just on the edge o the 80s limit…192M maggies , air cooled engines …electric splitter wire kept breaking,exhaust brake linkage bolts broke/sheared off.so wired up most o the time.
jimmy
rigsby:
what about when you were in an old foden on a long uphill drag and the cab started to fill with smoke when the rugs/sacks over the engine cover were smouldering with the heat off the manifold . used to carry a drop of water in case , cheers , dave
Ha Ha you`re joking ■■
Even better Ramone, how about when your mates would throw a bit of roadkill or a nice piece of fish onto the exhaust manifold of the Foden, Guy , Atki in fact any moter with the engine covers in the cab brings a whole new meaning to mobile catering.
Suttons Tony:
AEC MM MK3’s with the floor lifting when out of cog and the cabs shaking like mad…
Why did the floor lift? Was it due to the wind resistance pushing the cab back on the chassis?
Its not a joke,I drove an A series ERF for a while which was prone to smoke the blanket over the engine cover when pulling hard with its Gardner 150.Seeing the previous comments about the AEC Mk.3 I was reminded about the problem with the rear suspension balance beams reversing their position if you had to brake hard when running empty,this wasnt a big problem in itself except that while they were doing this the axle moved forward and pulled the splined shaft out of the diff. You couldn`t move until you were dragged away by some obliging lorry driver so you could put it all back together.
The other problem was the broken injector pipes which seemed to happen every few trips,if I remember correctly a No.6 pipe could be bent to fit any of the other shapes so you could get home, happy days.
Hi Bassman; Couple more for you… Ergo cabs 5 mins after setting off with spotlessly clean side windows in rain , snow, light drizzle couldn’t see naff all due to the brilliant "aero dynamics " Transcons… wonderful electrical system, ( half 12 half 24 volt ) headlights 12volt bulbs (not quartz halogen ) had to keep getting out to see if they were still on could ride around permantly on full beam nobody ever flashed you! Main electrics located by the front offside step by the wheel ideal for getting full of water and causing all the gauges and warning lights to give you that "disco " feeling, fuses by the way located behind the front grill just incase the system started to dry out, Accellerator cable that ran across the front of the radiator/ cab so that when you had travelled for 4 or 5 miles in freezing condition on a moterway and you lifted your boot it just kept going ( think it was an early type of cruise control ) did I mention that the cable that operated the foot brake took the same route? and then when you tilted the cab it went over at such an alarming angle you thought it was going to fall off altogether ( mate of mine had a 5 gallon drum in front of his it went through the windscreen ) Happy days !
Hi Bassman; Couple more for you… Ergo cabs 5 mins after setting off with spotlessly clean side windows in rain , snow, light drizzle couldn’t see naff all due to the brilliant "aero dynamics " Transcons… wonderful electrical system, ( half 12 half 24 volt ) headlights 12volt bulbs (not quartz halogen ) had to keep getting out to see if they were still on could ride around permantly on full beam nobody ever flashed you! Main electrics located by the front offside step by the wheel ideal for getting full of water and causing all the gauges and warning lights to give you that "disco " feeling, fuses by the way located behind the front grill just incase the system started to dry out, Accellerator cable that ran across the front of the radiator/ cab so that when you had travelled for 4 or 5 miles in freezing condition on a moterway and you lifted your boot it just kept going ( think it was an early type of cruise control ) did I mention that the cable that operated the foot brake took the same route? and then when you tilted the cab it went over at such an alarming angle you thought it was going to fall off altogether ( mate of mine had a 5 gallon drum in front of his it went through the windscreen ) Happy days !
Got so fed up with frying in the Mk1 Atki 8-wheeler in London one really hot summer- remember those?- that I took both cab doors off and roped them on top of the load. I had managed to get past Heston services on the M4 before plod made me pull over and refit them.
rigsby:
what about when you were in an old foden on a long uphill drag and the cab started to fill with smoke when the rugs/sacks over the engine cover were smouldering with the heat off the manifold . used to carry a drop of water in case , cheers , dave
Yes Dave, and then thecover insulation burned off and melted the airpipe’s to the 12 speed gearchange! One of our driver’s had a piece of wood in his cab and I asked him what it was for, his reply was that it was actually his ‘cruise control’ but also if the truck caught alight he didn’t want it to go out for the sake of a lack of wood! 
Ramone obviously hasn’t lived! 
Pete.
Sliding doors on the AEC MK3 Reeve and Kenning cabs when running with them open in summer (aircon) and forgetting to move yer hand when braking hard and door slamming shut. And the arm slowly raising showing “Stop” when brake pressure was low - so you did stop - if you could.Also nipping the palm of yer hand when knocking ratchet handbrake off,and also the chance of the motor running away if you didn’t leave the handbrake lever in the forward position - mine ran away slowly once when the lever moved forward and knocked the brakes off. 
Wagons with character …
Forgot to add that one of the “likes” as far as a MK3 was concerned was the auto box - no clutch required once you were away. 
First job when driving a different lorry was to saw yourself a new “cruise control”.
The floors on a lot of the old AEC’s did’nt seem to be attached to the rest of the cab so you to lift with the rush of up draft at 60 odd mph, and the rest of the cab structure would try to shake itself to pieces, of course with the floor rising up you could have a problem with the foot brake LOL. A couple more, having to shunt an old ERF artic around London which had the throttle between the clutch and footbrake. The first drive on a Scammel artic with two handbrakes, having to find out which was to be used as the trailer dead man and which was the handbrake, worrying about the starter handle sticking out somewhere in front, while learning how to use the gate change, but I did learn to love that motor (this was the oldest motor based at BRS Mancheste,r Greenhays Depot at that time CL1, Great Days…Tony.
The balance beam problem was a regular happening on AEC’s but if empty, and single drive, was fairly easily fixed by jacking up and getting another motor to give it a nudge off the jack, but loaded it was a lot more work to sort out. A thing we had on the BRS was that all the trailers were fitted with blinkers but most of our older Bristol units were not fitted with indicaters. On Suttons, the old Atkys were fitted with shunt bars which came in very handy to help when a Leyland Comet unit was attached to a tandem trailer loaded with 16t of Dulux on Shap the old trailers which were Yorks had a very handy cross member at the back which matched the height of the shunt bar, all the Yorks had dents in this rear crossmember…Tony.
Hey, The two speed axle on a Volvo which was so weak that you could have one in spare as you had two of them in service.
The handbrakes on the back of the gearbox.The first 10 speed boxes of Scania which only gave 9 speeds and a big gap between
8th and 10th 9th had the same ratio as 8th.
Gave it British lorries with two gearsticks ■■?
Cheers Eric,
Hi, Norfolk
I can’t comment on those trucks,never had the chance to drive quality machines like them.
I do remember the Atki 's where the heater consisted of you stopping every so many miles so you could walk/run/stamp some warmth back into you . And KV series ERF’s whose wipers went back over the windscreen when something big went the other way, And as was said about the BigJ’s gearlever you soon learnt to keep your fingers at the back of it.
When you look at modern trucks you’ve got to ask yourself if they really were the “good old days”. Of course they was ,nearly all of us would do it again.
Bassman
Hi, R.o.F.
I couldn,t agree more about your “cruise control”. They were even more necessary when the truck was governed to 40mph. A mate of mine was proceeding south on the M1 and decided to call at Woodhall Serv. Went up the slip road and said cruise control was stuck ,wouldn’t come out ,went through the services and back onto the M1 still doing 40, He decided to call at Trowell!!
Bassman
Bassman:
Hi, R.o.F.I couldn,t agree more about your “cruise control”. They were even more necessary when the truck was governed to 40mph. A mate of mine was proceeding south on the M1 and decided to call at Woodhall Serv. Went up the slip road and said cruise control was stuck ,wouldn’t come out ,went through the services and back onto the M1 still doing 40, He decided to call at Trowell!!
Bassman
I always kept a bespoke piece of wood for the throttle when pumping off out of the tank.Some older fuel pumps used to surge on the AEC - Simms maybe - so you were forever adjusting the stick.CAV rotary fuel pumps were constant at just above tick over.
Chris
When you had a different truck every night your "cruise control " fitted where it fitted as long as you got full throttle!
And you ignored the memo’s from the garage foreman about straining the throttle linkage!
The wooden leg was part of the all round experience of being a truck ( sorry ,lorry ) driver. A modern day Scania or Merc pilot wouldn’t know where to start.
Bassman
One of our night shift drivers had a bundle of four or five “cruise controls” , all of different lengths which he carried around held by a couple of elastic bands. He reckoned that whichever vehicle he was assigned to, he had one that would fit.
Other items of essential equipment included a length of inner tube to slip over the gearstick in a Seddon to stop it slipping out of top gear. And a pair of paraffin road lamps to hang on the door handle and rear light wires when parked overnight in the street in London.
Bassman ; Always carried my own " Jockey " ( a length of string with a hook on the end ) which I used to fasten to the springs on the various Gardner enginged moters I used to drive one old Atki I used to drive (43 mph ) that could reach 50mph until the noise got so loud you eased up frightened that there was a possibility the pistons were going to join you in the cab ! the same moter had a habit if you left it tickingover of the rachet handbrake vibrating off , I was standing on a weighbridge one day getting some paperwork sorted when out the corner of m y eye I saw the old girl set off the guy on the bridge said " some buggers havnt got 5 mins " only to see me flying out the door in hot pursuit ! I managed to catch her before any damage was caused but I had the skinned ankles done jumping in the cab for weeks.