yeah I see the low loaders with NH and Case tractors crossing into Kent on a regular basis. 

Similarly I live the the A34 and always seem to see trucks carrying JCBs for export. I live next to the railway line too, and see the daily train carrying Minis from Cowley!

[dozeydustman]

Found this on a facebook page for my home town of Gravesend.

Fruit from Broadditch (local pronunciation Braddish) Farm.

[doug]

.

[High Jetter]

4 hours ago, doug said:

.

I like that very much.

[Dyslexic Viking]

This channel is so good if you are interested in older US trucks.

1966 GMC Crackerbox  I can't imagine driving and living in such a basic truck in -40c winters transporting pipes to the oil fields of northern alberta.

 

[Dyslexic Viking]

On 08/07/2025 at 17:34, danthecapriman said:

Does anyone know why in the UK, we never really used this design of commercial vehicle or bus wheels?

The type with big cast hubs and you unbolt the rim from the hub. 
They were very common in the US and Europe but we didn’t often see or use them here. Why though?

Come to think of it, this type of rim wasn't common in Norway either, but now a 1975 Fiat 130NC has come up for sale here and it has these wheels.

https://www.finn.no/mobility/item/409462813?ci=1

I showed these pictures to my dad now who was driving and was close to a lot of older trucks and buses and he has never seen those rims so it must have been a rarity here.

[danthecapriman]

1 hour ago, Dyslexic Viking said:

Come to think of it, this type of rim wasn't common in Norway either, but now a 1975 Fiat 130NC has come up for sale here and it has these wheels.

https://www.finn.no/mobility/item/409462813?ci=1

I showed these pictures to my dad now who was driving and was close to a lot of older trucks and buses and he has never seen those rims so it must have been a rarity here.

Weird isn’t it! 
France, Spain, Italy etc all seem to, or did, use them quite a lot. Then you see the same truck model for the UK market and it has standard single piece rims. There must be some sort of guideline or standard in some countries that discourage or ban their use??

Notice on that GMC cracker box in the vid you posted uses a similar rim design.

[Dyslexic Viking]

7 hours ago, danthecapriman said:

Weird isn’t it! 
France, Spain, Italy etc all seem to, or did, use them quite a lot. Then you see the same truck model for the UK market and it has standard single piece rims. There must be some sort of guideline or standard in some countries that discourage or ban their use??

Notice on that GMC cracker box in the vid you posted uses a similar rim design.

I remembered  during breakfast now that they were called Dayton wheels, at least in North America, so if you search for Dayton truck rims or Dalton truck wheels then you will find some info online. 

They are talked about in this 7-minute podcast but are mostly ads in it.

 

And in this one, this comment was below.

Quote

Hello friends, admirers of the wonderful Dayton and Trilex wheels!

Here in Brazil in the 70s, 80s, 90s until 2000, our trucks used this type of wheels a lot! I personally like them a lot! They are super strong and add a lot of charm to the Truck and Truck. In the 80s I worked at the Swedish automaker SCANIA, precisely assembling these Trilex or Radiated wheels as they are called here in Brazil. Smaller trucks used 5-spoke trucks and heavy-duty 6-spoke trucks. Nowadays it is practically impossible to see new trucks.

So Dayton and Trilex rims look quite similar if not exactly the same.

This company appears to still produce Trilex rims and mentions some advantages of them.

https://safholland.com/at/en/products/trilex-wheel-system-1

So I think they were preferred in certain markets and not in others and slowly disappeared over time instead of being banned.