I see in this month’s Heritage Commercial magazine that there is to be a sale of classic commercial vehicles by auction at the East of England showground on 23rd April.
Amongst the vehicles on sale is Pat Seal’s Volvo FB88, apparently still in Shirley’s colours.
I wonder how many of the later owners know of the proud history of this truck?
Hello Ian. I hope its new owner shows respect and changes her back to her original M.E. colours. Wish it could be me cos that is what would happen.
Good to hear from you again and hope all is well. Jim.
I remember Pat showing me his tilt cab conversion, that he had designed and fitted to his volvo. Owing to the extra weight of the extended cab, he could no longer tilt it by hand. He found an old tail lift somewhere and set about making up a frame, to mount the hydraulic ram under the back of the cab, with the electric pump motor fitted to the chassis. On testing it he found that the hydraulic ram was too short to lift the cab as high as he would like , so he made another bracket to support the cab, whilst he moved the ram to another position to complete the tilt. He did reckon that he could access most things on the engine by using the first stage only.
At one time he was running both his unit and trailer on 1200x20 tyres as he could replace them very cheap by swapping the worn ones with new from the bulgi drivers as they were always on the lookout for cash.R.I.P. Pat you were certainly a character.