Thanks, i dont think anybodys been down with a tilt for ages, normally a curtainsider, or a flat or a low loader, gary lyons started a trip with a curtain but when he got to load in italy the load
Was too high so he cut it down to a flat and cracked on, a tilt would have been handy then,! Personally it kills me to open the curtains down there in day time, let alone strip a tilt down for a laugh! I doff my cap to ya !
Boxes and fridges rule!
I wouldn’t go as far Gordon John in seeing a full tilt strip-out as a good antidote to being stuck behind the wheel all day; but I certainly agree that a normal stripping out of the sides can be physically satisfying after a long spell in the driving seat. Ideally, a good fast walk clears the lungs, gets the system going and provides some exercise but there isn’t always anywhere to walk and not everywhere is safe to leave a lorry unattended. So a clamber round the side boards with a club hammer to knock out the pillars is certainly the very next best thing! There are some days when I’ve had a gruelling day morning in my office, I would gladly undo a tilt! Robert
When I was O/D on Swiss plates me and another driver turned up at this Spanish steel works with hangovers. The foreman made a swivell movement with his hand which meant roll the tilt back to the headboard . We looked at each other and laughed and drove back to basel empty. Lovely tilts on a cold wet monday morning. 
Empty back to Swiss from Spain, so my guess is that it was not the most successful O/D enterprise then Harry 
Diesel was cheap and motorway tolls were few and far between in those days . It was the Basque side of Spain ,run up to Irun,Poitiers, then cut right across the centre of France to Chalon, Bescancon, ,Colmar. ,Basel. Fuel cost a little over £100. Our base was Basel and the loads were for Italy, which was a pain. It meant going all the way along the South coast ,up to Milan across to Chiasso to change the seals on the trailer because a Swiss truck could only do return loads to Swiss. We used to load for anywhere ,pop into Swiss ,make the paperwork look like a Swiss export and deliver. You could lose a day on that. The other thing was that we would be loading in Italy for Spain and that would entail another hand jive with Chiasso border. We both had girlfriends and homes in Basel so it was a no brainer. The shipper never gave us crap loads again.
In 86 when I was still young and daft I came to Australia and did a few months on triple road trains. They still used gates and tarps (the old cotton ones) 50 feet long and 15 feet wide. Running from Adalaide to Perth was fun, but 2 days of pulling and rolling tarps in 45c heat was on the limit. I striped my tilt in Musact during the summer time and I would do that any time over gates and tarps.
Jeff…
Stripping the tilt was a chore, no matter the weather, but it was the easy part compared to putting it back together.
And I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to have rebuilt my tilt in the Gulf heat, breathing in the thick polluted air that Lawrence Kiely did when the Gulf was still on fire from Saddam’s attack on Kuwait! Pic below to remind you. Robert
harry:
When I was O/D on Swiss plates me and another driver turned up at this Spanish steel works with hangovers. The foreman made a swivell movement with his hand which meant roll the tilt back to the headboard . We looked at each other and laughed and drove back to basel empty. Lovely tilts on a cold wet monday morning.
Harry
Knowing how light them Swiss tilts were (you could sling them on top with a broom handle) you have a nerve saying you didn’t like stripping them down……now come on!!
Ossie
Nice! Mercs became very popular with Kent hauliers at the time, especially with long-haulers. Astran had a couple or so, Whitetrux had lots. Sparshatts seemed to be doing very well in those days. Just about every Kent haulier I drove for seemed to have at least one New Generation Merc in the yard. I found them really comfortable to drive and rather liked them, but I thought they were let down by their ZF gearboxes (the shift, that is, not the box itself!).
By the way, I had a Morris LD van like that blue thing tucked away to the left of the picture above. Robert
re: stripping tilts : I took this pic in 76/77 in Damman, the heat was unbearable and no way could I handle it but these walla’s wearing boiler suits stripped the tilts down as if it was the middle of winter, but the conditions had cooled off by the time I was offloaded and with assistance from my new found muckers I rebuilt the tilt. I think that this was the worst experience I had as far as heat was concerned, some memories never go away.
That one looks a real horror, especially in somewhere as hot as Dammam. When I double-manned this one to Romania, the whole village turned out to help rebuild it in the heat of the afternoon! Robert
On one of my trips to M/E pulling a box trailer when I finally got to my destination all I had to do was open the back doors. how boring is that!
Gordon John
Forest of Dean
gordon john:
On one of my trips to M/E pulling a box trailer when I finally got to my destination all I had to do was open the back doors. how boring is that!Gordon John
Forest of Dean
It must have been utterly demoralising for you, GJ; and I’ll bet the unit was automatic too. You must have felt thoroughly de-skilled by the experience. I hope you took counselling. Box trailer, indeed - they’ll never catch on! Robert
What a load of bull, Astran had box trailers ,One was a little twin axle stepframe ,drivers used to fight over who pulled it ,it never had more than 8tons of cargo,I had the pleasure of pulling this trailer on many occasions, to Doha, and Baghdad with uniforms for the police,no customs straight to the Police station in Baghdad super job for the OD ,tilts were Ok but I cant believe anyone in there right mind would want to strip a Tilt ,rather than open the back doors ,you all need to take a visit to a specialist ,who may give you a dose of therapy or a potion ,to ease your scrambled brains,I have this trailer behind me in a pic in the Long Haul Pioneers ,Parked on the Tapline with the Late John Bruce In the late 70s, the trailer was full of tech navigation parts for Racal/Deca ,systems for Navigation of oil Tankers in the Gulf ,the value was massive,a more graphic pic of this trailer is for all to see on the front cover of the Long Haul Pioneers ,
Roger Haywood
Loose-wire:
What a load of bull, Astran had box trailers ,One was a little twin axle stepframe ,drivers used to fight over who pulled it ,it never had more than 8tons of cargo,I had the pleasure of pulling this trailer on many occasions, to Doha, and Baghdad with uniforms for the police,no customs straight to the Police station in Baghdad super job for the OD ,tilts were Ok but I cant believe anyone in there right mind would want to strip a Tilt ,rather than open the back doors ,you all need to take a visit to a specialist ,who may give you a dose of therapy or a potion ,to ease your scrambled brains,I have this trailer behind me in a pic in the Long Haul Pioneers ,Parked on the Tapline with the Late John Bruce In the late 70s, the trailer was full of tech navigation parts for Racal/Deca ,systems for Navigation of oil Tankers in the Gulf ,the value was massive,a more graphic pic of this trailer is for all to see on the front cover of the Long Haul Pioneers ,Roger Haywood
Hello Roger! Welcome back. I do hope you spotted the tongue-in-cheek wry humour that has remained a firm strand throughout this recent discourse on tilts! I’ve done long-haul TIR-work with boxes too. Robert
I’d still rather strip and rebuild a tilt than some of the jobs I’ve done.
Steam cleaning under trucks on a ramp in the Scotish winter.
Shovelling dead chickens out the way so I could service the back up generators on a chicken farm.
Industrial sandblasting while wearing a full heavy anti-static plastic saftey suit in the Australian summer.
Jeff…
Jeff
Your off the subject mate the thing was what you preferred behind your Truck, Tilt .or Box,somehow sandblasted dead chickens didnt spring to mind ,but whatever gets you going
Roger