I had the 1735 in the picture below brand new in 1989, slightly cramped compared to an F12 or an R cab Scania, but it would take a well driven 142 to leave it behind on a hill and doing Austria and Italy it saw plenty of hills. Top speed on it was mental, the mirrors would fold back (with a bang) long before it ran out of revs, coincidentally the top speed came as a result of the only problem it had whilst I had it.
Initially it, like all Merc SK,had a factory speed limiter set to 110km/h, I was in South Mimms and lost my throttle when I went to leave, Merc came out from the Edgware Rd and fixed it, but "unfortunately " I lost the speed limiter in the process, the fitter told me it would go off the clock, he was right too.
The EPS was never any trouble, either reliability wise or from a driver’s perspective, EPS was a switch instead of a gear lever and used as it was intended it was fine, a little slow compared to a Fuller, but no slower than a ZF ecosplit with that horrible slap across range change. Also I religiously ran the box through its reset cycle at least once a week, IIRC you had the engine off and ignition on, then hit the function button and pushed the stick forwards, the opposite of getting reverse basically, can’t remember if the clutch had to be up or down, but it went through every gear and recalibrated itself.
As some of you know and the rest of you will now know the story behind my username, I was once briefly a salesman for a Merc dealer and they are, shall we say, not the best. Wandering around the yard on a smoke break i would see the same lorries sat there for weeks at a time and more than once I was shown the door and told to stay away by people that had a bad experience with Merc in the past, it wasn’t so much the lorries, no matter what badge is on the grille, the lorry that doesn’t break down is yet to be made, it was the dealer service every time.