Trust me to argue the opposite view!
One firm I worked at for a short time ran three Dodges, an artic with single-axle trailer, a six-wheeler with folding- side tipping body and the one I drove, a four-wheeler tipper, all with V8 ■■■■■■■■ The two bigger vehicles were 100% reliable while mine had engine problems on an almost weekly basis. And before Bewick starts spouting about Southern drivers not knowing how to look after an engine, the thing was just as unreliable with it’s previous driver. I became so frustrated with it that I persuaded the boss to take over driving it while I was happier on his ancient Dodge with Perkins 354.
By the way, the V8 let my boss down so often that he px-d it for an ergo-cabbed Mercury. Proper lorry!
You’d have needed those twin fuel tanks! 
Retired Old ■■■■:
Trust me to argue the opposite view!
One firm I worked at for a short time ran three Dodges, an artic with single-axle trailer, a six-wheeler with folding- side tipping body and the one I drove, a four-wheeler tipper, all with V8 ■■■■■■■■ The two bigger vehicles were 100% reliable while mine had engine problems on an almost weekly basis. And before Bewick starts spouting about Southern drivers not knowing how to look after an engine, the thing was just as unreliable with it’s previous driver. I became so frustrated with it that I persuaded the boss to take over driving it while I was happier on his ancient Dodge with Perkins 354.
By the way, the V8 let my boss down so often that he px-d it for an ergo-cabbed Mercury. Proper lorry!
Hi Rof, crawler, 
but you cant beat the proper lorries, 
6354 wasn’t bad.
Les.
ERF-Continental:
@Robert: do you mean this article?
Wow! That should be a fascinating read- if only I could read it! 
Please post a higher-resolution image of it.
@Anorak and other visitors…I am not able to re-send/re-size the document, however it is
on “THE HUMBLE FORD D-Series” page 8 in optima forma. Thx A-J
ERF-Continental:
@Anorak and other visitors…I am not able to re-send/re-size the document, however it is
on “THE HUMBLE FORD D-Series” page 8 in optima forma. Thx A-J
Thank you. I will read it now. 
Edit: I have read it. Your estimate of its dating back to about 1980 is backed up by a reference in the article to a mooted “Big Cam” version. The article concludes that the engine had an expected life before overhaul of 200,000 miles. That is poor by the standards of the late 1970s. By then, the recently-introduced “high torque rise” engines, including the 14 litre Big Cam ■■■■■■■■ would achieve lives approaching 1 million miles. Given that this was after ■■■■■■■ had done over a decade of development work on the original V8 problems, those early engines must have been truly bad. The reference to lubrication suggests that Bewick was ahead of the game, with his oil-change-a-week regime.
[zb]
anorak:ERF-Continental:
@Anorak and other visitors…I am not able to re-send/re-size the document, however it is
on “THE HUMBLE FORD D-Series” page 8 in optima forma. Thx A-JThank you. I will read it now.
Edit: I have read it. Your estimate of its dating back to about 1980 is backed up by a reference in the article to a mooted “Big Cam” version. The article concludes that the engine had an expected life before overhaul of 200,000 miles. That is poor by the standards of the late 1970s. By then, the recently-introduced “high torque rise” engines, including the 14 litre Big Cam ■■■■■■■■ would achieve lives approaching 1 million miles. Given that this was after ■■■■■■■ had done over a decade of development work on the original V8 problems, those early engines must have been truly bad. The reference to lubrication suggests that Bewick was ahead of the game, with his oil-change-a-week regime.
Frequent oil changes have always paid dividends for truck engine life. As someone once told me “It’s much cheaper and easier to fit oil instead of metal”
Yes! I think that was the article - I don’t know why I thought they were Bedfords and not Fords, but the argument is the same because they are all rigids running at lower weights. Cheers A-J! Robert
gingerfold:
[zb]
anorak:ERF-Continental:
@Anorak and other visitors…I am not able to re-send/re-size the document, however it is
on “THE HUMBLE FORD D-Series” page 8 in optima forma. Thx A-JThank you. I will read it now.
Edit: I have read it. Your estimate of its dating back to about 1980 is backed up by a reference in the article to a mooted “Big Cam” version. The article concludes that the engine had an expected life before overhaul of 200,000 miles. That is poor by the standards of the late 1970s. By then, the recently-introduced “high torque rise” engines, including the 14 litre Big Cam ■■■■■■■■ would achieve lives approaching 1 million miles. Given that this was after ■■■■■■■ had done over a decade of development work on the original V8 problems, those early engines must have been truly bad. The reference to lubrication suggests that Bewick was ahead of the game, with his oil-change-a-week regime.Frequent oil changes have always paid dividends for truck engine life. As someone once told me “It’s much cheaper and easier to fit oil instead of metal”
I have edited my post which should have said “oil change every two weeks,oil filter every month”,result—the internals of the ■■■■■■■ V and our two V8 Perkins were always like brand new and ran trouble free throughout the time we operated them. Cheers Bewick.
Clessie Lyle ■■■■■■■ Junior, son of the founder inspecting an old ■■■■■■■ Diesel under the hood!
Also the author of “The Diesel Oddyssey of Clessie ■■■■■■■■ Carnot Press 1998
Hey, even Krupp tryed to solve the V ■■■■■■■ engines problem but get stuck with it.
Nearly all got an other 6 in-line engine, not Always a ■■■■■■■■ mostly Henschel or MAN
or an air cooled deutz.
But you could come across nearly everything in it, some used here Volvo’s 88 engines.
Bye Eric,
Volvo (F88/F89) were more common in Belgium, think of tracto, vervaeke, frans hendrickx and more
I was always lead to believe that DAF 95’s brief encounter with ■■■■■■■ 500 lumps was brought to an end because they were too thirsty, but I’ve just found a truck-test in a mag that claims that the big ■■■■■■■ was more frugal in the 95 than the big DAF motor was. I’ll scan it for you in a minute… Robert 
Here they are! These articles are 20 years old, but they serve to remind us of what amazing trucks those big DAF 95 SSCs were at the time. I certainly enjoyed the DAF-engined versions. Robert
In the same issue, Pat Kennett describes how they should perform on ultra long-haul work - enjoy! Robert
On an entirely personal note, I do think that this attractive Cabtec Super-space cab still looks like a modern truck even today. Naturally, I believe that if they had stuck a Fuller or a Twin-splitter on the end of that ■■■■■■■ 500 I would probably have wanted to marry it! But even though some Belgian DAF 95s had Fullers, as did the Seddon-Atkinson Strato mark 1 with the same (ish) cab, apparently this wasn’t borne out in the Super-space version. Tip-top corroborates this on the 13-speed Fuller thread. I also seem to remember reading somewhere that when Mr Bennett created his famous one-off SA SuperCruiser, he had problems accommodating the Twin-splitter under the Super-space cab that he had fitted, and had to make alterations. Robert
Go back another 20 years, and the top specification would have been 350-odd bhp, 900lbft and a flat-roof cab. The 1995 DAF (and its contemporaries) therefore gave about 40% more power, 60% more torque and the extra space afforded by the ice-cream van top. Fast forward to 2015 and we have 750bhp and 2600lbft, so the power and torque have increased by about the same percentages, in the same time. The cabs are no bigger nowadays, and engine makers, when they deign to give such information, will boast minimum sfc figures of around 195g/kWh, so fuel efficiency has remained the same over the past 30 years.
Most people would say that the 1995 DAF, with its 500bhp, would be well on top of hauling a 2015 44 tonner, so there has been no real progress in the past 20 years, apart from the fact that modern trucks are full of electronic garbage.