AEC V8

[zb_anorak]

ERF:

[zb]
anorak:
The gehuine Ergo sleeper has a longer window, two depressions around that window and an external spotweld seam between the quarter panel and the back panel. The high roof one has only one depression around the glass, the back panel is all one piece with the quarter panel and the coachbuilder has left his mark with a trim strip between that panel and the fill-in panel behind the wheelarch.

I reckon those cabs were day cabs when they got to the ice cream van factory, and those craftsmen did the whole job of expanding them to their finished size…

My understanding of it (and I’m open to correction, as always) is that the high roof sleeper cab was manufactured entirely by Sankey / GKN. They were built using special side and rear pressings manufactured just for this cab. If you follow the gutter around the roof, you can see there is no overlap joint behind the door, indicating that the gutter was manufactured as one pressing incorporating the extended rear section, the same can be seen on the Sankey low roof sleeper cab.

“So what?” you ask, well the Ergomatic gutter is actually a complex pressing that extends under the roof skin and forms a box section that is part of the cab’s structural integrity. It is not pressed as part of the panels underneath it (screen aperture, door frame, rear panel), although it was supplied attached to these panels for service replacement. To extend the gutter (box section) pressing after manufacture is not impossible, but is difficult, which is why the likes of Jennings completely remove the rear part of it, weakening the cab in the process, and overlap the remainder with their sleeper conversion for this cab.

To the best of my knowledge, Leyland Group didn’t feature any aftermarket cab conversions in their marketing material. The high roof sleeper cab does appear in some brochures, notably the Mandator V8, but I can’t find it actually listed as an option in writing anywhere!. But then the low roof sleeper cab isn’t actually option listed in writing within any AEC marketing brochure that I have either…

I am also prone to correction(!). I thought I had read on one of the other Ergo threads (on TNUK) that the high roof ones were sent out to a fibreglass shop (Sparshatt’s■■?) to have their hats fitted, although I am starting to doubt it a bit now. The cab definitely looks shorter in the BBC dimension than the factory low-roof sleeper. The top looks very much like a moulding, as do the rear quarters.

With regards to the gutter panel, it would not be beyond a coachbuilder to cut and shut a factory panel, even to the extent of leaving a perfect ■■■■ joint. If the work was done for Leyland, as I was assuming, the supplier would be free-issued with whatever standard parts he wanted.

I will try to find the source of the information I have half forgotten. Edit- I’ve been through the “Best Ergo” thread up to page 18, with no success so far.

[zb_anorak]

Just found this:
flickr.com/photos/semmytrai … 034675115/
The text says it is a factory sleeper, but it is clearly different from the “normal” one. Like the high roof version, the external seam is missing from the quarter panel/back panel joint.

[erf]

[zb]
anorak:
I thought I had read on one of the other Ergo threads (on TNUK) that the high roof ones were sent out to a fibreglass shop (Sparshatt’s■■?) to have their hats fitted, although I am starting to doubt it a bit now. The cab definitely looks shorter in the BBC dimension than the factory low-roof sleeper. The top looks very much like a moulding, as do the rear quarters.

With regards to the gutter panel, it would not be beyond a coachbuilder to cut and shut a factory panel, even to the extent of leaving a perfect ■■■■ joint. If the work was done for Leyland, as I was assuming, the supplier would be free-issued with whatever standard parts he wanted.

You have ignited a long forgotten memory there!.
Sparshatt’s Metal Bodies Ltd. Part of the sprawling Sparshatt empire on the South Coast of England.
You are absolutely correct, Sparshatt did produce a two-berth sleeper cab conversion for the Ergomatic cab which first appeared (I think) at the 1968 Earls Court show.
You are also correct to refer to the vertical seam behind the door which is clearly visible as an external joint on the Sankey low roof sleeper extension, but not so clear on the high roof. The seam is in fact still present, but not as clear - I had always put that down to the joint seam being inverted to run up the inside of the cab rather than the outside - but thinking about it, why would they bother?.

Now I’ve been doing a bit of digging, and that seam is interesting. The sleeper cabs with the seam showing clearly are unquestionably Sankey / GKN produced cabs in their entirety. The sleeper cabs with the feint seam look to be Sparshatt’s conversions. The only photos I can find of the Sparshatt’s cab are the one you linked above (Paul’s caption on Flickr for the photo is wrong)…

And this one…

As you have noted in your comments above, the high roof sleeper seems to have identical side extension panels to the Sparshatt’s cab…

…That leads me to believe that yes, these high roof cabs were indeed most probably Sparshatt’s conversions.
A very surprising conclusion to me.
GKN Sankey was a massive company in the 1960’s with an annual turnover of £24 Million in 1969. They were producing cabs for Leyland Group, Rootes Group, Ford Agricultural Machinery, chassis frame rails for almost every builder in the country along with wheels and goodness knows what else. They had a large composite moulding department producing all manor of things, and yet it looks like a relatively small coachbuilder on the South Coast was converting their cab AND it was appearing in Leyland’s own marketing material!. Quite amazing really - especially as I maintain they MUST have been using original Sankey pressings to extend the roof gutter as nicely as they did. It does make you wonder why JH Jennings started producing their awful bodge conversion in the mid 70’s when something clearly much better engineered in the form of the Sparshatt conversion was already out there. Cost perhaps?.

Just as an aside whist we are talking cabs, the Sankey / GKN cabs differ from Motor Panels in a crucial way. The main panel joints on a Sankey Ergomatic cab are not spot welded, they are roller welded in exactly the same way that fuel tanks are manufactured. Motor Panels cabs are spot welded together in the normal way. In theory this should give the Ergo much better resistance to water creeping into the seams and causing corrosion, but in reality they both rust at an alarming rate!. It was always stated that the Ergomatic cab was immersion primed at the Sankey works, and perhaps it was, but I have cut into a few Ergo cabs to find no paint at all on the inside of the double skinned sections, just a light covering of primer dust in the bottom of the cavity!. When my V8 cab went back to GKN to be E coat primed it went through a ten stage fully automated conveyor process, eight stages of which were cleaning tanks to completely remove contamination. The last two tanks were the primer into which the cab was completely submerged whilst an electric current was passed through it to draw the primer into every seam. Then followed a forced drying chamber where it was heated to around 300 deg/c. All a far cry from the 1960’s single tank system they had there when the Ergomatic cabs were built.

[gingerfold]

cav551:
The figure for cabs reveals just how popular the Mercury was in the medium weight sector. Are there any similar records for AV505 production? and as a comparison any breakdown for Leyland or Albion Tilt cabs?

AEC AV / AH 505 engine production ran at an average 4000 units per annum for several years. If you take, say 9 years from 1966 to 1975 as being the halcyon years of Mercury and Marshal sales then they would probably use 2100 to 2200 engines annually. Guy took 1100 to 1200 engines per annum for Big Js, leaving the others for Reliance and Swift PSVs. Seddon also took some AV505s.

[erf]

gingerfold:

cav551:
The figure for cabs reveals just how popular the Mercury was in the medium weight sector. Are there any similar records for AV505 production? and as a comparison any breakdown for Leyland or Albion Tilt cabs?

AEC AV / AH 505 engine production ran at an average 4000 units per annum for several years. If you take, say 9 years from 1966 to 1975 as being the halcyon years of Mercury and Marshal sales then they would probably use 2100 to 2200 engines annually. Guy took 1100 to 1200 engines per annum for Big Js, leaving the others for Reliance and Swift PSVs. Seddon also took some AV505s.

Am I right in saying that Coles also took quite a lot of AV 505’s for their cranes?

[zb_anorak]

ERF:
…
You have ignited a long forgotten memory there!..

How my own rotting memory dragged up Spashatt’s name, with reference to the high roof Ergo, I do not know. The information is somewhere in this forum, I think.

Why would a huge engineering group turn to a much smaller firm of artisans to do the high roof conversions? I would say the expected (initial) volumes were too small for GKN to cover the cost of switching the lights on. I would speculate that, if the V8 had been successful, a steel high roof would have been engineered to go on top of the GKN sleeper cab.

Those photographs show cabs which differ from each other, as well as the standard Ergo sleeper. The split screen 6x4 tractor has the window frame swaged into the panel, while the fridge rigid and the high roof rigid appear to have plain panels. The fridge lorry has the window in a different place, almost abutting the B post. The LHD rigid I found on the “Best Ergo” thread has a larger, swaged-in window.

I too (originally) thought the quarter panel seam was inverted on the converted cabs. Physically inverting the seam is asking for trouble with stretching of the material, so your explanation carries some weight. Given that the Sparshatt’s (I still want to see the original text saying that the high roof cabs were done there. I’m obsessed now!) cabs were shorter front-to-back, I would guess that the quarter panels were simply cut to length and brazed onto the rear panel. There would be no need for the flange on the rear panel, so it could be ground off.

Resistance welds have the best fatigue performance and least distortion. They are far superior to fusion welds. Roller welds are therefore the absolute pinnacle of sheetmetal joining techniques. I wonder why the Ergo was equipped with such lavish engineering? In those days, cabs were sheds, with only the Swedes showing any care for crash safety. Maybe Leyland/Sankey were paranoid about the extra stresses caused by tilting the cab? IIRC, Issigonis’ Mini had a roller weld in the roof gutter, although that also seems like an extravagant feature, considering the cheap design of the rest of the shell. Maybe I have remembered that incorrectly? I should be rebuilding my own Mini later in the year, so I’ll have a look then.

Electrophoretic priming of a restoration cab or shell must be as good as it gets. I would still be tempted to go mad with oil injection, for the sake of belt and braces. An acquaintance of mine used to use casting preserver. The “light” version of it would actually creep across a panel, over time. I bet his restoration is still unblemished by corrosion, a quarter of a century on. Imagine the oil, working away unseen to completely cover the interior surfaces of the cavities, while you sleep!

[gingerfold]

ERF:

gingerfold:

cav551:
The figure for cabs reveals just how popular the Mercury was in the medium weight sector. Are there any similar records for AV505 production? and as a comparison any breakdown for Leyland or Albion Tilt cabs?

AEC AV / AH 505 engine production ran at an average 4000 units per annum for several years. If you take, say 9 years from 1966 to 1975 as being the halcyon years of Mercury and Marshal sales then they would probably use 2100 to 2200 engines annually. Guy took 1100 to 1200 engines per annum for Big Js, leaving the others for Reliance and Swift PSVs. Seddon also took some AV505s.

Am I right in saying that Coles also took quite a lot of AV 505’s for their cranes?

Yes, Coles used AV505 industrial versions in the crane and they used every type of AEC engine from the pre-WW2 7.7 through to the AV760. Thinking about it a bit more the 4000 units pa for A505s was from 1971 to 1975, and by 1975 AEC sales were declining as Leyland forced customers away from AEC’s by putting prices up for spares. Between 1966 and 1971 production figures for A505s were probably nearer the 5000 pa figure if you factor in stationary engines, exports, and others. Albion built a sizable number of Reiver concrete mixers with AV505 engines and I think that Dennis took some as well.

[ramone]

3 AEC Sleepers with high roofs

[gingerfold]

cav551:
The figure for cabs reveals just how popular the Mercury was in the medium weight sector. Are there any similar records for AV505 production? and as a comparison any breakdown for Leyland or Albion Tilt cabs?

There will be figures for Albion and Leyland Ergomatic cab models, but I have not got them. Albion’s production figures will be nowhere near those of AEC and Leyland. Albion only built medium weight 4 and 6 wheelers and Ergo cabbed Albion production ran from 1966 to 1971 ish. Leyland continued building high datum Ergo cabbed models until 1979 / 80; the Bison proved to be a popular and durable tipper for its last 3 or 4 years of production. I would think that Leyland’s production of Ergo cabbed models was close that of AEC.

[ramone]

gingerfold:

cav551:
The figure for cabs reveals just how popular the Mercury was in the medium weight sector. Are there any similar records for AV505 production? and as a comparison any breakdown for Leyland or Albion Tilt cabs?

There will be figures for Albion and Leyland Ergomatic cab models, but I have not got them. Albion’s production figures will be nowhere near those of AEC and Leyland. Albion only built medium weight 4 and 6 wheelers and Ergo cabbed Albion production ran from 1966 to 1971 ish. Leyland continued building high datum Ergo cabbed models until 1979 / 80; the Bison proved to be a popular and durable tipper for its last 3 or 4 years of production. I would think that Leyland’s production of Ergo cabbed models was close that of AEC.

Would 1971 be the year the G cab was introduced ?

[zb_anorak]

ramone:
Would 1971 be the year the G cab was introduced ?

flickr.com/groups/1188441@N23/

[gingerfold]

Just found this photo amongst some Leylands of one of the New Zealand 2VTG Mandator V8 six-wheelers. It was a Domett bodied tipper and trailer, with a BPW trailing axle, also fitted by Domett. It operated from Invercargill.

[zb_anorak]

I thought I had seen a picture of a 2VTG6 tractor, with the “works” flat-top sleeper cab, on here somewhere. I can’t find it now. If it exists, would someone please reprint it here.

[deanb]

Advert.

Click on pages twice to read.

[cav551]

We got a little distracted by ergo cabs and then it went quiet. So what were the woes with finding a decent crankshaft for the restoration? Obviously not easy since after the merger AEC started to follow Leyland practice with some engines to Nitride the journals, which means that the process has to be repeated if the regrind breaks through the hardening layer.

[zb_anorak]

Thought I’d seen something like this before:

The ultimate AEC?

Incidentally, what has happened to SCA***J? The last phot I have seen of it shows it looking a bit sorry for itself, sitting in the drive of a house.

[deanb]

AEC V8

Click on pages twice to read.

[gingerfold]

I have resurrected this thread to give news of the 30 years, painstaking, and meticulous restoration of the AEC Mandator V8 carried out by poster with the handle ERF.

Some months ago he sent me photos of his completed project on the agreement that I would never put them into the public domain. Whilst this is a pity, I can understand ERF’s reasoning and I will honour our agreement unless he tells me otherwise.

The project is completed, the AEC Mandator V8 is restored in its original owner’s livery and the result can only be described as absolutely stunning. Without a doubt this has got to be the most complete, meticulous, and thorough restoration of any lorry in the UK. The time and money invested in his project is probably incalculable. ERF has got to be congratulated and I am in awe of his skills.

Unfortunately ERF no longer posts on TN, which is a great shame because he has plenty to offer to any thread. I will leave it to you to deduce his reason for no longer contributing to TN.

[ramone]

gingerfold:
I have resurrected this thread to give news of the 30 years, painstaking, and meticulous restoration of the AEC Mandator V8 carried out by poster with the handle ERF.

Some months ago he sent me photos of his completed project on the agreement that I would never put them into the public domain. Whilst this is a pity, I can understand ERF’s reasoning and I will honour our agreement unless he tells me otherwise.

The project is completed, the AEC Mandator V8 is restored in its original owner’s livery and the result can only be described as absolutely stunning. Without a doubt this has got to be the most complete, meticulous, and thorough restoration of any lorry in the UK. The time and money invested in his project is probably incalculable. ERF has got to be congratulated and I am in awe of his skills.

Unfortunately ERF no longer posts on TN, which is a great shame because he has plenty to offer to any thread. I will leave it to you to deduce his reason for no longer contributing to TN.

I remember him posting on here and going into detail what he was doing with his V8. I wasn’t aware of the timescale that was involved but it’s a great shame we can’t see the results of his efforts. I can only assume as to why he no longer posts on here but everyone who has an interest in old British lorries will miss what sounds like a truly stunning lorry

[gingerfold]

^^^^^^
In external and cab interior presentation think of a Commercial Motor Show exhibit and then some. I have an invitation to view it which I will do.