tribsa:
Hi All
Hills of Botley had clip on rear axles for Guy Big J to make them 6x2 heavy haulage tractors.
Nothing new under the sun, eh?
This Dyson dolly dates back to around 1959, and was actually used behind this Atki in the late 60s and early 70s, working on contract to MAT at Barking. It was later modified to hang on the back of an 8LXB-engined Borderer, and is now under restoration to run behind a Mk.1 tractor again.
This photo was taken in 1989, and was my only experience of running with the dolly, and it was horrible!
Frankydobo:
That design looks very similar to the Monitor Ancrum below and reading the article its little wonder it found few takers, extra weight, the price and fitting time could well have put people off and the three axle tractors were coming quite quickly anyway. Whilst looking for this item, and apologies it has gone off the original thread, I found an article (Truck mag Oct 82) where Volvo produced their Rear-steer F10 tractor and say they innovated the idea, the self steering idea maybe but the article doesn’t make that clear, strangely they say they didn’t go for a steered axle as this presented routing difficulties with the steering linkage! Sounds to me as if they just wanted to beat others to the market without going into too much proving and testing etc on a twin-rear steer until they knew where the land lay concerning 38 tonne introduction as at the time it wasn’t clear it would arrive. Cheers Franky.
Yes I do remember the Monitor Ancrum - I wonder how many were sold?? The Atki converted in about 5 minutes, not a whole afternoon!
The company I worked for had 4 brand new rear steer F12s in the yard, ready to roll on 1 May 1983 at the new weights. At that time, I recall that they were Italian market LWB chassis, with the additional axle added at Irvine. I can’t remember now whether the whole thing was built there, or just the conversion. I do remember that, being early models, they had no badges for them, and they were badged as F1217 (i.e. a 4 x 2 tractor).
It wasn’t long before one of them was taken up to Irvine and modified as a test bed for the “pusher” axle that became the production standard.
The Volvo rear steer article doesn’t say where the vehicles were built but does show an F10 with what looks like a 1022 badge on the door and it is a right hand drive so could have been assembled in Irvine and they used a normal front axle but slightly rotated to give a greater castor angle which would assist more in self tracking. This axle could also be locked with air pistons connected to the track rod when reverse gear was selected and a governor fitted to signals to do the same when the forward speed reached 30 mph. Whether these things were fitted to the production models only those that had anything to do with them would know. Cheers Franky.
Frankydobo:
The Volvo rear steer article doesn’t say where the vehicles were built but does show an F10 with what looks like a 1022 badge on the door and it is a right hand drive so could have been assembled in Irvine and they used a normal front axle but slightly rotated to give a greater castor angle which would assist more in self tracking. This axle could also be locked with air pistons connected to the track rod when reverse gear was selected and a governor fitted to signals to do the same when the forward speed reached 30 mph. Whether these things were fitted to the production models only those that had anything to do with them would know. Cheers Franky.
That’s right, they did lock up, but it was at 30 km/h (18 mph) though
i remember them early volvo pushers axles, working at volvos before i left for overseas work, they were very unreliable, there were some ‘wedge’ affair things that used to fall off down the raod somewhere, allowing the axle to tramp form side to side. If you selected reverse in the not straight ahead position , the pusher would stay were it was, causing bad tyre scrub on a loaded artic. the lock up sensors were never reliable either.
