The cutaway section appears to be more central on this photo,originally posted by willieroadstar.
Also,this photo from toprun shows more room between the seat and engine tunnel than I seem to dimly remember there being in the (very) few RHD 88s that I drove. Over to the Taylor brothers,I think 
Good work Sir+. Is that an 88 or an 89 on the motorway? I assume it is an 88, since the aperture in the back panel is, as you say, central. Here is an F89 passenger seat:
I would say that the motorway picture is an F88 290,going by the round ‘mushroom’ air intake.Look at this though.The engine hump in this G89 has an indent to accommodate the gear lever movement.
Did someone not say that the engine hump did not require modification, to make the RHD version? That last photo appears to suggest otherwise. These photographs are lifted from NZ Jamie’s post on the F89 thread:
The indent visible on Sir+’ interior shot appears to take the form of a bracket, to which the gear linkage rod appears to be attached- presumably, by the foot of the gearstick.
This is making my head ache.
i honestly dont think its that complicated chaps , it seems to me the only way they could get the 330hp F89 engine into a RHD truck was to make a G89 .
I’d be interested to see a british registered G89 as i dont recall ever seeing one .
I would have thought that if it was possible and cost effective to do it volvo would have made F89 in RHD form .
Just looked at that interior shot again,and the gear lever seems to be attached to a Fuller gearbox ,going by the range change.Probably doesn’t make a blind bit of difference.Just an observation. I’m going to find a darkened room,just to lie down for a while. 
Oh! just seen bowser’s post above. G89 was specifically targeted at Sweden Norway and Australia because the longer wheelbase would allow running at higher weights and still be legal.NZ Jamie has put forward a logical argument
as to why a RHD 89 was never offered in Britain.As you say,cost effectiveness.I have seen some(not many) UK reg. G88s though. Now…where was I going■■?
This is turning into one of those " Guy bigj with 8 pot gardner " thingy’s … ohhhh crap .
bowser:
i honestly dont think its that complicated chaps , it seems to me the only way they could get the 330hp F89 engine into a RHD truck was to make a G89 .
I’d be interested to see a british registered G89 as i dont recall ever seeing one .I would have thought that if it was possible and cost effective to do it volvo would have made F89 in RHD form .
So what was different about the F89, compared to the G (or the UK market compared to the OZ one), which made an RHD F89 uneconomic to make? That is the question. There is a hint of an answer on Jamie’s under-cab shots. The shock absorber bracket- if that is what I am seeing- would be 400mm(?) further back on an F89, so it might foul the gear linkage, as shown. If that is the case, then it might be the reason for no RHD F89.
bowser:
This is turning into one of those " Guy bigj with 8 pot gardner " thingy’s … ohhhh crap .
Let’s see if we can get it to 100 pages!
[zb]
anorak:bowser:
i honestly dont think its that complicated chaps , it seems to me the only way they could get the 330hp F89 engine into a RHD truck was to make a G89 .
I’d be interested to see a british registered G89 as i dont recall ever seeing one .I would have thought that if it was possible and cost effective to do it volvo would have made F89 in RHD form .
So what was different about the F89, compared to the G (or the UK market compared to the OZ one), which made an RHD F89 uneconomic to make? That is the question. There is a hint of an answer on Jamie’s under-cab shots. The shock absorber bracket- if that is what I am seeing- would be 400mm(?) further back on an F89, so it might foul the gear linkage, as shown. If that is the case, then it might be the reason for no RHD F89.
bowser:
This is turning into one of those " Guy bigj with 8 pot gardner " thingy’s … ohhhh crap .Let’s see if we can get it to 100 pages!
That was my question a couple of pages back , someone posted that RHD F89 were made but not imported into the uk and i couldnt understand why that would be .
The only thing i remember from my dim and distant past was that they couldnt/wouldnt fit a RHD cab onto F89 running gear due to gear linkage problems and /or steering linkage problems . Im sure that if they had had a big enough customer base in the uk they could have found a way to do it .
I was’nt aware of axle weight issues resulting in the design of the G89 , i’d always thought that the front axle difference was to fit the engine and do away with the issue …
Thinking about it i would assume that if there had been a market for G89 in the uk they would have sold them rather than go to the expense of forcing a RHD F89 to work .
bowser:
This is turning into one of those " Guy bigj with 8 pot gardner " thingy’s … ohhhh crap .
I’ll just bet you drove an 8 pot Big J “bowser” and have the photos to prove it !! Bewick.
Bewick:
bowser:
This is turning into one of those " Guy bigj with 8 pot gardner " thingy’s … ohhhh crap .I’ll just bet you drove an 8 pot Big J “bowser” and have the photos to prove it !! Bewick.
If i had drove one and had a photo believe me i’d have rolled it up and poked you in the eye with it , you know that 
Hi all,
great photos, theres loads of 88’s & a few 89’s on the Comart Thread I’ve posted so won’t post them again, however, I think this one is worth an airing, scanned from a photo out of the archives at Hartshorne Stoke when I worked there for a brief time.
Don’t know what year they were taken, but I think one of them was still running until early to mid 90’s
Keep the photos comin
Regards
Ant
Aint nothing wrong with posting photos more than once so get on with it old chap and post them again , no rule says you can’t …
Just been trawling through the CM archive & spotted an article about a 250bhp F88 here
archive.commercialmotor.com/arti … p-with-f88
Anyone have any info on this model ■■
I love this quote , how times change … 
“Some operators need more power than the F86 can provide but don’t like the idea of letting their drivers loose in a truck which has got nearly 300 bhp under its belt,” said a Volvo spokesman.
Anorak mate,thanks for posting my pics on here it makes them much easier to look at,good one.
The biggest hassle that I can see with converting an F89 to RHD is the location of the air filter on the R/H side of the engine,remove this and you can fit the gear linkage down that side of the engine.
This is what they have done on the G89 and fitted it under the L/H rear of the cab.
I should have taken a pic of the cab interior showing the engine cover and gear stick,from memory it didn’t have the cut out in the cover and the stick just came straight up out of the cover.
As for the front shock mount,I don’t think this would have fouled the gear linkages,it’s too far over on the outside of the chassis,good thinking though mate.
I really don’t think it was too hard of not possible to convert the F89 to RHD,I just reckon Volvo didn’t want to,it’s as simple as that.
Think about this,
In 1970 when the F89 was released 330 horse was a very powerful truck. For 90% of British haulage firms a Gardner 180 or an AEC with a 760 putting out 226 horse was plenty. Some did go for slightly more powerful ■■■■■■■ and some did put Scania110’s to work with 260 horse.
There wouldn’t have been much demand from general haulage for a 330hp truck,OK the heavy haulage boys would have taken a few but not in big numbers and the firms running across the water were happy with LHD truck.
So when more HP was asked for Volvo released the ‘UK Special’ F88 290 in 1975,this as we know was RHD.
Now why would Volvo go to the trouble of converting the F89 when most would be happy with 290hp,plus they would have been well into devolving the F10/F12 which would have only been two years away.
Added to this the crazy rules and power that the unions had in the early 70’s that didn’t want sleeper cabs. How many RHD F89 day cabs do you think they would have sold?
The F89 was never sold in Oz or NZ,although I’d be interested to know what happened in South Africa,so there wasn’t a demand there.
The Aussie G89’s were built in Queensland and the RHD development was probably done there,if you look at them they have a lot of local content. This may well have been done and then approved by Volvo Sweden.
Cheers Jamie
Top post Jamie- just about summarises it perfectly. Thinking about it, Scania was the only Continental firm offering a 300+bhp engine in Britain in 1970. All of the others could have, but didn’t bother.
Was the engine hump offset to the right in 88s, as well as 89s? I guess it was- the hole in the front is offset on all of them. The different aperture in the rear panel of the Oz G89 suggests that 89s had some cab changes,compared to 88s, though. This may require some confirmation, just to keep the confusion simmering!
On the Rust in Greece thread, there was some discussion of the indentifying features of F88s, to distinguish them from the earlier L495s. The only thing we could spot was indicator position- the 495 had them up high, the 88 much lower… or so we thought! I found this 1965 F88 brochure, showing both:
Thanks mate,
Spread the word and try to end all the daft rumours about it being to hard to convert an F89.
You sure live up to your user name with you attention to detail on the trucks mate,keep up the good work.it’s the little details that count.
This might sound like a daft question but when did the Swedes start driving on the right inline with most of Europe, and was this before, during or after the 89 was introduced? (Someone quoted earlier that it was about 1970 but didn’t the 89 develop from some other similar looking motor which surely would have been RHD - I am guessing)
Sweden changed over sometime in late 1967 IIRC.
