Greetings.
Need some technical advice here, on a project I am thinking of starting.
Years ago on my apprenticeship in UK I worked on Transcos and was impressed by them no end. Recently, now living in New Zealand, I had a need to buy a large truck for a business and wanted something a bit different, to stand out as a good advertisement. A Transco was the obvious choice. I looked around and asked questions, but no-one had heard of this model. I contacted the NZTA (like Swansea) and they searched their database, couldn’t find evidence of one ever being registered here. I found this surprising, as with the American drivetrain parts would have been easy to buy over here, as there are heaps of old Kenworths, Macks, Internationals and others using the same parts.
Next, looking through the internet I found reference to people using Renault cabs as a Transco replacement.
I have found a tidy mid eighties 6x4 Renault R310 with a ■■■■■■■ N14 fitted in it and 13 speed Roadranger.
Does anyone know if it would be possible to construct a replica using this vehicle? Anyone done something similar?
On the internet I read on a Dutch website about Renault cab swaps, but not much info written.
I don’t have a Transco cab for doors, grille etc which look different, and cab mounts look to be much higher. Are parts available in the UK anymore?
The Renault cab sat much lower than the Ford did, people have swapped things about from one to the other, if you want a Transcon try Heritage Commercials or the like in the adverts. The below is aTranscon with a Renault Cab grafted in bits onto it. It was’nt mine it was Chinky Nev’s. (apologies for re-posting it)
& below is a normal Transcon of My own
Good luck in Your endavours Sir, there is a thread on here all about Transcons.
The higher cab mounting should not be a problem for an enterprising fabricator. As for the wings/grille etc, they are fibreglass, and there must be plenty of rot-ruined Transcons around the world… Now a question- the reason Ford put the cab in the sky was that the ■■■■■■■ engine sat higher than the Berliet one, or so we are led to believe. How has someone managed to fit one into a Berliet/Renault?
Hi, i’m sure there was a section on this site about how to fit a Renualt cab onto a Ford chassis, with all the alteration details to doors, mounts and pillars etc? Hope this helps
Hi there, thanks for replies!
Have just paid for a subscription to Heritage Commercials, that will be very useful for parts. To import a complete truck though would be very difficult - I was looking into this a few weeks ago when I spotted a Transcontinental chassis cab on UK ebay. To ship it to New Zealand would be expensive, the seller priced it up as 7600 Pounds if in one piece or half that cost if the cab was removed and palleted. On top of that it would have to be subject to import taxes, biosecurity checks, transport to my home and then a whole lot of registration costs and red tape (mainly to do with braking system modifications) that not even the government departments understand. My best bet by far is to buy a vehicle already over in NZ and alter it.
Re the ■■■■■■■ engine swap, good point; I don’t know how the higher block was fitted, and have just emailed the seller to ask. The photos I have to work on show a very high cab floor bulge so maybe it just squeezed in there. The other (dreadful) possibility is that the guy thinks a ■■■■■■■ M11 is a 350 lump, if so he can keep it
Re the higher cab mount position, if the original Renault mounts can be extended upwards that’s great. I have plenty of heavy fabrication experience so no worries there. Also, I can copy the original bumper, with a section of maybe 4mm steel folded to the correct profile. I have no idea of dimensions but maybe someone who owns a Transcon could sketch out the sizes.
Looking at the red truck cab in the photo it seems to be fitted well higher up but I think the shorter bottomed Renault doors and rear skirt are still in place, can’t really tell.
If anyone knows of a wrecker’s yard or individual who is parting out a Transcon please let me know! Well, if advertising of sorts is allowed on these boards, don’t want to cause any upset! Also I will read through the Heritage Commercials ads and place a wanted ad.
I will now search through the site looking for the cab swap thread that wheel nutz mentioned.
If the cab you have seen has a big bulge in the floor, it has been bodged, and that is how the ■■■■■■■ lump was made to fit. Yeuch! The Berliet cab has an almost flat floor. If you can get a “proper” Renault and make your own cab-mounting brackets, then fit the Ford lower panels (everything below the silver “waistband” is fibreglass, bolted to the steel cab, including the doors), you will have a credible copy. The bumper bar is also fibreglass, I believe- if the shipping of the lower bits is charged by weight, it may be cheap enough to buy the parts in Europe.
give this guy a ring07803596296 is name is rob he will advize you on parts hes got laods of parts and hes a wiz kid on transcons goodluck with your prodject regards rowland
Thanks zb - that’s what has happened then, the cab floor has been cut out and the bulge put in. I was looking through my pics from the advert and have posted the best one. Doesn’t look as nice as the Berliet, that’s a real beaut!
I managed to get in touch with the owner, he is away on business but back soon. I am working away too so won’t get a chance to see the truck for a while myself, that’s good as it leaves me heaps of time to read up on things. I knew those Transcon bumpers was fibreglass; remember seeing one broken once but didn’t know all the lower panels were fibreglass too.
Have just been looking on NZ websites for any more Renault R series for sale, none around and no mention of any at truck wreckers I saw. There is one I know of at the port in my home town (Timaru, south of Christchurch) that is used to haul logs to the ships, it’s deregistered though. I’ve seen a couple on the roads over time but guess it’s a pretty rare model here. I will stick with the one already found, if it turns out the ■■■■■■■ engine is correct. The engine swap will have to have been certified so that’s another expense and pile of paperwork saved for me.
Thanks for offer of more photos - would like to see more, do appreciate it.
The shipping cost to NZ is very cheap, you squeeze whatever it is into any regular shape container and give the agent a size, a volume in cubic metres or part thereof. Weight is only an issue if bringing in engine blocks or heavy tools. It all goes into a shipping container and 6 weeks later it sails in. The big costs are import duty based on what customs think you paid for it, and the biosecurity inspection. If you steam clean all the vehicle parts beforehand and declare this the inspectors sometimes leave you alone. Then there is 15% VAT on everything.
Thanks for the phone contact rward, I’ll phone him
Hmmm… The engine hump in your photo does not look excessive-having seen it now, I would hesitate before saying it’s a cut-and-shut job. I think the later Berliets had more of a bulge in the footwell. Here is a TR350:
The 1980s/'90s ones had blue trim, so that carpet on the engine cover may be original. Maybe this is the answer- the later ones had a bigger engine hump (If I am right- I don’t know for sure), so this what allowed the ■■■■■■■ lump to fit. The only way to know is to tilt the cab and look for blobby welds and bits of angle iron! The other possibility is that the Renault chassis allowed the engine to be fitted lower than in the Transcon, so the converter did not have to cut the cab. Good luck!
Hi, back here at last.
I bought the green Renault R310 tractor unit around Christmas 2012 and had it transported to my friends place down south in the new year. I hadn’t been back to New Zealand since then as I got a job working in the mines in Australia and decided to stay as long as possible to earn some decent money. So until last month I had not set eyes on this truck.
In the meantime, around march this year, another R310 came up so I bought that one as well. It is blue, all original and also the configuration I wanted initially - a LWB with steel body. This was cheap as the engine had lost water and nipped up on one cylinder. It still drives though, and was all legal until early May when the (Kiwi) MOT ran out. It still has rego (tax) paid until mid November 2014. I went for a 50km drive in this and despite the minor mis-fire and blue smoking on the one cylinder I was very impressed how well it drove and how quiet the whole truck was after it’s 31 years and 720,000km. The interior is a bit worn out but that isn’t an issue to me. Looking around the outside all the tyres are decent with a new spare but best of all there is no cab rust. Plenty of knocks and scratches but not a trace of rust, not even a pimple. The seller said it had always been parked in his barn. It also has the original black NZ licence plates, which is what I wanted for my replica all along.
Over to the green tractor unit, that had been parked for up for nearly a year and a half by this time, and the batteries were stuffed. I gave it a good pre-start then wound it over. It started in a few seconds, a bit too quickly for my liking. The 350 ■■■■■■■ sounded great, so was left ticking over a while then taken for a trip around some farm tracks as it’s now obviously not road legal. It held it’s oil and water and the brakes and steering all worked so no major problems there. Outside was a different story though, as the weather had got to it. I knew before buying it that it wasn’t perfect body wise but now after all that time outside some body filler was showing. The front panel is dodgy and the passenger door is rusty but worst of all is the back panel which has splits down it. All fixable though.
At the back I noticed the engine had a Jake brake fitted. I was surprised by this after the previous questions on cab height. After tilting the cab it was noticed spacer plates were made up, like wide sandwiches, fitted between cab and front mounts. The rear had been lifted on it’s crossbeam as well. I dropped the cab and measured the height, as close as dammit to 3 metres. I need to raise it now a further 220mm to get to the original Transcon height of 3.22m or 10 feet 7 inches. This will be VERY close as I also have to lose the floor bulge!
I am now back in Australia working after my few weeks holiday in NZ. Apologies for no under cab pics but the rain came down shortly after these were taken, and also on my second and third visit. It rained heaps and according to my mate, where these trucks are stored, it hasn’t stopped since. What we did achieve though, was to move them both to a much better location on gravel facing the sun. I haven’t got anywhere of my own to store them yet but that will soon change.
Having two of these trucks now will allow me to make up my LWB replica Transcon and then refit all the remaining parts together as a Renault R310 tractor unit. It has been pointed out to me that in making my replica I am also depriving NZ of another rare truck - well yeah, no here. I feel justified in chopping one around as the tractor unit was on sale for ages before being sold to me and the owner only had low ball offers, all to pull out the engine which he had just spent $8,000 on. The blue truck only had one auction offer which was mine on the reserve price. No-one else wanted to save it! It cost me more to transport down here, to the lower South Island.
I don’t know how many R310’s came to NZ but after asking all my older trucking mates they say less than 50, maybe a lot less. The survival rate is unknown. I wrote to Land Transport NZ but they have no records before 1995.
My project will start to take shape within 12 months. I will continue to work in Australia as long as the work is available but intend taking the hotter months off now, bugger 46c in the shade
That’s an interesting project you have there SAS 777. Try and contact Paul Binns Commercials he has a thing for Transcontis, he might be able to help with the parts you require.
A lot of Kiwis think this is an interesting project too, and I have found it amazing just how many folk know the Transcon model when it was never sold in NZ and most of them will have not seen one firsthand. People who know of the truck always know the spec and express disappointment that it was never imported, I reckon it would have done quite well myself.
[zb]
anorak:
Looking at the pictures of both lorries, it appears that they both have identical engine humps.
Hi Anorak, yes that was one of the reasons we tilted the cab on the green truck (well I had to do a good pre-start inspection of course) but rain beat me before I could do anything. Even the photos shown here were taken in stages between showers.
I was specifically looking under the cab for what you described, a framework made up and rough welding but no, the cab floor was completely original right down to some 30 year old soundproofing that had certainly seen better days. Also re the ■■■■■■■ engine the cab had been lifted around 3" or 75mm with some home-made spacer plates, they were like long sandwiches made from about 150 x 8 steel plate with a couple of lengths of say 60 x 60 box section as the filling, all welded solid. In the cab I found a book, handwritten, of the work the truck had had for most of it’s life and the cab lift was done at the same time as engine swap, 1996. The bumper was made up when the truck was a lot newer, in 1987. That’s why there is that big gap between the two!
I really regret now not getting more photos, I will ask my mate if he can lift the cab up again as I can then post engine pics as well.
sas777:
Hi Anorak, yes that was one of the reasons we tilted the cab on the green truck (well I had to do a good pre-start inspection of course) but rain beat me before I could do anything. Even the photos shown here were taken in stages between showers.
I was specifically looking under the cab for what you described, a framework made up and rough welding but no, the cab floor was completely original right down to some 30 year old soundproofing that had certainly seen better days. Also re the ■■■■■■■ engine the cab had been lifted around 3" or 75mm with some home-made spacer plates, they were like long sandwiches made from about 150 x 8 steel plate with a couple of lengths of say 60 x 60 box section as the filling, all welded solid. In the cab I found a book, handwritten, of the work the truck had had for most of it’s life and the cab lift was done at the same time as engine swap, 1996. The bumper was made up when the truck was a lot newer, in 1987. That’s why there is that big gap between the two!
I really regret now not getting more photos, I will ask my mate if he can lift the cab up again as I can then post engine pics as well.
Richard
It seems that the modifier was able to fit the ■■■■■■■ engine lower in the chassis than in an original Transcon- the cab on that was raised by much more than 3”. I am almost tempted to say that he has done a better installation job than Ford! Either that or the engine hump on later Berliet cabs was higher than the “Mk 1” version that Ford used. Can any Berliet experts confirm or deny this?
I reckon you should leave it as it is, because seems like a good piece of home-spun engineering. Only my humble opinion, of course. If you are keen to own a Transcon, TNUK member rward has just imported one from Greece, with the assistance of another of our contributors, GrDiesels. They might know of others: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=89735&p=1700896#p1700896
