Tye T/C was a terrific truck, apart from the brakes, electrics and the fresh air vents taking the air from above the wheels complete with rain water etc.
Big, comfortable but basically a bag of nuts and bolts with no quality control and very little dealer back up .
wrong forum i think. 
I know it’s the wrong forum now but I can’t work out how to move it.
Never understood how come ford perhaps one off the biggest makers of cars/vans cant make a decent artic !
mike t:
I know it’s the wrong forum now but I can’t work out how to move it.
there we go its moved. 
you hated them or loved them early ones had cab roll heavy unladen weight
twin exhausts power steering rams chrome badges and door handles big oil bypass filters near air tanks 12v headlights small cam ■■■■■■■ 3 seater cabs
and when you flashed your lights you lost half a tank of fuel and 20LB of oil pressure had 2 of them a preg and s reg then the mk2 came in 1979 these had one exhaust 2 seats power steering in the box e290 big cams you could play with better brakes matt black logos spin on by pass filters leaky oil filled front hubs and ■■■■ electrics had a x reg and 2 a reg pulled like trains went like stink our 111 and f12s couldnt live with them but were still heavy drnak more juice than oliver reed and had no back up but sometimes in life you only remember the good times and i loved them earnt me well as a lot of people said at the time they were overwieght overated and overhere they should have desiged them better ironed out the faults and listened to the operators and drivers feedback sorry for going on but i had a soft spot for them
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The first one i saw was silverroadways M reg i think it was a prototype,it had a different grill to the production ones.I think it was used on a regular run from london to the west country for tate an lyle.I had a demo one from gates of woodford an at the time i liked them an thought they were a good lorry apart from the lack of brakes,they were cold to sleep in with all that window area but lots of room an three seats in the early ones.I think mr ken will remember the silverroadways lorry.
Yes i do mart also hays transport had one as well on the clay tanks to cornwall
all them early ones had that funny grill m reg they were
Thought my F88 290 was the dogs danglies until I got my Transcon.Better in all departments,including the brakes.
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The problem with the Transcontinental was the sheer size and weight put many UK hauliers off it, it was seriously underdeveloped as it was just built from a big box of bits in Amsterdam. Ford should have carried on making the truck for longer as the new weights suited it better
Mine was bought ex Rockware Glass and although only had the 220 small cam engine it performed well on regular trips to Athens. If it was good enough for Peter Sutcliffe it was good enough for me 
My mate had the 270 and that would honestly overtake pigeons
I had an A reg with a 290, supposedly breathed on by ■■■■■■■■ it was one of the later ones put together in Fodens at Sandbach, if youre really sad, the way to tell is the Sandbach built ones had roof marker lights. It was one of them motors that everyone had a 2nd look at, it went like stink but bad brakes & no exhaust brake made coming down the mountains exciting!
I remember hopping out in the middle of the night to answer a call of nature & shutting the door behind me only to find i couldnt get back in, to lock the doors you had to lean out the window & use the key, the doors didnt actually lock but the handle did, making getting back in a bit difficult! to get back in i had to jack the cab over & lean through the gearstick hole to get the keys out from, luckily, the middle of the dash, not much fun when your in your boxers & its -20c!
The windows in the back made them either freezing or like a sauna, depending on the time of year, if you used the top bunk for storage it used to whack you in the back of the head if you had to slam em on & the electrics were a total abortion, but did come in handy at Calais, heater on full blast, headlights on, foot on the brake & hey presto the diesel guage showed half full, meaning cafe not cognac for the boys in blue with red stripes!
Allways wanted to drive a transcon. But i drove the french version Berliet tr320.
What a lovely truck to drive and it went like the wind.Also drove a tr280 which woudnt pull your hat off . Went to buy a transcon last year to pull my tractor puller but the tin worm had got the cab.
Mine was '77 “R” reg with a 350 ■■■■■■■ in and whilst it could fly when running it spent an awful lot of time on the shoulder or in the workshop.
Leaked like a sieve, burnt derv as if it was going out of fashion but loads of room in the cab and a nice flat floor.
I had a P reg with a 350 ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ like a train but very difficult to stop.Lovely cab.Very comfortable to drive.Bleedin’ freezing at night.Many times I left the engine running all night.
■■■■ Turpin:
Allways wanted to drive a transcon. But i drove the french version Berliet tr320.
.
Not being picky, but was that really a ‘French version’?
As far as I am aware the Berliet preceded the Transcon and was a totally
different motor, the cab shell only (with a couple of modifications) being
bought by Ford to save designing and tooling up themselves. It is possible
that they were in a bit of a race with Bedford to bring out a ‘heavy’ as the latter
were busy with their TM at the same time. Don’t see many pics of them come
to think of it, I had a couple at Toray, the cab floor had a lip at the door opening
and one of my drivers fractured his skull falling out after tripping.
Stand to be corrected on the Berliet/Transcon point but one thing does amaze
me. I only drove one, at Bulkliners, towards the end of its life and it was very
tired although I could see how it would have been popular. Never noticed the
brakes or consumption being bad but I did notice the sore neck I got from the
cab nodding on the soft suspension. However, in view of all the negative
comments put forward here how come it is looked on with such fond
nostalgia?
Here you are Spardo, comparing the TM and Transcontinental is a company that used both. I remember a driver called Tony from their Redditch depot, I did a drawing of his ERF for him
A rare picture on here Mike, nice to see the old TM again. The 2 that I had at
Toray were pretty old when I took over in '85 but the drivers loved the spacious
cabs. Can’t remember what engines they had in them though.
I had the opportunity of driving a TM3800 one night on a Carlisle trunk.Nobody else fancied it 'cos they all liked their Scanias 
.Not very adventurous our drivers. 
It was on demo from Kirkby Central at North Anston near Sheffield and had the Detroit Diesel underneath,and I think a Fuller 4 over 4 but not sure about that.Anyroad it was a flying machine and p----- all over the Scannies much to my amusement.Very high-revving IIRC but once you got used to it quite nice to drive.It was either “S” or “T” reg.
oooooowww.!.a detroit what a growl 
.i passed me test in a tm,nice.
The Italians used to have a lot of Transcons & TMs, I spoke to an O/D who had a Transcon, running M/E from Verona, he bought it after getting fed up with seeing the Brits keep passing his old Fiat in the mountains. IIRC the TMs were known as ‘the griffin’ most of them had the V8 detroit in, they sounded lovely in a tunnel, there was a dealership on the Milan Tangenziale IIRC. Had a go of one once, a bloke by the name of Jock Hastie(see PIE posts) had one in EVS colours, a wide cabbed left ■■■■■■ with a 400hp V8, that thing could fly & the diesel wasn’t too bad as long as you revved the nuts off it, there was a pull out knob on the dash with a skull & crossbones on it, I think that they would run backwards every now & again & this stopped it self destructing. From what I recall it had a pretty decent cab, but the seats were cream tartan check, how anbody could think that cream tartan was a practical colour for a lorry interior is beyond me!! When it was retired it was converted to a wrecker & it used to park in a yard on the north side of the Woolwich Ferry.