Mans truck.
In my young twenties I was forced to learn these with no one to guide me. All the old hand “heroes” hated them and went quiet when asked to drive one. As a result all the poor ERFs lay in the yard with no one to drive them whilst the old buggers who worked for Christian Salvensen waited for the Volvo F12s or FLs or Merc powerliners
Now, the EC! I’ve had dubious pleasure of making musical tunes on both an E10 (very ancient) and an EC. Clutch is sharp on ERFs anyway. Seen many a fully loaded ERF hopping whilst pulling away. You need good air pressure to use the gearbox and clutch properly. Unlike modern trucks that bleep if the air is too low and divorce you from electronic selection of the auto gears, these old girls will allow you to try but will make a fool out of you and you’ll have a heavy left foot and be playing musical notes.
An ERF like you drive most likely has the twin splitter gearbox. I’ll do my best to run through it, but be warned its years since I last clapped eyes on one. Your best bet is YouTubing. If you know about regular splitters forgive me for teaching Grandma to ■■■■ eggs.
The twin splitter has a gearstick with 4 forward gear positions. There is no range changer. A give away to a twin splitter is the switch on the gear stick. On the gearstick there should be a single small steel switch that moves horizontally. This small switch is really an air valve that controls the splits by pneumatics. There are 3 positions to the switch. Unlike a “splitter” gearbox say on a manual DAF, that has only 2 positions for the switch, a “twin splitter” has 3 splits for every one of the 4 gears. Twin splitter is a confusing name on first glance for a box with 3 split positions, but this is British engineering! If you remember we also built the reliant robin 3 wheeled pig around this time you shouldn’t be surprised by what you’re about to discover on your adventure with this beast.
If you don’t know what a split is, again google it. But think this. For every full gear, a split is like a refinement of that gear. So 1st gear has 1st,2nd and 3rd splits. The 3 splits are like a little gear box within each gear.
Clutch is for stopping and starting on those. Box is not designed for use of the clutch once you’re going. Just change on way up using the three splits for the 4 gear positions. Don’t ask me what I used to use for starting. Depended on the weight. It was before the days of “use every gear due wear and tear/fuel” rubbish. Trucks then required judgement. I used to start lowish gear, mid split for so and so weights, or 3rd split to make it complicated but that was after being really familiar. Never once used 1/1st split for example. You’ll get the gist, just ■■■■ about with it in the yard and have fun playing about.
Anyway. Once you get going and need to change up. There’s 2 different bits to this. Firstly, changing through splits is a doddle. You just flick the switch, come off the gas then re apply the gas and “hey presto”, you’re in the next split. Now, changing the actual full gears (there’s 4 forward gear positions). Don’t force it through the gate as if it were a normal manual truck (or car for that matter actually). You have to feed into neutral, then nurse it into the gate and feel for it taking if you know what I mean. It’s like you’re inviting the gears to sync.
Going down slightly harder when changing full gears, into neutral, match the revs, drop it in and off you go…theoretically 
. Again, nurse it into the gate with gentle pressure. You’ll feel when it takes. With the splits, flick the switch, off the gas completely, reapply the gas and it engages.
A good tip when first starting on these for going down the range when changing full gears. Whilst in neutral, blip the revs beyond what you need to rev match. When the revs start to decay, apply GENTLE pressure into the gate for the next gear. When the revs match, it’ll slot in. It’s a slower method but gets you going. When you get familiar, you’ll not need to look at the rev counter, you’ll just give it the right blip, listen to the sound and know the revs are right. It’s actually like playing an instrument. Each box is different depending on wear and tear. If you push the stick with force, it’ll grind, guaranteed. Good luck!
Fun motor once it clicks but it’s ■■■■ for stop start stuff and in traffic. Which is why we no longer have them!! Where it was great was in runs and accelerating and decelerating, so quick, like a wobbly racing car…sort of
I used to love seeing the 3 brightly colored little air pipes coming down from the twin splitter switch. Proper Heath Robinson stuff.
Robert
