Hi Tarmactipper, yes the early 78/79/80 8 wheelers were ours, i left Rylands around 81 when the recession hit and moved to Lancashire Truck at Liverpool, the Volvo dealers, and what an eye opener they were, i will always have Seddon Atkinson as my first love but the Volvo,s were on a different level, particularly the F10/F12, superb trucks, the later 400,s early 80,s onwards would have come from Ryland Preston.
Dennis, i think Hardman,s were a sub dealer of ours, i remember them complaining frequently that they never got any Gardners, most of
our allocation of tractor unit,s went to Ancliff, Philmac, Holt Lane and others who would pay an inflated price as i remember.
Apart from the air intake issue which caused many problems the other issue which caused much angst was the stupid front grilles, the design
of which changed every 6 months !!!, we had to feed stupid metal trim strips onto the grill which then rusted immediately and fell off !!!
If anyone knows of a restored 400 for sale please let me know, i really want one !!!