Got some work coming up on an 18 tonner Axor, the guy said it’s only got 6 straight gears? Surely not for an 18 tonner? It’s a 55 plate.
The 32 ton (32520 kgs) A series ERF had six forward gears and you needed four of them to reach 25 mph, leaving two gears to get you from 25 to its top speed of 60 mph.
Not only did this feat of British engineering have too few gears and not enough power, it had no power steering and the clutch was operated by levers.
It was ear damagingly noisy, cripplingly uncomfortable and the best thing the one I had to drive ever did was to freeze up and crack its block which resulted in a one way trip to the auctions with wondaweld in the radiator instead of water.
Look on your ride in the Mercedes as a rest from the need to change lots of gears.
Regards,
Nick.
18 tonners with a 4 over 4 slapbox that they find for training vehicles are the rarity. Most 18 tonners will just have 6 forward and 1 reverse with no range change. Lightly loaded you’ll only need 2-6 as 1st is often very nearly a crawler.
sam the place i work has an 18 ton with 6 forward gears and one reverse its an 03 plate volvo its a heap of sh— 
its very slow buts its ok to drive 
Straight 6 is very common on most makes of 18 tonne. Instructors have to buy 8+ geared versions for the purposes of test. Range changers etc are a pain. When driving big I like auto, less work.
P.S enjoy PJH 
Redrorry:
Straight 6 is very common on most makes of 18 tonne. Instructors have to buy 8+ geared versions for the purposes of test. Range changers etc are a pain. When driving big I like auto, less work.P.S enjoy PJH
Enjoy whut? lol
Thanks for clearing that up guys, I thought anything over 7.5t would have 8+
Quite a common box, just drives like a car.
Havnt driven a merc but with the dafs you dont need to use the clutch to change gear, going up is straight forward enough, going down requires a blip of the throttle, quite useful if you’ve got a drink inbetween your legs.
Our firm has 18 Tonne DAFs and they are all 6 speeders. I like a decent gearbox and the DAFs aren’t bad. Interesting about the Axors, we are supposed to be getting some next year to replace the DAFs.