I’d just like to say, I was there when the idea came up(transport manager, for my sins),if I remember rightly it was that or no cab at all, due the amount of rot. We had a shunter stolen from geddington road , only had 3 gears, all in low range, no lights but they still managed to get it to corby town centre and abandon it.
We had more odd balls, scania 92’s with 110 or 111 backends, a 92 with a roadranger box,I suggested we could do with a 6 wheel rigid, so colin said 'pick a unit and we’ll make one.he also built his own trailers.
colin was an extreme ‘in house’ boss
the half cabs were used in corby steel works, made for an even lighter tare weight
I’d just like to say, I was there when the idea came up(transport manager, for my sins),if I remember rightly it was that or no cab at all, due the amount of rot. We had a shunter stolen from geddington road , only had 3 gears, all in low range, no lights but they still managed to get it to corby town centre and abandon it.
We had more odd balls, scania 92’s with 110 or 111 backends, a 92 with a roadranger box,I suggested we could do with a 6 wheel rigid, so colin said 'pick a unit and we’ll make one.he also built his own trailers.
colin was an extreme ‘in house’ boss
the half cabs were used in corby steel works, made for an even lighter tare weight
So the distance truck was over weight ? interesting to hear from a manager , but loading in Corby was often a long job , so the full cab was needed to have the sleep , do you remember the Albion Clydesdale and Leyland Badger you had in Corby shunting , they must have been light ie i ton or so less than an F86
hi
loading in corby was a long job, and the internal shunters solved the problem. you just left the whole rig in the queue, and went and got another shunt motor, 1 shunter driver could have 3 trucks on the go at the same time. the road going trucks just went in empty swapped trailers and came out again. shunt trucks were a motley collection , DAF 2100 , leyland buffaloes, the odd scania 110/111, F86, etc. Colin would trawl the auctions for anything cheap , he did buy a really good F10, put it on as a road going tractor, but couldn’t put up with the drivers bickering over who should have it , so it ended up a works shunter.the 110 and 111’s ended up as rear axle donor vehicles for the 92’s when they started banging out half shafts.
26-27 tonne payload was the optimum mark for a load , obviously easily achievable with the kit being used in the works, you had to gross 38 tonnes or under when you went on the weighbridge, and could be delivered with a P92 scania and aluminium floored trailer. 24 tonne on a trailer with a crane. what the load actually went up the road on and was pulled by ,was sometimes another matter.
The ERF c series i drove for 4 years could do 26750kgs on a flat and 24000kgs with a crane trailer.
WE used to load our Danish Tilt TIR trailers in Corby , but could be a full day or more in there , later they did a deal wid Hightrack haulage ? to load them for us , so we could just swap over any time and make a dash for the ferry you have till midnight to get the ship they would say , then you can sleep , one of our drivers broke his foot stripping out his trailer wid his clogs on , we put back the trailer for him and he drove to the ferry on handgas
hightrack haulage were in geddington road in corby. they did a bit of subbing for ferrymasters in desborough when i worked for FM in the 70’s. they packed in transport and did all sorts of transport related work instead , shunting being one of them i think. Davis did the shunting and loading of ferrymaster trailers in the works for a time in the klate 70’s as , like you, we quickly found out what a ball ache loading in corby tube works was, time consuming , all day to load 1 trailer , especially in EWSR was not unusual.that was the first time i met colin , i took a 30’ flat over to corby to drop off so that he could load it. i did actually load a tilt in there once , god awful job, stripping the roof out was the easy bit, watching the non work activity going on brought tears to your eyes.
when i worked for davis in the 80’s it was basically a case of PCHoward and HC Davis having 90% of the work and if i remember rightly we had around 4 shunt drivers on days and a couple on nights.
i know , different these days (he wouldn’t get away with what he did then now) , TBH , the best thing he did for me was to make me redundant (monday 0700 start , monday 0715 comes in and makes me redundant, and gives me cheque and taxi fare, monday 0720 leaves office , with now redundant transport manager as the sole occupant of the ‘portakabin on a trailer’ traffic office,in the trailer park of BSC) as i got a job at swifts in northampton and went on to become day traffic manager there , which kept me in honest employment for the next 15 years.
I f you went to Swifts you probably came across an old friend of mine, Malcolm Mortimer (roadrunner) he worked in the offices there for a long time. He’s at Baylis’/Culina at Wolverhampton now.
BRS was also in Corby for many years , one of thier drivers was killed in a new Sedd - Atki 400 day cab when the tubes slid , a Cousins of Waddingham F88 driver was overtaking a farm tractor trailer when it turned right on the old A43 from Weldon , he got tubes smashed into his radio because the Volvo cabin saved his live ,only through the rear window came the load on the 88
backsplice:
I was lucky to have been allocated 2 of these little beauties during my time at D&D Transport Dundee but also remember Allisons Freightlines Dundeewhile I was with them getting several on demonstration from Ailsa Motors of Barrhead they had an E reg so that would have been around the mid 60,s
My Dad was at Allisons late 1960’s at Glasgow and when they moved to near the steel mill at Gartcosh and he informs me the F86’s were E and F reg and on the steel contracts for Colvilles.
Hiya Wheeltapper my dad also worked for Allisons out of there Nottingham depot his name is Mick Norman is your dad still alive ?
Bewick:
My biggest gripe about the earlier Volvos was their none standard wheels which couldn’t be used on any other motor,we only ever had the one a 240 F88 and I well remember a right "set to " I had one Sunday with Tyre Services because of a tyre failure they had caused on this F88,we hadn’t got a spare so had to get the tyre fitter out,the up shot of this debacle was Tyre Services lost a good customer as I kicked them into touch and it was all because of the non standard Volvo wheel.However,I never rated the F86 although I will concede that they were very popular especially where they supported by a good Dealer,was it Billows round Northampton ? and in our area it was Taits.Cheers Bewick.
Hi Dennis,
I think? The small wheel hub goes back to what Volvo initially planned,I.e. to sell the truck to new and exsisting customers within the North American market.my peterbilt has the same stud pattern.i also know for a fact that the 290,which was only for the u.k. And Ireland were standard size rims with European stud pattern.
Regards andrew.
Bewick:
My biggest gripe about the earlier Volvos was their none standard wheels which couldn’t be used on any other motor,we only ever had the one a 240 F88 and I well remember a right "set to " I had one Sunday with Tyre Services because of a tyre failure they had caused on this F88,we hadn’t got a spare so had to get the tyre fitter out,the up shot of this debacle was Tyre Services lost a good customer as I kicked them into touch and it was all because of the non standard Volvo wheel.However,I never rated the F86 although I will concede that they were very popular especially where they supported by a good Dealer,was it Billows round Northampton ? and in our area it was Taits.Cheers Bewick.
Hi Dennis,
I think? The small wheel hub goes back to what Volvo initially planned,I.e. to sell the truck to new and exsisting customers within the North American market.my peterbilt has the same stud pattern.i also know for a fact that the 290,which was only for the u.k. And Ireland were standard size rims with European stud pattern.
Regards andrew.
Bewick:
My biggest gripe about the earlier Volvos was their none standard wheels which couldn’t be used on any other motor,we only ever had the one a 240 F88 and I well remember a right "set to " I had one Sunday with Tyre Services because of a tyre failure they had caused on this F88,we hadn’t got a spare so had to get the tyre fitter out,the up shot of this debacle was Tyre Services lost a good customer as I kicked them into touch and it was all because of the non standard Volvo wheel.However,I never rated the F86 although I will concede that they were very popular especially where they supported by a good Dealer,was it Billows round Northampton ? and in our area it was Taits.Cheers Bewick.
Hi Dennis,
I think? The small wheel hub goes back to what Volvo initially planned,I.e. to sell the truck to new and exsisting customers within the North American market.my peterbilt has the same stud pattern.i also know for a fact that the 290,which was only for the u.k. And Ireland were standard size rims with European stud pattern.
Regards andrew.
Thanks for that nugget of info Andrew ,so thats the reason why the early Volvos had none standard hubs,I bet it caused some aggro up and down the UK,well OK, not if you had a 100% Volvo fleet but a pain in the arse if not,which we found out.Then again if a firm ran a decent tyre policy you weren’t forever having to change wheels and tyres.Apart from that one problem,which was bad,we never experienced another one IIRC but it sure put me off buying anymore Volvos with that wheel spec.As you say mate when the 290’s came in their hub assemblies were standard so that particular problem evaporated Cheers Dennis.
Hiya,
Ah’ the f86 great as a rigid 6 wheeler or even an 8 wheeler if not travelling too far
afield but I rated them poor as a 32 tonner and equated them to those Scania 80s
which were rubbish at that weight very underpowered I know I’ve driven both.
thanks harry, long retired.
harry_gill:
Hiya,
Ah’ the f86 great as a rigid 6 wheeler or even an 8 wheeler if not travelling too far
afield but I rated them poor as a 32 tonner and equated them to those Scania 80s
which were rubbish at that weight very underpowered I know I’ve driven both.
thanks harry, long retired.
I remember BRS corby getting 86’s and all the old boys saying they couldnt believe the comfort the volvo had compared to the mandators , big j’s , seddons etc they replaced , to them having a motor that had power steering ,a heater that ‘worked’ a radio you could actually hear was more important than power and most of their traffic was steel from the works
,so thats the reason why the early Volvos had none standard hubs,I bet it caused some aggro up and down the UK,well OK, not if you had a 100% Volvo fleet but a pain in the arse if not,which we found out.Then again if a firm ran a decent tyre policy 
Cheers Dennis.
