ParkRoyal2100:
tonyj105:
wasn’t the spicer fitted to early roadtrains and didn’t exactly win any popularity contests , i think the roadranger embedded itself with operators because it was such a good box in early 70’s lorries (when you could choose the drivetrain), and why change to something else which probably wasn’t as good ,
From what I’ve read it was fitted to T45s - I’m just wondering why it was nowhere near as commonplace as an Eaton.
RHD T45/Roadtrains were sold in Britain with Spicer 'boxes as standard. LHD models sold on the Continent were fitted with 9 or 13-sp Fuller 'boxes as standard because that’s what the French and Dutch (in particular) wanted. The French liked theirs with a RR 350 0r TL 12 and 9-sp Fuller. I know which 'box I’d prefer!
gingerfold:
I was on the late shift at Turners one evening and an agency driver reported for duty. He was allocated an ERF with a twin-splitter and as it happened, unusually, it was coupled to a trailer ready to go. About 45 minutes later we got a telephone call off the cab phone and he was in a layby on the Cambridge bypass, and he was almost in tears, saying he was beaten by the gearbox and couldn’t go any further. I took the phone, calmed the driver down and offered to talk him through how to drive the ERF. I thought at the time “this won’t work, but I’ll give it a go”. So with my guidance he got in gear and set off and I talked him through every gear change for about 20 minutes, and I actually brought him off the dual carriageway and up a slip road, round a roundabout and back onto the main road so that he could change down the box. As he seemed to have got the hang of it I left him to it. Next evening he was back with us again, and fair does to him, he came and thanked me, shook my hand, and told me it was the best bit of instruction on driving he had been given. For that night’s shift he’d been allocated a Volvo, but he asked for an ERF twin-splitter, he was definitely a convert.
Good stuff that Gingerfold, well done.
Similarly about 15 years ago got a phone call from my son, he’d passed his class 1 literally weeks before and was doing some agency work where the agency could blag him in as having at least 2 years under his belt 
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Anyway, he’d been given a week’s work on a Constructor 8 wheel tipper that had, yes, an ETS box, ‘how the hell do i drive this?’ a phrase that probably most of us uttered the first time we tried one.
Well i gave him the rudiments and qualified it by telling him how lucky he was these days to find such a box in a working vehicle, he wasn’t exactly in agreement 
Of course he played a tune on it for while, we all did for a period of time till we got the hang of them, but to this day he says how glad he is for that experience and how anything after that was he was thrown the keys for was a doddle in comparison.
salvesen in rowley regis had a problem with an EC 6 wheel rigid ( most of the salvo fleet was daf/volvo by then , we had inherited a few of these EC’s for oil deliveries , curtainsiders fitteds with pumps), fitted with an eaton 8 speed box, drivers just kept defecting it for clutch / gearbox usual stuff. they asked if i could go over from northampton and have a look as the workshop were completely stumped and apparently i was the resident helpful ERF expert ,so my depot manger happened to be going that way for a meeting and i tagged along. saw morris in the workshop , jumped into his problem EC with him, set off down the road , and surprisingly there was bugger all wrong with it , one of the best set ups i’d come across. they just hadn’t got anybody who could use the box and nobody who could show them how to drive it , once he knew how it worked the problem went away. when we got rid of them i had to show the geezer who picked ours up how to work it as well .
One of the contractors who carted blocks from our quarry bought a new Mercedes with the EPS gearbox to replace a Foden; the driver wasn’t keen on it at first but after a while once he got used to it he remarked about how easy it made driving. Other folk obviously had issues with them though. I never had experience of a Twin Splitter but they seem rather complicated to drive compared to the Foden 'boxes that I learnt on in the seventies. 
Pete.
i had a geezer parked an EPS merc nose up to a wall and turned it off in gear. that was problematical ,it just sat there laughing while i tried to start the bugger .
windrush:
One of the contractors who carted blocks from our quarry bought a new Mercedes with the EPS gearbox to replace a Foden; the driver wasn’t keen on it at first but after a while once he got used to it he remarked about how easy it made driving. Other folk obviously had issues with them though. I never had experience of a Twin Splitter but they seem rather complicated to drive compared to the Foden 'boxes that I learnt on in the seventies.
Pete.
ETS is probably the natural successor to the Foden box Pete, if you think of the Foden box but instead of unequal splits they were equal instead, that’s basically it.
Also a much less violent reaction from the box for a missed gear, anyone who drove the old ones with the air split shifter on the steering column (i never drove the previous twin sticked jobbies) will know just how hard that stick could jarr your wrist in protest at what you failed to do swiftly and accurately enough 
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Clutch** only needed for starting off and coming to a final halt, otherwise to use all 12 speeds select a gear from the 4 available and go up through all 3 splits in that same gear, obviously pre selecting low split as you shifted up to the next gear and repeat, you could block change any number of gears either way, anyone who was used to a Foden 12 speed would feel quite at home with an ETS in short order.
Merc’s EPS i hated with a vengeance and that goes for their automated manual boxes since.
** so long as it worked correctly the clutch/gearbox brake button at the bottom of the clutch pedal on ETS vehicles could be used to speed up and assist shifts at any time, using this made gearshifts happen as fast as you could hit that clutch pedal to the floor and back meaning progress was constant, in practice you wouldn’t use it continually and in theory you could end up selecting an unsuitable gear which clutchless changes wouldn’t allow and not many workshops* seemed bothered about any clutch brakes anyway.
Most of my time with ETS was in an MAN F90, a high revving engine that would increase and drop revs really quickly taking full advantage of all the good points of the box.
*Back when i had a SedAck 401 with Roadranger box i made our fitter laugh one Christmas when his family opened the cards, my message was ‘‘Happy Christmas Mick ps. clutch brake adjust required’’
Juddian:
windrush:
One of the contractors who carted blocks from our quarry bought a new Mercedes with the EPS gearbox to replace a Foden; the driver wasn’t keen on it at first but after a while once he got used to it he remarked about how easy it made driving. Other folk obviously had issues with them though. I never had experience of a Twin Splitter but they seem rather complicated to drive compared to the Foden 'boxes that I learnt on in the seventies.
Pete.
ETS is probably the natural successor to the Foden box Pete, if you think of the Foden box but instead of unequal splits they were equal instead, that’s basically it.
Also a much less violent reaction from the box for a missed gear, anyone who drove the old ones with the air split shifter on the steering column (i never drove the previous twin sticked jobbies) will know just how hard that stick could jarr your wrist in protest at what you failed to do swiftly and accurately enough .
Clutch** only needed for starting off and coming to a final halt, otherwise to use all 12 speeds select a gear from the 4 available and go up through all 3 splits in that same gear, obviously pre selecting low split as you shifted up to the next gear and repeat, you could block change any number of gears either way, anyone who was used to a Foden 12 speed would feel quite at home with an ETS in short order.
Merc’s EPS i hated with a vengeance and that goes for their automated manual boxes since.
** so long as it worked correctly the clutch/gearbox brake button at the bottom of the clutch pedal on ETS vehicles could be used to speed up and assist shifts at any time, using this made gearshifts happen as fast as you could hit that clutch pedal to the floor and back meaning progress was constant, in practice you wouldn’t use it continually and in theory you could end up selecting an unsuitable gear which clutchless changes wouldn’t allow and not many workshops* seemed bothered about any clutch brakes anyway.
Most of my time with ETS was in an MAN F90, a high revving engine that would increase and drop revs really quickly taking full advantage of all the good points of the box.
*Back when i had a SedAck 401 with Roadranger box i made our fitter laugh one Christmas when his family opened the cards, my message was ‘‘Happy Christmas Mick ps. clutch brake adjust required’’
I found the best way to change with the twin splitter was to keep my foot on the throttle, preselect the gear and move the stick out of gear and back in again as fast as possible,
It was amazingly fast! Happy days with that ERF. 
Regards Kev.
We never bothered with clutch brakes anyway, most of the Foden ones either leaked air or fell apart letting the layshaft drop and the ones on the Fuller boxes used to shear the tags keying them to the primary shaft and rotated uselessly! However adjusting clutches was very driver dependant at Tilcon, two tanker drivers who were both rather short in the leg department liked them adjusted totally different! Vernon Wibberley liked his clutch to bite right at the top, my leg hit the steering wheel before the clutch bit when driving his truck, but Bert Weston always wanted his to bite about two inches off of the floor so he could work the clutch with his heel still on the cab floor. One size obviously doesn’t fit all! 
Pete.