newmercman:
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.
Your right about that knob on the dash, i moved one of jess b woodcocks TM,s once and to stop the engine i pulled the knob on the dash thinking it was the stop but was then told by the driver that the cab had to now be tilted and the knob reset.He told me if you backed onto a bank or against something the engine would run backwards like you said an this knob was to prevent this.They had the V6 detroits and the V8 versions i think all the V engines had GMC blowers on them.
I loe the old Transcons. I passed my test in one in 86. the old girl just rocked her way around the test route and made the whole thing seem so easy.
I loved that sitting in a boat effect they used to have as they swayed down the road. No other truck has ever seemed to do that despite being built in similar mode.
I believe the Transcons were the fore runner to the Renault Magnum - but the Magnums dont sail down the Queens highways like a galleon in full sail either.
I well remember how unsettling it was with having the cab move so much when you had to anchor up rather sharply and the truck would stop quite well,but the cab would lean forward enough for you to see your own front bumper!
I did hear that it was advised to maintenance staff that if the cab was tilted,make sure it’s not tilted when the rear wheels are removed,otherwise the truck would tip over!
Ian, you are quite right about not tilting the cab of a Transcon’ with the rear wheels removed. When you see how far the cab goes over when tilted then you can see why. It goes so far on the pump and the rest of the way on its own and you think its going to fall off. For anyone who has driven a Transcon’ and had to do their own running repairs will know exactly what I’m saying. I beleive though from what I’ve been told by various fitters is that the same is applicable to quite a few units now because of the weight of the larger cabs.
yeah that was bob headley motor he didn’t have it long after that photo was taken then brought a seddy acky & put the diesel tanks off the transcon on that but wot a come down
charlie one:
I’ll bet it cost a shilling to talk yo you Chris.Very smart
Aye,like a dog with two tails Charlie.We had six all equipped for drawbar work.However they weren’t popular with some of our longer - serving drivers 'cos they couldn’t handle the twin-split which I always found a breeze to use.Being reared on AECs,Albions and Leylands and listening to the engine tone for a good gearchange was alien to drivers brought up on Scania 80s and 81s when I first started at GGD in 1979.
The only fault I found was the brakes weren’t spot on when running without a trailer which wasn’t very often on nights and the cabs used to leak a bit,but what the hell and I still have a soft spot for 'em.
■■■■ 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.
Absolutely correct David, the Berliet certainly did precede the Transcon as that version of the Berliet came out in 1971/2 . In fact I’m sure you know that was the last lorry they made for the commercial market. Berliet still produced lorries after this but as you know they only produced military vehicles for use by the French Army. The french had the actual Ford Transcon the same as the rest of Europe but with a difference to ours. You would not realise the difference unless you were parked next to one as I did on several occasions.
The first time was in Cognac whilst loading brandy for the UK. When I noticed that his bumper was a full bumper height above mine and this went for the whole cab. So I tried this in every lorry park I could and found it the same with every one of them. I drove two different Transcons one S reg. and one X reg. and the same went for both of them. The difference in height would have been about 12 inches. Does anyone else know of this difference and can anybody explain why the British cabs were that much lower.
Here is one for you
