Get yersel into this motor and nip down to the Mill they are waiting to load 20 ton of reels for John Dickinson Hemel Hempstead, your bed is booked at Towcester and you are booked in to tip at 6 am you’ll be in and out in the hour, old Ted on the forks is mustard ! as fast as you can load his tray he’ll be back again ! and he gives you a roll up with your sheets and lifts them onto the trailer for you. Then down to Tilbury for 20 ton of Pulp for back home ( to-night !). Gan canny Cheers Dennis.
/attachment] Now look 'ere “H” stop ■■■■■■■ whining about Scanias Get yersel into this motor and nip down to the Mill they are waiting to load 20 ton of reels for John Dickinson Hemel Hempstead, your bed is booked at Towcester and you are booked in to tip at 6 am you’ll be in and out in the hour, old Ted on the forks is mustard ! as fast as you can load his tray he’ll be back again ! and he gives you a roll up with your sheets and lifts them onto the trailer for you. Then down to Tilbury for 20 ton of Pulp for back home ( to-night !). Gan canny Cheers Dennis.
Get yersel into this motor and nip down to the Mill they are waiting to load 20 ton of reels for John Dickinson Hemel Hempstead, your bed is booked at Towcester and you are booked in to tip at 6 am you’ll be in and out in the hour, old Ted on the forks is mustard ! as fast as you can load his tray he’ll be back again ! and he gives you a roll up with your sheets and lifts them onto the trailer for you. Then down to Tilbury for 20 ton of Pulp for back home ( to-night !). Gan canny Cheers Dennis.
The fastest known speed I have done in a loaded lorry was just touching 75mph according to the speedo, pre tacho days. I had recently moved up from a Big J with a 180 Gardner + Thornicroft 6 speed box to a Leyland Buffalo with a 10 speed range change and was running south on the A34 at 32 gross. The A34 was being upgraded and the Abingdon by-pass had been open only about a week and, as many will know, with a Gardner on a regular run you would know at what point to change gear to maintain forward progress and always with foot to the floor. On this day with the Buffalo without thinking I had moved up to top gear and, as with the Big J, had the right foot firmly on the floor when I heard a car alongside sounding its horn and realised it was a police car but not a traffic cop, looked at the speedo and realised it was showing 75mph, hastily slowed to 40mph (no 50mph on dual carrageways in those days) the police car stayed in front of me at this speed and I thought next layby I’ll get a ticket. So,to my surprise, we passed a layby and continued to the next junction, Abingdon centre, and the police car exited waving a finger at me and holding up 4 fingers, lesson learned that there are lorries that you can actually drive without keeping the ‘pedal to the metal’ ALL the time.
Carryfast:
Geoffo:
Trying to keep up with any Dukes transport truck was the thing for me… They used to rocket by…70 mph with a Volvo F7 was normal while i was on for Carryfast. The night men said i was taking it easy as it could go well above 80 mph…
Blimey even Sonny wouldn’t have dream’t that idea up.The F7 was even more gutless than the 2500’s and that’s saying something.
Having said that the FL10’s were reasonably quick and a great improvement after being lumbered with a batch of cheap and nasty day cabbed Scania 93’s for a while.
Have to say all the Dukes F7s done really well back then, come to think of it & I find it hard to believe that this was almost 38 years ago, Dukes Trunk vehicle engines were rebuilt every two years regardless of mileage or condition, you have to remember these were used on the 75 and did not cause any hold ups whilst on the tarmac, And a lot of these were pulling heavier loads then the F10s doing continental work.
dave docwra:
Carryfast:
Geoffo:
Trying to keep up with any Dukes transport truck was the thing for me… They used to rocket by…70 mph with a Volvo F7 was normal while i was on for Carryfast. The night men said i was taking it easy as it could go well above 80 mph…
Blimey even Sonny wouldn’t have dream’t that idea up.The F7 was even more gutless than the 2500’s and that’s saying something.
Have to say all the Dukes F7s done really well back then, come to think of it & I find it hard to believe that this was almost 38 years ago, Dukes Trunk vehicle engines were rebuilt every two years regardless of mileage or condition, you have to remember these were used on the 75 and did not cause any hold ups whilst on the tarmac, And a lot of these were pulling heavier loads then the F10s doing continental work.
Two years sounds about right for an F7. 
The things were an absolute joke in anything much more than a 16 tonner.While I think Geoffo was referring to our F7’s of which our depot was unlucky enough to get lumbered with one from Collumpton and ended its days with its engine a siezed cooked wreck at less than 5 years old.While I didn’t even notice any Dukes F7’s so that’s a surprise to me.
While I think the best smaller engined trucks I ever drove were our two 2300 ATI 16 tonners pulling a close coupled trailer on Feltham-Scotch with the prime movers being used for a dedicated bulk paper collection/trunking/delivery operation.They did that run for the around five years I drove them and some time before that without any major engine work needed over that time.They seemed to have a perfectly matched power and gearing combination and could easily outrun the older 2500 artics although I’d guess often at a bit lighter gross weights.They would have flown ( relatively ) on day shift without the trailer.
As for 80 mph + with an F7 that sounds even less believable than 100 mph + with anything much less than a KTA powered Pete or KW. 
when i worked at ferrymasters desborough one of our day cabbed scania 80’s made it to west berlin ,
and back
Two years sounds about right for an F7
I am not sure if you are aware of the mileage some of these trunk motors motors were doing, two years mileage would have been close to 400000 not bad for a such a small engined motor, Dukes did have a few of them on their fleet…
dave docwra:
Two years sounds about right for an F7
I am not sure if you are aware of the mileage some of these trunk motors motors were doing, two years mileage would have been close to 400000 not bad for a such a small engined motor, Dukes did have a few of them on their fleet…
I’d guess that our two 2300 ATI’s would have been at the top end of the utilisation scale.IE running between Feltham and ■■■■■■■■■■■ every night and bulk collection and deliveries during the days.However those DAF s would have left the F7 standing in terms of speed and obviously in our case at least durability.With to my knowledge our F7 having spent most of its time just on Cullompton-Feltham-Cullompton and probably some local day bulk work and then at our depot on even shorter trunk runs.
Although to be fair as I said I think those types of motor were never really designed for 25 t + work.With our 2300 ATI example probably helped by them working within a relatively more favourable gross weight range v their spec.Bearing in mind that our 2300/2500 tractor units didn’t seem to show much better durability than the F7.IE in general,like the Scania 93,cheap and nasty,over stressed and gutless,with no real advantage in fuel economy either.While,with the exception of those 2300 ATI’s,I was much happier with the more up to the job DAF 2800,Scania 112,MAN,Volvo FL 10 and DAF 85 and occassionally 95 which I spent most of my time on night trunking with.Although,with the exception of the MAN or Ron’s 2800 ( 3300 ),I’d doubt if any of them could have reached 80 mph +.
Let alone the F7 which was even slower than the 2500’s,which themselves were lucky if they could manage 70 mph on the flat with a following wind and as for hills forget it.
Bewick:
0/attachment] Now look 'ere “H” stop [zb] whining about Scanias
Hiya,
Dennis a piece of cake, but ■■■■ I’m babysitting today as my granddaughter is
under the weather and my boilersuit is in the wash. lol
thanks harry, long retired.
Oh! bloody hell “H” I’ll hev to gan mesel nobody else available ! now where’s me Log book ? Cheers Dennis.harry_gill:
Bewick:
/attachment] Now look 'ere “H” stop [zb] whining about ScaniasHiya,
Dennis a piece of cake, but ■■■■ I’m babysitting today as my granddaughter is
under the weather and my boilersuit is in the wash. lol
thanks harry, long retired.
Normal volvo f7 with 8 or 16 speed was good for 65 before you were in the red and blew the head gasket! Mechanic at the firm I worked for put a 16 speed overdrive gearbox out of f89 in f7 which was good for 85 mph at 36t . Volvo f86 don’t go over 60 or you would blow head gasket, e reg Volvo f12 385 would do 85,most of the time you would run about 62-65mph.
Carryfast:
I was much happier with the more up to the job DAF 2800,Scania 112,MAN,Volvo FL 10 and DAF 85 and occassionally 95 which I spent most of my time on night trunking with.Although,with the exception of the MAN or Ron’s 2800 ( 3300 ),I’d doubt if any of them could have reached 80 mph +.
The reason I think we differ on the F7 is because I am comparing it to some of the older fleet vehicles used in the late seventies i.e Seddon, A series ERF & the such like fleet vehicles, which were all good in their day, But Volvo & Scania were pushing better fleet vehicles into companies at this time, you seem to be comparing the F7 to vehicles mainly from the 80s.
dave docwra:
The reason I think we differ on the F7 is because I am comparing it to some of the older fleet vehicles used in the late seventies i.e Seddon, A series ERF & the such like fleet vehicles, which were all good in their day, But Volvo & Scania were pushing better fleet vehicles into companies at this time, you seem to be comparing the F7 to vehicles mainly from the 80s.
Ironically in my case it was actually more the ( luckily temporary ) retrograde move from driving an end of life late 1970’s 2800 in the mid 1980’s to a much newer early 1980’s F7.As I said it was one of the few vehicles which I disliked even more than the similar early 1980’s DAF 2500’s we had and a world away from the later 2300 ATI.Which was a brilliant improvement over the 2500 being geared to perfection with a 16 speed box together with seemingly much better torque characteristics although admittedly probably often running at a bit lighter gross weights than the artics.Realistically any of the small capacity highly stressed offerings in the day were way out of their league in anything much more than a 24 tonner.On that note I’d guess the comparison I’m making is anything with 10 litres + turbocharged v less than 10 litres + turbo.Probably because sufficient gearing for sustained decent motorway speeds together with the low torque high revving engine formula predictably seemed to contradict each other.
Although the hopeless gutless V6 in the Merc 2534 seemed to be the exception that proved the rule in being the worst of all worlds in that regard.
always wondered this – in the days before limiters and then I guess particularly when the motorways were unrestricted… what sort of speed could trucks move at??
cvc magazine goes on about things like AEC mercurys being capable of 70mph or so?? surely the first hill would’ve slowed one right down??
what about those 60’s artics or the 8 wheelers – how about those rattly old scammells that harrisons in sheffield kept using? surely they weren’t still going on the M1 with those even in the 70’s??
any of you, ahem, more senior guys enlighten me??
After seeing the film ‘Hell Drivers’ - very fast…
… Ok, so the film was speeded up - but it looked good 
Before limiters were introduced you went as fast as you could,without getting nicked!
We regularly used to leave Felixstowe in the morning at 4am and be in Hull or York for just after 8am,doing 70 odd mph up the A1.This was before the A45 around Ipswich was completed.
The same when going to Bristol,we could be on the M4 in just over two hours,driving around the North Circular,and arrive in Bristol for 8am.
Couldn’t do that nowadays simply because of the amount of traffic on the roads.
no - I mean how fast could the trucks actually manage to get up to and maintain?
Scania 142 420 clocked at 96mph. M1 Leeds. 1985
I know, cos I was there 
My old AEC Mecury developed a problem ( Hell of a noise coming from behind the cab) on the A74 in about 1978, I managed to limp into Gateside Commercials who were on the outskirts of Dumfries.
They finally diagnosed a knackered diff and said there was a Leyland dealer in Carlisle, I asked if there was a breakers nearby they said no but in their yard they had an old AEC coach that they had repaired for an Irishman and he had never come back for it, the kids had smashed a couple of windows and it had long grass growing up all around it, anyway the foreman said that I could have the diff out of that if it would fit! I climbed under the coach counted the studs and found it to be the same so they fitted it to my AEC I paid the labour and I think it was about £70 for the diff! I had also taken out the speedo sender from the gearbox and changed that over.
I left Dumfries and headed down onto the M6 I stopped at Southwaite Services had a good look around to see if everthing was ok, The only difference I had noticed up to then was I had to pull away in crawler instead of 2nd and I hadn’t put it into 6th (overdrive)!
Well all I can say is that once I did get it moving I changed into 6th(overdrive it really flew I had it up to about 90 but although it would have gone faster I felt really vunerable being sat infont of the front axle! I reckon it could easily have passsed the 100!
Obviously you were in a gear lower on hills than before but the powerful (for a 16ton rigid anyway) 505 engine really pulled well. Fuel consumption was up Impg to 13mpg driving sensibly.
I was never caught speeding but after selling it the very next Monday the buyer was caught out on the M4 near Newport I drove past in my Scania 110 having loaded steel!
Regards Pat
William Wests of Ilkeston did a similar trick with an ERF in the mid-80’s. CJM749V, blimey I can still remember the registration, a day-cab B-series with a 290 Rolls-Royce/ Roadranger drivetrain.
Wests do a hell of a lot for Boots chemists as many of you’ll know, and in those days they had a regular night run up to Rochdale with one of the old 33’ single-axle trailers, mainly loaded with Pampers and other light stuff. The fitters at Wests put a bus diff in this unit specifically for the job, it was known as the “Rochdale Flyer”. I was working for Bill Kelly at the time, who subbed a lot to Wests; the regular driver went sick one night so our lad went in , decided to clog it a bit to catch time up and ended up being pulled on the M62 at 85 mph! He swore he was “only” doing 70, produced the chart, down came the Ministry and I believe Westy’s got into a bit of hot water over that one!
It didn’t show on the tacho of course, since only the diff was geared up. John said afterwards he thought it was a bit quick but the M62 used to be absolutely dead at 2 am in those days so it was hard to tell; we’d heard the rumours about it, but of course never got to drive the beast.
We also had a Scania 140 tractor unit PAM108M to which we managed to fit a diff out of an old 1968 LHD 6X2 140 with asplitter box ex Forge Truck Centre wrecker that had a hub reduction axle, we had to make up a spacer plate to get it to fit,
The ratio was something like 3.25:1 where as the standard diff was 4.71:1.
But that really flew infact after I sold it it was used to pull a bulker on coal in South Wales during the Steel strke, they reckoned it could leave 1/4 hour after the convoy and overtake it, how true that is I don’t know perhaps someone can confirm this?
Regards Pat