Truck Shite

[5speedracer]

11 hours ago, martc said:

What with the shortage of lorry drivers (total absence in this case) and an increase in demand from interweb shopping, there have been recent incidences of over loading.

In extreme cases lorries have also had to double as buses, after 19/7/21 the passengers will not need to wear masks.

 

In reality - Libyan lorry transporting people between Chad and Libya, 1978.⁠ Photo from 'Way for Escape' quote - 'The truck left the palm grove this morning before daylight. The women sit well up front, the men sit behind. I have often ridden on these trucks to go up north and out of the desert.'

I'd imagine getting everything and everyone on there wasn't the work of 5 minutes. Need a piss half way there, tough!

[quicksilver]

There's an abundance of elderly horseboxes trundling around here at the moment. I thought I did well to see a Ford Cargo yesterday, then another one turned up this morning! Both are the 0709 model with a mighty 90bhp to drag around 7 tonnes.

[sutty2006]

90bhp of pure unadulterated misery. Modern truck drivers don’t know what they’ve got nowadays! 

[twosmoke300]

The 6 cyl engine sounded lovely tho 

[sutty2006]

Does anyone remember the inline 8 cylinder Gardner? Well out of use by the time I made it into the trade… 

[Dyslexic Viking]

This is the story of a 1919 Federal truck that was in use until 1966 in Norway. It has a 54 hp engine with only a hand crank starting, a 4-speed gearbox and only brakes on the rear wheels. And originally it had solid rubber tires and then had 4 tons of load capacity when it got air tires the load capacity was lowered to 3 tons. It had 3 owners in its working life and Andres Hagen bought it in 1927 and used it until 1966 when he retired and he died in 1967. He used it to deliver  bricks in Oslo which were loaded on and off by hand 51 kg at a time all year round in all weathers and it never had a roff in his ownership so he drove open all year he also took care of all maintenance and repairs on it. It still exists and is now in a museum in Oslo.

Unfortunately I do not find many pictures of this and none are old so this is just one picture.

[quicksilver]

On 7/16/2021 at 7:46 PM, sutty2006 said:

Does anyone remember the inline 8 cylinder Gardner? Well out of use by the time I made it into the trade… 

The 8LXB 240? This ERF has one and it sounds glorious.

 

[808 Estate]

The fairground boys do love old metal.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

On 7/6/2021 at 7:34 AM, catsinthewelder said:

 

Ex BRM Noddy van? I always enjoyed the thread on the blue where a chap called Glen was slowly restoring one, much to the chagrin of his wife. 

[cms206]

On 7/16/2021 at 7:23 PM, sutty2006 said:

90bhp of pure unadulterated misery. Modern truck drivers don’t know what they’ve got nowadays! 

I passed my airside driving test in April 2005 in H446 KJN, a 4-speed 0609 with no power steering; we had a pair of 0609s, three 0813s and a 1011 at the time.  The 0813s felt like rocketships in comparison to the 0609s which seemed to struggle even with just a couple of tonnes of bags on the back.

 

No pics of H446 KJN, but it's sister 0609 H443 KJN was one I did pap.

[catsinthewelder]

1 hour ago, Dick Longbridge said:

Ex BRM Noddy van? I always enjoyed the thread on the blue where a chap called Glen was slowly restoring one, much to the chagrin of his wife. 

Not quite, this is a BRS Noddy van.

Of which there are the remains of one near my house.

That was another type of BMC van but I can't remember what type and my Google-fu is letting me down today.

 

The first Ford Cargo in Quicksilver a post above passed me as I was heading to the FoD last weekend.

[quicksilver]

14 minutes ago, catsinthewelder said:

The first Ford Cargo in Quicksilver a post above passed me as I was heading to the FoD last weekend.

It must be local then. After all, who'd want to go very far in an 0709 Cargo?

The BMC looks like an FG but with a custom cab instead of the standard 'threepenny bit' design. Six-cylinder too judging by the snout.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

22 minutes ago, catsinthewelder said:

Not quite, this is a BRS Noddy van.

Of which there are the remains of one near my house.

That was another type of BMC van but I can't remember what type and my Google-fu is letting me down today.

 

The first Ford Cargo in Quicksilver a post above passed me as I was heading to the FoD last weekend.

Now you've posted that, I can see there are clear differences between the original photo and the BRS van. I wonder what the story of your local one was? 

[puddlethumper]

1 hour ago, quicksilver said:

It must be local then. After all, who'd want to go very far in an 0709 Cargo?

 

I drove an 0709 from England to Portugal, then to Holland and back to Portugal. I never repeated it. It became a shed and never moved again.

[catsinthewelder]

2 hours ago, quicksilver said:

The BMC looks like an FG but with a custom cab instead of the standard 'threepenny bit' design. Six-cylinder too judging by the snout.

Apparently the DVLA have it down as a cream coloured Austin, untaxed since 2014.

Looking through a few furniture van and pantechnicon images quite a few have coach-built cabs.

Here's a 6 cylinder with the normal cab which I'm not sure I've seen before.

[sierraman]

What happens to all those old trucks you see at airports, they seem to hang on to them forever...

[cms206]

17 hours ago, sierraman said:

What happens to all those old trucks you see at airports, they seem to hang on to them forever...

There are a number of factors; generally boggo stuff runs until it dies, specialised kit runs until it becomes unreliable or until (if applicable) the chassis breaks then the body is remounted. The latter is generally the case for things such as Air Start Units, Ground Power Units, Air Conditioners, that kind of thing. Self Propelled Stairs and De-icer units generally don't get rebodied.

We ran a couple of ASUs, one on a G-reg FL6 and the other on an P-reg MAN 8.163 and both bodies were on their second chassis even then.

 

Quite a lot of the stuff goes for scrap even if it's not physically worn out, largely as it's never been registered, may not comply with C&U regs and has run on cherry it's entire life. We had a US-spec Volvo FE deicer which ISTR was so afflicted.

[sierraman]

2 years ago I was at Faro airport, there was still the seventies type Mercedes shuttle coaches. Likewise in Lanzarote there was still the similar era Mercedes tractor units pulling the Cepsa tankers on the runway.

[Vantman]

On 18/07/2021 at 16:33, catsinthewelder said:

Apparently the DVLA have it down as a cream coloured Austin, untaxed since 2014.

Looking through a few furniture van and pantechnicon images quite a few have coach-built cabs.

Here's a 6 cylinder with the normal cab which I'm not sure I've seen before.

When i worked in the parts department of the local BMC agent in Canterbury these 'snout' type were known as FM models.

[Asimo]

On 18/07/2021 at 16:40, sierraman said:

What happens to all those old trucks you see at airports, they seem to hang on to them forever...

This seller always has a few alongside his random “Classic American” cars. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/255048132805

[Asimo]

This is fruit season and we get 10 or so max-size chiller artics pass most days. It's a single track road, and they are doing 15 - 20 mph up a short hill of maybe 1 in 20 which is of course no problem.

Except recently for some trucks, definitely Scanias but maybe others, which really struggle.

They sound like they are really labouring in too high a gear as the hill steepens but they don't change down.

Eventually they come to a complete halt. There is a moment or two of psst, psst, clank, clank and then off they go again, sounding happy in a much lower gear.  Reminds me of a timid driver's way of getting first before bottom gear got synchromesh.

Is this a limitation with some automated truck transmissions or is something just broken?

[Crackers]

2 hours ago, Asimo said:

Is this a limitation with some automated truck transmissions or is something just broken?

Bizarrely, no, this can be the autobox's programming.

I can't remember which make of truck it was, but a while ago I was told by a driver that a particular climb in Devon would frequently see lorries stalling out. They ran fairly low-powered DAFs and Scanias, which had a forced eco-map on the gearbox, which would only give manual control below a certain speed, anything beyond 25mph-ish IIRC being locked out of manual mode. So, they'd hit this hill fully loaded (albeit only 32 tons gross on them) in 10th or so, without being able to knock the box down a couple of cogs. So, the revs would drop right off, out of the torque band and lose boost, and then it'd get itself down to a speed where manual became available. Then the drivers would knock it down a coupe of cogs manually, to bring the revs up to where they should be, to climb the hill. However because they take a while to change gear, by the time it's engaged the lower gear, it's slowed down even more without getting boost up in time. Vicious cycle repeats until you hit 2nd gear, then you try going for 1st but run out of breath. And it just... stops. Handbrake on, select crawler/1st, build boost, handbrake off, then it sets off happily - just as it would have done if they could hit the hill in a low gear at 2000rpm so that it'd drop into peak torque in, maybe, 5th.

So yeah. "Economy".  Apparently screaming its head off in 1st after stalling out is more economical than working it hard on boost in 5th. And you wonder why some drivers still long for manual boxes...

[quicksilver]

I was going to suggest the same, that it's all to do with how the gearbox is programmed. Tight-fisted operators will lock the box into 'economy' mode, which tries to hold a high gear for as long as possible and won't allow manual overrides because the ECU always knows best* how to get better* fuel consumption. Couple that with shift delays and you can easily end up running out of steam in a completely wrong gear without being able to do anything about it.

[worldofceri]

Computer-controlled gearboxes.  Not really 'automatic' in the traditional sense.  Trouble is, the computer - unlike the driver - can't see the impending incline, and has no ability to plan ahead.  Coupled to the fact that it's programmed to always be in the highest gear possible, and takes a second or two to change down... Then the driver loses points on his or her telematics score for using >90% throttle...

Another issue that can catch a driver unawares is that the cruise control will suddenly cut off when the speed dips below a certain threshold.  If you're not ready to quickly mash the throttle pedal, you can lose what remaining momentum you have very quickly.

[bigstraight6]

Spotted this lovely little 1994 Scania tipper in Redruth today, looks too nice to be still working but it had a full load of gravel on the back..

[Zelandeth]

Only driven a couple of things (coaches) with the new fangled robotised gearboxes - and without exception wanted to hurl the cursed things into the sea.

First time out, brand spanking new B9R Plaxton Elite (with less than 500 miles on the clock - I was well pleased when I was offered a shot), and wound up looking like an absolute tit as I pulled out of the bus station.  Thought I had bags of room to get through that gap in this shiny new coach, surely...

Yeah... I'd brought traffic in both directions to nearly a halt by the time I got into the far lane, by which point I think we were in about seventh gear.

I could have made that gap easily (and have!) In a clapped out Bedfort YNT with a stuffed clutch.

The old ZF and Voith boxes without a working kickdown function were better, at least when you were moving off they didn't dump all your boost and pause for over a second on each gearchange!

It was a lovely thing on an open dual carriageway...but around town or on a country road where you ever need to drop below about 40 it was an absolute bloody nightmare.  That was empty too...God only knows how much worse it would be with 70 punters and their luggage on board.

My comment was basically "if you're not going to change gear more quickly, more smoothly or more smartly than me...just let me do it!" Given it failed on every one of those counts I declared it a fail.

Drove another one a year or so later, big 15m tri-axle Volvo but not sure of the model...it was precisely as annoying as the first.  Would have driven me mental dealing with that for a full shift every day.

Either give me a manual or a proper auto please.

[busmansholiday]

Time for some more pics from the York Trailers archive.

Plastic cab Foden,

 

Couple of Ford D Types,

Not 100% sure, but going with Saviem even though it has a very MAN style cab.

 

Shite personified in the York Trailers car park.

 

Some Tractor Shite (behind an early Scania 111),

 

 

 

 

[martc]

Right, stand by your beds. I've found a rich seam of Russian/USSR lorries, brace yourselves -

We'll start with some civilian ones -

GAZ-34 6x6 prototype, did not make it to production. Looks 'cobby' to me.

 

URAL-43206 4x4 above and a KAMAZ-4326 4x4 below.

Some military ones -

KAMAZ Typhoon-K 6x6 MRAP (Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected) Vehicle. Available from your local arms dealer.

Talking of successful arms dealing -

BAZ 8x8 and Ural 6x6 military lorries in service with the Turks, our NATO ally, photographed in Sinop, Turkey.

A KAMAZ 8x8

ZIL E167 6x6.

And because it's Russia, there's snow and there's ways of dealing with snow...

KRAZ-255 6x6

ZIL-157 6x6 Snow Blower. And finally, here's something to bargain with -

KRAZ-255 6x6 with a MIG-15 Jet Engine for De-icing runways.

I've put a couple in the stolly thread. See you there.

[willswitchengage]

On 7/21/2021 at 10:06 AM, worldofceri said:

Computer-controlled gearboxes.

However, they can and do 'learn' in the way that AI is making slow but admirable progress. DAF for instance is gathering route learning data from its trucks to understand what a route really does look like so that the gearbox's shift strategy can be constantly tweaked accordingly or match a certain road. Human ability to use a gearbox has effectively 'peaked', whereas automated manuals are playing catch up. Eventually they will get there, but with the benefit of being more consistent and eradicate driver-to-driver variation.

[bigstraight6]

10 minutes ago, willswitchengage said:

However, they can and do 'learn' in the way that AI is making slow but admirable progress. DAF for instance is gathering route learning data from its trucks to understand what a route really does look like so that the gearbox's shift strategy can be constantly tweaked accordingly or match a certain road. Human ability to use a gearbox has effectively 'peaked', whereas automated manuals are playing catch up. Eventually they will get there, but with the benefit of being more consistent and eradicate driver-to-driver variation.

The Scania I drive can accelerate better when it’s on cruise control than if I’m in control, It’s a very clever system.