Carryfast:
harry:
I have to tell you Carry when I got my first Volvo it was many,many years later before the ERF EURO raised its head & they had learned nothing about cab build. Shed would be a compliment. No engine,no heater working,perma frost on the ground in Alsace ,it was a v.draughty place to be .It was outside Felix’s & the scumbag & brother in law knew I was stuffed & refused to rent me a room because I had been using Marcels a few K’s down the road,forgetting I had spent good money for years. No fond memories,just v.careful to ask the make of truck before I took a job after that.
Ironically that’s something like what the Marathon was like during a cold night out in UK let alone a continental winter and I’ve been crucified on the ERGO topic for saying what a piece of junk that thing was bearing in mind that to add insult to injury the thing had no room in it unlike the ERF obviously has.However all the available information seems to suggest that the ERF was a more comfortable place to be than the Marathon ?.Which just leaves the question that even an F10 without a night heater was just as cold a place to be during a night out as the Marathon was without the engine being run with the heater on.So the question for Robert 1952 is how good was the heater in the ERF and who would spec an international running wagon in the mid 1970’s without having a night heater fitted and working in it.In which case unless you’ve got total systems failure at least you could keep the cab warm even if the engine couldn’t be run and/or even if the heater was no good.
My answer to your question is that '70s trucks didn’t have night heaters in the first place. Apart from a few experiments, these didn’t appear in trucks till the '80s. I must say there appears to be something of a joyless tone in these conversations that talk past the enthusiasm of those who seek to discuss the ERF NGC 420 …Robert
Tangents are good as long as they are still based on the subject, unfortunately we’re going off track now. The EEC related stuff is on some way pertinent, as the NGC was designed for that market, but some of the other claptrap is a bit tedious, it’s all been done before too…many times 
robert1952:
Carryfast:
harry:
I have to tell you Carry when I got my first Volvo it was many,many years later before the ERF EURO raised its head & they had learned nothing about cab build. Shed would be a compliment. No engine,no heater working,perma frost on the ground in Alsace ,it was a v.draughty place to be .It was outside Felix’s & the scumbag & brother in law knew I was stuffed & refused to rent me a room because I had been using Marcels a few K’s down the road,forgetting I had spent good money for years. No fond memories,just v.careful to ask the make of truck before I took a job after that.
Ironically that’s something like what the Marathon was like during a cold night out in UK let alone a continental winter and I’ve been crucified on the ERGO topic for saying what a piece of junk that thing was bearing in mind that to add insult to injury the thing had no room in it unlike the ERF obviously has.However all the available information seems to suggest that the ERF was a more comfortable place to be than the Marathon ?.Which just leaves the question that even an F10 without a night heater was just as cold a place to be during a night out as the Marathon was without the engine being run with the heater on.So the question for Robert 1952 is how good was the heater in the ERF and who would spec an international running wagon in the mid 1970’s without having a night heater fitted and working in it.In which case unless you’ve got total systems failure at least you could keep the cab warm even if the engine couldn’t be run and/or even if the heater was no good.
My answer to your question is that '70s trucks didn’t have night heaters in the first place. Apart from a few experiments, these didn’t appear in trucks till the '80s. I must say there appears to be something of a joyless tone in these conversations that talk past the enthusiasm of those who want seek to discuss the ERF NGC 420…Robert
I think the night heater in the 1970’s DAF 2800 that I drove had been there as standard from the day it was new. 
While it’s obvious that in any other case without an independent source of heating it’s a case of run the engine and hope that the wagon’s heater is good enough and that would apply regardless of wether it’s a Volvo or a Brit wagon and no engine means a cold night in that case in either case. 
newmercman:
Tangents are good as long as they are still based on the subject, unfortunately we’re going off track now. The EEC related stuff is on some way pertinent, as the NGC was designed for that market, but some of the other claptrap is a bit tedious, it’s all been done before too…many times
That’s fair enough but many of those tedious points are all relevant to what went wrong in the form of the politics of the time and arguably unfair criticism of Brit wagons as opposed to constructive criticism which certainly didn’t make such products the lost cause which they are often painted as compared to their euro and scandinavian opposition.
That’s not in any doubt, but please keep some sort of relationship between your posts and the subject.
The should have fitted a 6x4 twin stick, V12 Detroit, tri drive, Scandinavian style combo stuff does not belong here.
newmercman:
The should have fitted a 6x4 twin stick, V12 Detroit, tri drive, Scandinavian style combo stuff does not belong here.
Blimey I only said should have put a 320 Big cam and a 13 speed in it. 
And maybe a night heater like the DAF seems to have had.
I agree on all three!! Oh and lose the windows in the sleeper, no use on a continental lorry, no good for insulation or security
Carryfast:
newmercman:
The should have fitted a 6x4 twin stick, V12 Detroit, tri drive, Scandinavian style combo stuff does not belong here.
Blimey I only said should have put a 320 Big cam and a 13 speed in it.
And maybe a night heater like the DAF seems to have had.
hey, I have never known a Daf or other (only some Maggie’s)with standard heater before the '90’s.
Or was it a demo.
The one had better insulation but after a while you got could in every lorry,but the better insulated the longer it stayed warm.
From the end of the '60’s there were nightheaters but most troublesome (most the electonic box or spark).
Better was the Webasto but much more expensive as the Eberspächer but cheaper to repair.
The first nightheaters came in the '50’s for buses.
But CF you run us off the lane we were following (ERF)
Cheers Eric,
newmercman:
I agree on all three!! Oh and lose the windows in the sleeper, no use on a continental lorry, no good for insulation or security
Cast your mind back to that Eurotest report that Robert posted. Some of the vehicles had blanked-out rear windows, and Mr. Kennett marked them down for that. Five or ten years previous to that time, all-round vision was considered of paramount importance, so all the fashionable wagons had glass all round, with slender-as-possible pillars. Fast-forward another ten or so years, and glass behind the B-post was for mobile cranes only.
With modern insulation materials- are there any curtain technology experts on here?- is there a reason why the modern vehicle should not have more windows?
Carryfast:
[zb]
anorak:
I believe we have found some common ground. Neither of us knows what the hell you are talking about.
No it’s you who obviously doesn’t know what the zb you’re talking about but then what can you expect from someone who thinks that applying an engine brake would do the same job as double de clutching or using the clutch brake during an upshift.Let alone thinking that ■■■■■■■■ big cam 1 engine range was limited to just a 290 when it was introduced and even that date being a year before you thought it was. 
I did not say any of that. Stop telling lies. Believe them as much as you like, but do not tell them.
[zb]
anorak:
Carryfast:
[zb]
anorak:
I believe we have found some common ground. Neither of us knows what the hell you are talking about.
No it’s you who obviously doesn’t know what the zb you’re talking about but then what can you expect from someone who thinks that applying an engine brake would do the same job as double de clutching or using the clutch brake during an upshift.Let alone thinking that ■■■■■■■■ big cam 1 engine range was limited to just a 290 when it was introduced and even that date being a year before you thought it was.
I did not say any of that. Stop telling lies. Believe them as much as you like, but do not tell them.
There’s one example.
Maybe you can explain what you actually meant by the Big Cam 290 was introduced in 1977 and the 320 in 1981 if I’ve read it right ?.
As I said there seems to have been nothing stopping ERF,or in fact any UK truck manufacturer,from using any of the Big Cam 1 range,which certainly wasn’t limited to just the 290,from 1976.
viewtopic.php?f=35&t=83810&start=480#p1664836
tiptop495:
Carryfast:
newmercman:
The should have fitted a 6x4 twin stick, V12 Detroit, tri drive, Scandinavian style combo stuff does not belong here.
Blimey I only said should have put a 320 Big cam and a 13 speed in it.
And maybe a night heater like the DAF seems to have had.
hey, I have never known a Daf or other (only some Maggie’s)with standard heater before the '90’s.
Or was it a demo.
The one had better insulation but after a while you got could in every lorry,but the better insulated the longer it stayed warm.
From the end of the '60’s there were nightheaters but most troublesome (most the electonic box or spark).
Better was the Webasto but much more expensive as the Eberspächer but cheaper to repair.
The first nightheaters came in the '50’s for buses.
But CF you run us off the lane we were following (ERF)
Cheers Eric,
The old late 1970’s 2800 that I drove certainly seemed to have been fitted with a standard factory fit night heater from day 1 as were the 1980’s ATI’s which he had after that.It’s not running off topic to then deduce that if DAF could offer that then so could/should ERF.The information available seems to show that the Eberspacher DL1 was available from 1975 and Eberspacher UK states that it was supplying the UK truck market from at least 1977.
eberspacher.com/company-info … ation.html
Carryfast:
tiptop495:
Carryfast:
newmercman:
The should have fitted a 6x4 twin stick, V12 Detroit, tri drive, Scandinavian style combo stuff does not belong here.
Blimey I only said should have put a 320 Big cam and a 13 speed in it.
And maybe a night heater like the DAF seems to have had.
hey, I have never known a Daf or other (only some Maggie’s)with standard heater before the '90’s.
Or was it a demo.
The one had better insulation but after a while you got could in every lorry,but the better insulated the longer it stayed warm.
From the end of the '60’s there were nightheaters but most troublesome (most the electonic box or spark).
Better was the Webasto but much more expensive as the Eberspächer but cheaper to repair.
The first nightheaters came in the '50’s for buses.
But CF you run us off the lane we were following (ERF)
Cheers Eric,
The old late 1970’s 2800 that I drove certainly seemed to have been fitted with a standard factory fit night heater from day 1 as were the 1980’s ATI’s which he had after that.It’s not running off topic to then deduce that if DAF could offer that then so could/should ERF.The information available seems to show that the Eberspacher DL1 was available from 1975 and Eberspacher UK states that it was supplying the UK truck market from at least 1977.
eberspacher.com/company-info … ation.html
Hey yes maybe in Britain but here we had it much more earlier. And of course you could have it as an option off factory but not standard. In the '70’s you got as option the waterheater already at Volvo. But it was a expensive option so better to fit one after bying it. I never liked the old waterheaters it used to much battery power,but MB had a tap so you could warm up less water and so the heater had to work less.
Bye Eric,
Just another direction and question:
If there would be a possibility to have a (very) limited series of diecast scalemodels (1:43) made of the
ERF NGC420, which livery it should have? For example the “general” livery of an ERF Demonstrator or the
Union Jack? Perhaps a more specific livery of one of the operators like Beresford, Eric Vick, S, Jones,
Richard Read, S. Jones who ‘exported’ Sun Works to the European continent? I am curious for your choice!
Carryfast:
Maybe you can explain what you actually meant by the Big Cam 290 was introduced in 1977 and the 320 in 1981 if I’ve read it right ?.
As I said there seems to have been nothing stopping ERF,or in fact any UK truck manufacturer,from using any of the Big Cam 1 range,which certainly wasn’t limited to just the 290,from 1976.
I think my original post stated that only an idiot from the top drawer of idiots would suggest that the NGC420, a vehicle built from 1973 to 1977, should have had a Big Cam ■■■■■■■ engine, given that that engine did not exist until 1977. Something like that.
This CM article notes the European launch of the Big Cam engine:
archive.commercialmotor.com/arti … mmins-e290
If you think that CM is an unreliable source, here is an American man saying the same things:
tenfourmagazine.com/2012/03/ … %E2%80%9D/
“Back in 1977, diesel engines were dirty, noisy and slow. In those days, a Small Cam NTC 350 was considered a “big hammer” and the Big Cam NTC ■■■■■■■ was just coming out…” he says.
One can only speculate that ERF delayed the introduction of the B series European, to coincide with the launch of the Big Cam, but the NGC420 had its NTC335, and there was no reason for that to change.
I stand by my original post.
Note to readers, sick to the back teeth of having this fine body of research polluted with screaming lunacy: the CM article is a good read.
ERF-Continental:
Just another direction and question:
If there would be a possibility to have a (very) limited series of diecast scalemodels (1:43) made of the
ERF NGC420, which livery it should have? For example the “general” livery of an ERF Demonstrator or the
Union Jack? Perhaps a more specific livery of one of the operators like Beresford, Eric Vick, S, Jones,
Richard Read, S. Jones who ‘exported’ Sun Works to the European continent? I am curious for your choice!
Eric Vick with visor and Kaisor would be a tasteful choice, likewise Richard Read. But I’d go for Trans Arabia with visor and Kaisor like their fleet no. 142 (which used to be Eric Vick KFH 248P). I’ll post some pics of it later in the week. I’ll also post some pics of a very good NGC made buy a modeller on a Dutch website.
Eric Vick used to have a reverend cleric driving for them sometimes, as I remember from one of Truck mag’s LDDs: I wonder if he used to sing the hymn ‘For the beauty of the ERF’ as he drove along… Robert 
@Robert: by the way very good you’re again able to join us here when a lot of technical/negative experience
came along…with all respect, we all have our favourites and there is a difference in flavour out of standing
aside or having a truck to move on, so business, as an operator ‘gave’ you a truck to drive.
Would be nice to announce one day a scale-model of the ERF NGC 420 would be available, so that our grand-
children could/might play with in the same way we played with the Matchbox ERF (Readymix…) as well!
Let’s have a crowd-fund opened for that!!!
A-J
[zb]
anorak:
Carryfast:
Maybe you can explain what you actually meant by the Big Cam 290 was introduced in 1977 and the 320 in 1981 if I’ve read it right ?.
As I said there seems to have been nothing stopping ERF,or in fact any UK truck manufacturer,from using any of the Big Cam 1 range,which certainly wasn’t limited to just the 290,from 1976.
I think my original post stated that only an idiot from the top drawer of idiots would suggest that the NGC420, a vehicle built from 1973 to 1977, should have had a Big Cam ■■■■■■■ engine, given that that engine did not exist until 1977. Something like that.
This CM article notes the European launch of the Big Cam engine:
archive.commercialmotor.com/arti … mmins-e290
If you think that CM is an unreliable source, here is an American man saying the same things:
tenfourmagazine.com/2012/03/ … %E2%80%9D/
“Back in 1977, diesel engines were dirty, noisy and slow. In those days, a Small Cam NTC 350 was considered a “big hammer” and the Big Cam NTC ■■■■■■■ was just coming out…” he says.
One can only speculate that ERF delayed the introduction of the B series European, to coincide with the launch of the Big Cam, but the NGC420 had its NTC335, and there was no reason for that to change.
I stand by my original post.
I think your comments were more about the supposed impossibility of putting a Big Cam 320 in a 1976-77 ERF European.
If by those articles both CM and the ‘American man’ are saying that there’s no way that anyone could have ordered a Big Cam up to the 400 as of 1976, ‘if’ they’d have ignored all the bs about ‘European launches’ and what seems to have been an availability anomaly between ■■■■■■■ UK operations,as opposed to ■■■■■■■ US,and just ordered the thing directly from the States just like any other US customer and in the same way that my old employers were putting V16 Detroits into it’s products as of 1971,then I’d say that was bs.Just as saying that a small cam 350 was a big hammer in 1977 when it was in fact,at that time,just an obsolete old nail.
‘But’ having said that it might just be possible that having joined the EEC as of 1973 just maybe the issue of EEC type approval was starting to get involved. In which case it would have been no surprise to learn that it was the EEC not ERF etc who were using delaying tactics to make sure that the Brits were always going to be behind the development of the European competition. 
ERF-Continental:
Just another direction and question:
If there would be a possibility to have a (very) limited series of diecast scalemodels (1:43) made of the
ERF NGC420, which livery it should have? For example the “general” livery of an ERF Demonstrator or the
Union Jack? Perhaps a more specific livery of one of the operators like Beresford, Eric Vick, S, Jones,
Richard Read, S. Jones who ‘exported’ Sun Works to the European continent? I am curious for your choice!
It would have to be Beresford.
tiptop495:
Carryfast:
tiptop495:
Carryfast:
newmercman:
The should have fitted a 6x4 twin stick, V12 Detroit, tri drive, Scandinavian style combo stuff does not belong here.
Blimey I only said should have put a 320 Big cam and a 13 speed in it.
And maybe a night heater like the DAF seems to have had.
hey, I have never known a Daf or other (only some Maggie’s)with standard heater before the '90’s.
Or was it a demo.
The one had better insulation but after a while you got could in every lorry,but the better insulated the longer it stayed warm.
From the end of the '60’s there were nightheaters but most troublesome (most the electonic box or spark).
Better was the Webasto but much more expensive as the Eberspächer but cheaper to repair.
The first nightheaters came in the '50’s for buses.
But CF you run us off the lane we were following (ERF)
Cheers Eric,
The old late 1970’s 2800 that I drove certainly seemed to have been fitted with a standard factory fit night heater from day 1 as were the 1980’s ATI’s which he had after that.It’s not running off topic to then deduce that if DAF could offer that then so could/should ERF.The information available seems to show that the Eberspacher DL1 was available from 1975 and Eberspacher UK states that it was supplying the UK truck market from at least 1977.
eberspacher.com/company-info … ation.html
Hey yes maybe in Britain but here we had it much more earlier. And of course you could have it as an option off factory but not standard. In the '70’s you got as option the waterheater already at Volvo. But it was a expensive option so better to fit one after bying it. I never liked the old waterheaters it used to much battery power,but MB had a tap so you could warm up less water and so the heater had to work less.
Bye Eric,
By ‘standard fit’ I actually meant factory fitted as opposed to retro fitted in the case of the DAF.The issue of making it an extra cost option would really be irrelevant in that regard.Other than just confirming yet again that the rate of development which the manufacturers could provide at the time was often being confused with penny pinching guvnors.The same could probably be said in the case of why were drivers being left out in the cold literally when night heaters were also clearly available at the time on a retro fit basis too.