Bewick:
Buzzer:
BuzzerI could never understand why London Brick 'specc’d single drive 8 wheelers ? Unless they always insisted that they only delivered onto hard ground ? But I wonder how often a JCB towed them off a site / Cheers Bewick.
Most if not all sites put tarmac road in first,n you nearly always offloaded at the side of the road. All my brick lorries had twin drive but I don’t ever recall using them on site. In the snow
they were a Godsend
coomsey:
Bewick:
Buzzer:
BuzzerI could never understand why London Brick 'specc’d single drive 8 wheelers ? Unless they always insisted that they only delivered onto hard ground ? But I wonder how often a JCB towed them off a site / Cheers Bewick.
Most if not all sites put tarmac road in first,n you nearly always offloaded at the side of the road. All my brick lorries had twin drive but I don’t ever recall using them on site. In the snow
they were a Godsend
Yes us tipper lads had the task of getting off of boggy sites! 
Pete.
The ‘Mickey Mouse’ Twin Steer unit similar to the Levitts one above was first shown at the 1965 Comm Motor Show, it had a Leyland engine and Semi-Auto gearbox. It seems buyers could still order models with the S.21 cab even when the 1962 released S.39 cab was also available in Twin Steer guise. There was also an S.21 cabbed double drive unit with the same drive train on the stand along with S.39 tilt cabbed eight wheeler rigid and four wheel unit, this having the Foden engine and the rigid the Gardner 6LXB 180. Interestingly the home market models were fitted with tubeless tyres, these having been recently introduced. Franky.
I was surprised to see the first of these two photos on the Foden Society page on Facebook, so I have added another photo of this vehicle topping up with diesel and tell a bit of history about it.Most of our tractor units were 20-26 ton GVW as most of our traffic for artics was within this weight range. With quite a few Ford D800 ,and some Leland Super Comet & Mastiff, & several AEC Mercuries
However we had some work for 32 ton GVW and also ran an AEC Mandator, which spent most of its life running about 24 ton GVW but we needed a second 32 ton GVW to give us more flexibility.
A Foden with RR engine was advertised in Commercial Motor 2 years old and only about 5,000 miles on the clock in Cheltenham.
At the time I was extremely busy & so left Darlington Station at Midnight with a overnight bag & trade plates on my way to Kings Cross & on to Cheltenham. I had treated myself to a first class compartment & must admit was pleasantly surprised at how well I slept. Just as the train left Darlington Station the guard asked me if I’d like to book breakfast.’ Oh that would be nice’ I replied and when he asked what time I checked what time it pulled into Kings Cross & was told it parked up outside the station for 2 hours or so & pulled into Kings cross at 7.00AM ‘Ten to seven’ came my reply to be told it would have to be about 5.00AM I then decided to skip breakfast and not miss my sleep.
On arrival at the garage at Cheltenham where the Foden was for sale I saw it was Ex-Hertz vehicle rental and although I thought the unusually low mileage was suspicious it seemed like new.
I think we negotiated a price of £5,000 and I rang our bank manager at Spennymoor to transfer the cash. In those pre internet days there were no fast cash payments & how it worked our bank manager telephoned their bank manager to confirm the cash was being transferred & they accepted each other’s word so the supplier soon received a phone cal from his bank to say the money was OK. Those were the days when people trusted each other.
So off I left on my 6 way back to Spennymoor on Trade Plates.
That journey was the only occasion I drove that Foden but didn’t like the power steering. You couldn’t feel the road. I always described it like when you saw contestants on the Golden Shot (On TV where contestants said left a bit right a bit etc but were not themselves positioning the shot) Several years later when my dad got his Rolls Royce car I found the steering similar whereas Mercedes gave you the 'Feel of where the wheels were on the road.
I can’t remember who the regular driver was but when I asked him about the steering he had got used to it. The RR engine drank the fuel but this was compensated by the low price I had paid for the vehicle but we did have one or two problems with the engine.
On the day of the photo I was told where the service station was located but on the South Coast so suspect the driver had taken a mixed load of new divan beds 3 piece suites and built up bedroom & living room furniture down to our London Warehouse & then down to South Coast to collect a load of flat pack funiture to take back to one of our warehouses at Spennymoor to store so we could draw off as orders came in from mail order customers so we could deliver to their homes throughout the UK through our depot network. Presumably the driver must have dropped his trailer off in the loading dock of the manufacturer & nipped off to a nearby filing station to top up for his return home
By coincidence the Foden had a Darlington reg number& so was coming home to the North East, and I subsequently met the sales rep who originally had sold it and told me the mileage was genuine as it had bee allocated to a Hertz depot where it had stood weeks on end and was rarely hired as a self drive vehicle
That unit was an early S80 Carl, they did have well documented steering issues and the linkage plus front spring shackle positioning was changed on the later S83 models which cured the problem.
Pete.
windrush:
That unit was an early S80 Carl, they did have well documented steering issues and the linkage plus front spring shackle positioning was changed on the later S83 models which cured the problem.Pete.[/quote
Ay up Pete n Carl, I had a 39 n always thought she was over power steered,then got promoted to a 80 thought she was fine. They both had the same box n engine so was I going daft?
Buzzer
This was Ron Ameys first Foden tipper, with a 12 cu yd three way tipping body and dated around 1951 based at Abingdon
toshboy:
0This was Ron Ameys first Foden tipper, with a 12 cu yd three way tipping body and dated around 1951 based at Abingdon
Seeing that reminded me of travelling from Essex (via London) to the West Country. Once well beyond London Amey were some of the lorries that that could be seen in multiples. Made me do a quick Google, I see they were yet another British firm owned at some point by Hanson and Consolidated Goldfields. Not sure about the latter but the former had real knack of acquiring and stripping.
essexpete:
toshboy:
0This was Ron Ameys first Foden tipper, with a 12 cu yd three way tipping body and dated around 1951 based at AbingdonSeeing that reminded me of travelling from Essex (via London) to the West Country. Once well beyond London Amey were some of the lorries that that could be seen in multiples. Made me do a quick Google, I see they were yet another British firm owned at some point by Hanson and Consolidated Goldfields. Not sure about the latter but the former had real knack of acquiring and stripping.
Hi Essexpete, Tell me about it – I spent best part of 20 years with Ameys and 5 years Hanson . enough said ! . by the way you may find the Amey thread on here to be of interest to you —toshboy
