i too,had a windscreen in my SedAtki 400 shatter.booted out the remains,sunglasses on…and carried on… 
grumpy old man:
AndieHyde:
Not a repair a such.
Renault R340 in Valencia and the clutch pedal pushed to the floor and stayed there.
I had previously heard some older hands talk about how to overcome this so I thought I would give er a go.
Start up the truck and build up your air pressure then turn it off, select crawler gear and release the hand brake, then flick the key and away you go.
Have to modify your driving by hanging back at junction or traffic lights and such but essentialy dont stop rolling.
Loaded oranges at a packhouse and delivered 8 traders in 3 London markets and drove back to Yorkshire to have a new master cylinder fitted.Felt like a proper driver that week.
Happy days
a 350 ■■■■■■■■ a Fuller 9 speed, and no clutch. Been there,seen it, done it. But we didn’t ring in…‘HELP HELP HELP’. We got the thing home (and did a couple of deliveries on the way)
same story for me…bordeaux and done my deliveries then back to glasgow with no clutch and a transconti late 70s.ran the same truck for 1 year with no alternator,just a pile of batteries in the passenger pit and didnt use the lights unless desperate.i came back up the road with another cowboy outfit,fuelcard blocked,no dosh,no nothing and determined to get home,no fuel except from stopping at every roadworks that night,abandoning the thing into the cones,then running back and nicking the ribena in the can for the floodlights and hoping there was enough to make it to the next one…things like that were the norm then,just wing it and get on with it…it saddens my heart watching the job dumb down bit by bit especially with the big plobber players making their driver no more than a lump of kebab meat in a hi viz paid from the neck down…just demeaning to the job it once was.
Perhaps not quite as bad as some already mentioned on here, just a few I can remember…
Bear in mind that I was in me early twenties at the time and didn’t have much of clue in hindsight…
DAF 2800, starter motor packed up about 1 foot from a loading bay in a tobacco box factory somewhere in Switzerland… got under the lorry with me hammer, hit pounded, swore at the proxy thing… no joy… The chap from the factory very kindly called the local mechanic out, who arrived with his wrecker.
Ja ja, i can change it… 900 Swiss francs !!! Now again, please bear in mind that the DAF I had paid 1750 pound for 3 months earlier… me and Dad bought it for locals, it was a d reg and this must have happened around 1998ish, so the warranty was well gone. No no thanks it doesn’t need changing, just give me a bump start and I’ll get it home… all es gut, DAF got started I paid the man 180 Swiss francs and felt quite proud of myself…
All fine and arranged, got loaded, topped off with groupage in Basel and straight back to Zeebrugge was me plan. Oh, I thought, best call me dad and check if I thought correctly? Borrowed agents phone called Dad… oh deep joy, I told you that motor was a bucket of ■■■■… thanks mate… how shall I do it then?? F’d if I know being the advice… but if you do get tired park on a hill, cos I ain’t paying for anymore call outs…
Excellent, off I trotted to Zeebrugge and naturally missed the boat, got shunted on and off the boat by the tug drivers, at 20 quid a bung… that I never did back from dad !!!
Part 2,
Seddon Atkinson Strato, brakes started to freeze on while running on New Year’s Eve down from Bordeaux to irun… seat started to drop and no gear change… managed to limp into a garage and again, (would I never learn?) called me dad from the payphone… dad the motors freezing up, what shall I do ? Ahhh that it’ll be the air dryer canister, I was thinking about getting that changed…
Oh ok, what shall I do then ■■ No idea mate, I’m half ■■■■■■■ its New Year’s Eve you know…!!!
As I said at the start, hardly get you home dramas, but more the hard way to learn, and don’t waste cash on needless phone calls !!!
Oh ok, what shall I do then ■■ No idea mate, I’m half ■■■■■■■ its New Year’s Eve you know…!!!
As I said at the start, hardly get you home dramas, but more the hard way to learn, and don’t waste cash on needless phone calls !!!
[/quote]
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
at least he was honest with you and didnt give you the usual" il call you back in half an hour" 
Tubbysboy:
Perhaps not quite as bad as some already mentioned on here, just a few I can remember…Bear in mind that I was in me early twenties at the time and didn’t have much of clue in hindsight…
DAF 2800, starter motor packed up about 1 foot from a loading bay in a tobacco box factory somewhere in Switzerland… got under the lorry with me hammer, hit pounded, swore at the proxy thing… no joy… The chap from the factory very kindly called the local mechanic out, who arrived with his wrecker.
Ja ja, i can change it… 900 Swiss francs !!! Now again, please bear in mind that the DAF I had paid 1750 pound for 3 months earlier… me and Dad bought it for locals, it was a d reg and this must have happened around 1998ish, so the warranty was well gone. No no thanks it doesn’t need changing, just give me a bump start and I’ll get it home… all es gut, DAF got started I paid the man 180 Swiss francs and felt quite proud of myself…
All fine and arranged, got loaded, topped off with groupage in Basel and straight back to Zeebrugge was me plan. Oh, I thought, best call me dad and check if I thought correctly? Borrowed agents phone called Dad… oh deep joy, I told you that motor was a bucket of [zb]… thanks mate… how shall I do it then?? F’d if I know being the advice… but if you do get tired park on a hill, cos I ain’t paying for anymore call outs…
Excellent, off I trotted to Zeebrugge and naturally missed the boat, got shunted on and off the boat by the tug drivers, at 20 quid a bung… that I never did back from dad !!!
Part 2,
Seddon Atkinson Strato, brakes started to freeze on while running on New Year’s Eve down from Bordeaux to irun… seat started to drop and no gear change… managed to limp into a garage and again, (would I never learn?) called me dad from the payphone… dad the motors freezing up, what shall I do ? Ahhh that it’ll be the air dryer canister, I was thinking about getting that changed…
Oh ok, what shall I do then ■■ No idea mate, I’m half ■■■■■■■ its New Year’s Eve you know…!!!
As I said at the start, hardly get you home dramas, but more the hard way to learn, and don’t waste cash on needless phone calls !!!
that’s dad’s for you , mine had me going solo on a Friday night in my Atkinson, this after a full day of locals, to manningtree to tow a frozen up TK drawbar (complete with 2 x 26’ mobile homes) to Harwich docks, unload then tow it back to Wellingborough , all this on a chain. got back about 10am Saturday . we had a serious discussion on the employment of mechanics and their duties after that , not that it made much difference.
En route to Liverpool with a load of wheat, I experienced a knackered diff climbing up Keele Bank on the M6. I managed to coax the ERF into the services and rang the owner via payphone. No mobiles in those far-off days! I told him the diff was seizing, to which he replied, “I can’t do anything about it, I’m a hundred miles away” and put the phone down.
Bundled as much of my gear into the suit case as I could, hopped across the bridge to the Southbound and soon got a lift back to God’s Own County.
The phone rang at about ten o’clock that night. Guess who? “You’re back home, then”, he says. “Yep”, says I. “Where’s the lorry?” asks himself. “Where it was the last time we spoke, a hundred miles away”, I says and put the phone down on him! I started for my next employer the next Monday. 
Hi Chaps
These old tales are getting good… 
They certainly bring back memories eh !
I remember another one that I had, en-route to Doha, as usual, in my trusty old 141 and I was on the outskirts of Baghdad, cruising along fully freighted when all of a sudden…bang ! the gear stick jumped out of top gear so I put it back in top, scratched my head and carried on for a bit and bang ! it flew out again. So I shoved it back in to top gear and tried holding it. That worked but it was too hard to hold it for any length of time so when I pulled over I got one of my ratchet straps that every good driver has plenty of and hooked it up to one of the brackets that supports the top bunk which was folded up. I made a loop that was just the right length and when I got in top gear I would quickly ratchet the strap tight so as to hold the ■■■■■■ thing in gear, a couple of extra clicks and the ratchet was set. I got down to Doha, tipped, ran empty to Rumo, loaded five places and made it back home. Tipped somewhere in the Midlands and got back to London. I ended up losing three gears on the way home but fortunately the load was only about 7 tons so it was easy enough skipping through the box. It turned out that the synchros were not any good. So a trip over the water to Dave Diesels for a second hand gearbox was called for.
Back on the road in no time, ready for another trip East.
GS
I drove a foden alpha with eaton synchro box that kept jumping out of top gear due to a nackered synchro.
My father who’s lorry it was solution was a bungee strap attached to the back of the cab that I had to loop over the lever in top gear.
I drove it for over a year like that. Great fun in london
Again, not a mega one!
The wiring loom on my TK decided to wrap itself round the propshaft, there was no chance of making a repair so it was head scratching time! I spotted a phone box (remember them) and scoured the telephone directory (remember them!!!) and found a hardware shop that sold electrical supplies and ended up walking a couple of miles to the said shop. I bought a roll of 3 core wire for the repair and the best bit, the shop owner made me a brew and then gave me a lift back to the wagon and helped me with the repair!
The wagon was sold years later with this repair still in place!
On my way home from Jeddah around 75/76 I stopped to cook lunch at a desert diesel stop near Tayma, parked well away from all the other Arab motors was a Scots Scania so I pulled in by him for a chat as we always did.
Turned out it was his first M/E trip and he’d been there nearly a week with a failed oil cooler that leaked all his water in a matter of minutes. He was over the moon to see me as he hadn’t seen another European in all the time he’d been there and was too frightened to talk to the Arabs, who would have helped him out one way or another.
Anyway, although I’m useless as a mechanic, I came up with the idea of making a sock for the oil cooler out of old inner tube – running a Tri-Axle Stepframe I kept my old tubes in a box on the roof rack & had plenty of rubber and two pots of glue.
IIRC there were about 4 pipes out of the top of the cooler so cutting, glueing & fitting the sock was quite a fiddle but it went on & I managed to fit it tight without any air bubbles.
So we filled her up with water, fired her up & hey presto no leaks, how far he would get with it was debatable, so I gave him most of my old tubes & a pot of glue that would get him to Jeddah.
I never saw or heard of him again, so how well the repair worked I have no idea, but hopefully he’ll have taken my advice & got comfortable with the Arabs so that next time he was in bother he’d get some instant help
Again not hero stuff, but felt good at the time…
MAN 291, on the m25 on a Friday afternoon full load of cut timber on for south all, when all off a sudden the window steamed up and smoke and heat all over the place…
Pulled onto the hard shoulder, the heater inlet had broken, little plastic joint thingy, looked at it and found some super glue in my toolbox that hadn’t crusted over !!!
Stuck it back together and limped to the Waltham cross exit. There was a lay by van selling flowers and the chap had 20 litres of water that I gave him a fiver for…
Tipped the load and the repair lasted for a fair while afterwards
Have repaired coolant hoses at least 5 times with “Jesus tape”, silver tape, whatever it is called. Turbostar in Sweden between Göteborg and Jönköping, Volvo FH somewhere in France, Czeck x2 , Scania 144 in Finland. Now I always keep with me self amalgamating tape, it’s much better. Have never tried but in Russia they use diesel as a coolant in those situtations if you cant get glycol because you cant use water in extreme cold.
Repaired Scania 144 fuel line with aforementioned tape and hose clamps, in -27 C cold, leaked but kept it running until I got to Scania garage.
Plugged airline to airbellow when it blew, in Poland this May. Drove 300 kms until another one blew at same axle, then had to find garage to change them. Same trip plugged airlines to 2 brake chambers because they dragged, drove to Bulgaria, empty to Italy and back to Finland without brakes on 2 wheels…
Couple of times plugged airline to leaking springchambers and screw them open to get home.
only yesterday…gearbox playing up on my Daf CF…pulled up on side of the motorway,spanners out,dropped the 'box,found the problem and made a few adjustments,and with the help of a fellow trucker who had stopped to see if i needed any help,put the 'box back in,shook hands with the driver who’d assisted,then back in the cab and off we go 
only joking of course not even allowed to change a light bulb theses days ffs
V8Lenny:
Have repaired coolant hoses at least 5 times with “Jesus tape”, silver tape, whatever it is called. Turbostar in Sweden between Göteborg and Jönköping, Volvo FH somewhere in France, Czeck x2 , Scania 144 in Finland. Now I always keep with me self amalgamating tape, it’s much better. Have never tried but in Russia they use diesel as a coolant in those situtations if you cant get glycol because you cant use water in extreme cold.Repaired Scania 144 fuel line with aforementioned tape and hose clamps, in -27 C cold, leaked but kept it running until I got to Scania garage.
Plugged airline to airbellow when it blew, in Poland this May. Drove 300 kms until another one blew at same axle, then had to find garage to change them. Same trip plugged airlines to 2 brake chambers because they dragged, drove to Bulgaria, empty to Italy and back to Finland without brakes on 2 wheels…
Couple of times plugged airline to leaking springchambers and screw them open to get home.
Ah Duct Tape! Lenny i tell you it saved me alot of times to,always have a roll of it in the truck
Danne
Not a D.I.Y. job but an example of of perhaps you might not get nowadays.Just coming out of Corby from York in a 2417 and trailer in the rush hour and she spluttered and halted,lifted cab,scratched head then a youngish chap leapt out of a car and jumped on,bled it and off she went.Gave him a couple of bob which was all I’d got on me quickly and he left me his ring spanner,managed to get to Market Harborough and another bout of spuluttering.Just managed to get onto the station approach.Not so easy to get anybody out to help so walked down the street and saw a copper,told him and he phoned Federated and they came ,new olive and back home.
Good little spanner but some ■■■■■■■ broke into my shed and nicked ALL my tools including the Clark cabinet with the spanner in it and including some of my dads old stuff.I reckon that lad would be a grandfather now from 1968.
Good Lad
Well I’ve just done my good turn for the day as a retired old git! There I am reading the paper at 10:00 on a Monday morning and I hear the familiar sound of a unit blowing an airline. Sure enough, there is an artic beer lorry stranded outside. So I nip up into the roof and grab my magic box of two-way push-fit valves and a pair of gloves. It turns out he has blown both the yellow and the red lines. When I ask him if he’s been screwing the unit round too tight he replies that the quality of air-lines seem to have gone down hill in recent times. And I have to say they seem pretty brittle. Anyway, I get up on to the cat-walk and have him going in no time. I like mornings like this! . Robert
ERF-NGC-European:
Well I’ve just done my good turn for the day as a retired old git! There I am reading the paper at 10:00 on a Monday morning and I hear the familiar sound of a unit blowing an airline. Sure enough, there is an artic beer lorry stranded outside. So I nip up into the roof and grab my magic box of two-way push-fit valves and a pair of gloves. It turns out he has blown both the yellow and the red lines. When I ask him if he’s been screwing the unit round too tight he replies that the quality of air-lines seem to have gone down hill in recent times. And I have to say they seem pretty brittle. Anyway, I get up on to the cat-walk and have him going in no time. I like mornings like this!
Nice to see you havent lost your touch then chap ! If you were at school you would have got a gold star for
that !! Was the driver chuffed with your efforts !!
DEANB:
ERF-NGC-European:
Well I’ve just done my good turn for the day as a retired old git! There I am reading the paper at 10:00 on a Monday morning and I hear the familiar sound of a unit blowing an airline. Sure enough, there is an artic beer lorry stranded outside. So I nip up into the roof and grab my magic box of two-way push-fit valves and a pair of gloves. It turns out he has blown both the yellow and the red lines. When I ask him if he’s been screwing the unit round too tight he replies that the quality of air-lines seem to have gone down hill in recent times. And I have to say they seem pretty brittle. Anyway, I get up on to the cat-walk and have him going in no time. I like mornings like this!Nice to see you havent lost your touch then chap ! If you were at school you would have got a gold star for
that !! Was the driver chuffed with your efforts !!
He certainly was! I should have mentioned that the point of my writing this tale is (to chime with the title of the thread) to remind folk that these little valves were a brilliant instant fix out on the TIR-trail. One of my most frequent uses for these devices was when illegal immigrants used to cut your airlines thinking they had completely grounded you - they’d clearly never heard of these things and to be honest nor had a lot of drivers. I once rescued a John Mann truck that was stranded across the junction outside the Seaman’s Centre in Casablanca. They were about £8 each nearly twenty years ago so I imagine they are more now, but worth it. Robert
I have had a mixture of problems and “side of the road repairs” over the years here in West Aus but the one that springs to mind that I am quite proud of was returning back too Perth from the Dampier with 2 trailers loads of oilfield equipment and 3 hours north of Perth running off a hill known as “power line” Kerbang" up with the bonnet and find the V8 Mack has thrown a blade off the fan and buried itself in the radiator which now had more leaks than sieve.
While investigating a north bound truck pulled up a mate I knew and we decided to get me off the road he would tow my trailers to a truck bay at the top of the hill after taking his trailers to a road house a few kms north of where I was,I said see if you can get me a couple of dozen eggs and a pot of black pepper omelet for tea.
Anyhow I pinched shut as much of the rad core tubes Icould get at and reduced the flood to a trickle filled up with water [we had a 60litre drum mounted on each trailer] and drove up to the truck bay,when the mate arrived with trailers eggs and pepper I made my omelet by breaking all the eggs and pepper into the radiator then topped up with water and let it idle after about 10mins no leaks hooked up to my trailers again and settled down to wait for night time when it would be cool left the rad cap loose and drove into town freight on time the next morning only a 3 thousand dollar bill for a new rad core and fan and back to work 3 days later.
Cheers Dig
Hey,
Mostly I had Always some parts en repair things with me and a lot of spanners.
But once with a colleague his truck I had a blown V belt and nothing whit me, and did hitchhiking for about 50km to get an old one of a YU driver who also drive a MAN but an other type which was a bit longer (or shorter don’t remember). Back again, put the belt half on and with the only thing i had with me a knife. turn the starter to hope it doesn’t go wrong, and luckly I was that Friday night. And for the sunday evening/night fruit market to be in time.
Even Lucky I was in a desolated location to be back at my truck and to find it intact back.
Eric,