marky:
Seddon-Atkinson became rather infamous for the reversed gearchange on the 400s fitted with Fuller 9-speed Roadrangers..
Especially when you ran both Sedd-Ack’s AND ERF’s! During the mid-80’s, i was working for Bill Kelly out of Langley Mill, Derbys; the cowboy to end ALL cowboys! We used to sub to Willy West’s of Ilkeston, one day I’d have to drive our old Seddon, scruffy as hell but a good runner; next day I’d end up on one of Westy’s old ERF’s . Took a fair bit of remembering which one you were in, especially in the early hours, as the dash of course was virtually identical!
West’s got into a bit of hot water with one of those ERF’s; *** 749V, known as the “Rochdale Flyer”. It was reputed to be good for nearly 90 mph with a single-axle 33’ box trailer on it, doing the Rochdale night trunk for Boots. I copped for it only once, shunting cast-iron pipes out of Stanton works, and soon took it back complaining that it wouldn’t pull the skin off a rice pud! A few weeks later the police caught it doing 85 up the M62; when the Ministry inspected it they found it had a diff from a coach, no wonder it was useless at 38 tonnes, overgeared to hell!