Certainly was Ramone but you got used to it just like in a way i d have got used to an auto box but still would nt have liked them ,I would nt have liked to try the 2 pedal Volvo over Mont Cenis though those hair pin bends were some thing else impossible to have a climber and a downer on the same bend together standard practice was the downer to give way to the climber but not every one had manners i ve seen a few amusing instances there over the years.Crow.
geoffthecrowtaylor:
Certainly was Ramone but you got used to it just like in a way i d have got used to an auto box but still would nt have liked them ,I would nt have liked to try the 2 pedal Volvo over Mont Cenis though those hair pin bends were some thing else impossible to have a climber and a downer on the same bend together standard practice was the downer to give way to the climber but not every one had manners i ve seen a few amusing instances there over the years.Crow.
Im not an experienced continental driver Geoff but did a few trips to Italy and Germany in my early 20s and coming back down the Blanc the first time on my way home i was amazed at the speed some were travelling at ,i had a problem with a step frame York trailer ,the brakes didnt want to release, then when they did they ran very hot ,1 of our drivers wound them off a bit but coming down the Blanc they were virtually on fire so i came down very steady ,it was like whacky races ,2 abreast going round those tight bends i just scratched my head and let them get on with it ,obviously all boat catchers ,it makes me smile now thinking back
You know the score Ramone as some one said previously if you go up in4th gear you come down in 4th all our Volvos had exhaust brakes which were useless in high range but quite good down the box you only used your footbrake when the engine began to overrun that way you ve kept your main brakes cooler no brake fade and no fires.Crow.
geoffthecrowtaylor:
You know the score Ramone as some one said previously if you go up in4th gear you come down in 4th all our Volvos had exhaust brakes which were useless in high range but quite good down the box you only used your footbrake when the engine began to overrun that way you ve kept your main brakes cooler no brake fade and no fires.Crow.
I wonder if an I-Shift in auto coming down The Blanc would choose this method Geoff, maybe it would throw itself into E-roll just to keep You on Your toes…
I’ve done another week in it & My opinion has’nt changed.
fly sheet:
geoffthecrowtaylor:
You know the score Ramone as some one said previously if you go up in4th gear you come down in 4th all our Volvos had exhaust brakes which were useless in high range but quite good down the box you only used your footbrake when the engine began to overrun that way you ve kept your main brakes cooler no brake fade and no fires.Crow.I wonder if an I-Shift in auto coming down The Blanc would choose this method Geoff, maybe it would throw itself into E-roll just to keep You on Your toes…
I’ve done another week in it & My opinion has’nt changed.
No it won’t 
fly sheet:
geoffthecrowtaylor:
You know the score Ramone as some one said previously if you go up in4th gear you come down in 4th all our Volvos had exhaust brakes which were useless in high range but quite good down the box you only used your footbrake when the engine began to overrun that way you ve kept your main brakes cooler no brake fade and no fires.Crow.I wonder if an I-Shift in auto coming down The Blanc would choose this method Geoff, maybe it would throw itself into E-roll just to keep You on Your toes…
I’ve done another week in it & My opinion has’nt changed.
I`ve mentioned it earlier on here ,if you touch the exhaust brake on an auto going down hill even at 56 mph the thing will change down , you have to put them in manual ■■?
Yes Ramone,the Blanc was a PITA,on the French side,more than a few hit the rocks on the way up,especially at night.But the worst was in the winter when some truck in front was stuck in the snow and the one trying pass him got half way round him and also got stuck,then everything came to a halt with the result that some couldn’t get going again and chaos ensued,sometimes it could take many hours before order was restored.Coming home me and Geoff used to load shoes out of Verona so we were light loaded.That could also be a problem coming down,(no ABS on trucks or trailers at that time)you had to know how to drive to the conditions,low gear,dabbing the brakes,trying to anticipate what was coming next etc.I wonder how some of the young bucks of today would cope without all the mod cons on modern trucks.
The modern lorry with high horsepower, retarders and good engine brakes have made mountains a different proposition nowadays, even the old ‘go down in the same gear you go up’ saying is a thing of the past with a lorry that will climb a hill on the limiter, although with a retarder and disc brakes you can come down almost as fast and safely too. Disc brakes don’t fade like drums, in fact as they warm up a bit they stop better as the expansion of the metal puts the pads closer to the disc, rather than pulling the drum away from the shoes as it used to, but you still have to give a big hill a bit of respect and that’s where it all goes wrong now 
I’ve been over the odd mountain myself, on Cenis or even the lower part of the road down from the Frejus Tunnel, I would be in 2nd low on the exhaust brake and still have to dab the brakes once in a while to stop the engine over revving, of course there were a lot of tight turns too, so the slow downhill (and uphill) speeds meant that the corners were taken at a safe speed and even in snow and ice, it was a safe way to get down, you may have had a few twitchy arse moments in the winter, but you were slow enough not to have any real problems (we all must have been as we’re still here to tell the tales) Now I drive different mountains, they’re mostly dual carriageways and they’re not quite as steep, my lorry will go down them at 60mph and I hardly ever have to dab the brakes to stop the engine over revving, it’s a really strange sensation, every part of me feels that I’m going far too fast, yet in reality I’m far safer than I used to be when I was creeping down at 5mph
And the point of all that is…I’m a member of the generation that had to creep down to stay alive and had no choice but to creep up, yet I’m rubbing shoulders with those that have never known any different to belting up and down on the limiter, I try to move with the times, but my instincts are set in the older ways, I think that is responsible for a lot of the problems some drivers have with the newer technology on lorries, so Mr Fly Sheet, it seems that you’re an old codger, you need to get down with the kids driver
Might give you bragging rights Geof if it was before 1977 & remember through Walsall town centre up to lichfield certainly learn`t you forward planning
The older end on here learned their trade from more than likely starting as a drivers mate and progressing up the ladder ,if thats what you can call it ,some like myself learnt their trade from their dads ,but now there`s nothing to learn apart from opening curtains and how to climb in and out of a vehicle in a h+s manner ,this is progression , ive nothing but admiration for the likes of the older drivers on here explaining how it was done before i was around but i do think some things if not broken dont need repairing
OK Greek you win it was early 80sbut surely i deserve a mention in despatches or a kick in the arse for initiative not least a GV9 off CFs best mates VOSA all contributions gratefully received, Crow.NMM I would like to see the print out for your discs compared to drums, lets not forget s cam brakes with drums and brake shoes were quick and inexpensive to renew ,no horror stories like you get with discs cracked calipers seized up etc. and as regards over heating next time you re out in you re Transam just put a finger on a front disc, when you ve come back from hospital have a Coors lager on me.10 10 CROW. Fore i forget you never ever used exhaust brakes on icy or snowy roads.
Hi Billybigrig,I’ve just followed your link and watched Volvo’s video on their latest innovation the “I-see” truck system,that’s due to hit the market next year .It’s an interesting conception,but it raises a few questions.In the video the truck is on an open road without any other vehicles to consider,if its going to speed up at the bottom of the hill what happens if the truck is already travelling at the legal speed limit,what if half way up the hill you come into a lower speed limit eg. approaching a village.I think it will only work in undulating country conditions without any other vehicles on the road,so pretty useless for driving only in Holland,we don’t have any hills and the roads are always crowded!,(mabe ok for mushroom man)or the wide open spaces in the US or Canada.I think it would have a difficult time in Western Europe to fullfil it’s potential.
First of all Mr Taylor Snr, I know all the problems associated with discs, they still work out cheaper in the long run though. Of course that wasn’t always the case, but they have improved dramatically in the recent past. I don’t have any data, although Carryfast could probably find a link to a youtube video However the physics of the two different braking systems do not lie 
First the good old drum, when they get a good belting, they get hot, this has two detrimental effects, commonly known as ‘running out of Ferodo’ firstly the friction material gets hot and glazes over, so braking ability is reduced, then the drums get hot and expand, this takes them further away from the brake shoe, which again reduces braking. soon after this something solid, like another lorry or the side of a mountain takes care of the excessive speed you’ve built up and you stop very quickly
Now the disc, just fitted some fancy cross drilled and slotted bad boys on my Charger, however I’m not silly enough to touch them after they’ve been used, so I’ll have to buy my own beer Now, when a disc gets hot the friction material on the pad does glaze over in the same way as a brake shoe, essentially it’s the same material (I think) but the disc also gets hot, and just like the drum it expands, this means that the now slippery friction material on the pad is squeezed by both the the piston in the caliper and the expansion of the disc, so it counteracts the loss of friction. The design of the disc also means that it disperses heat much quicker than a drum too, not enough that I want to go poking them though as I already said
Exhaust brakes now, I never used to use the exhaust brake on ice, but I do now, not on sheet ice, but in the snow I do, maybe the extra set of wheels I’ve got back there helps out, but I’ve not had a problem yet and the Jake Brake on my Pete is another league compared to any exhaust brake. As you well know, on the older stuff, the exhaust brake shut the engine off too, so not only did you put yourself in to a potential jack knife, you also stopped the engine and lost the power steering you need to get straight again. Of course most of the time I’m driving in snow, I drive according to the terrain and the conditions, so I don’t really use any brakes at all, but on some of the long drags you don’t have a choice, I do use the Jake Brake, but I’ve always got my left boot hovering on the clutch ready to break the connection between the engine and the wheels so they can start spinning again if they lock up 
Tony, your turn now, that Volvo I-See thing, very clever stuff, as it is controlled by GPS, it knows the speed limit for the road it is on and will not exceed the posted limit, it would also be linked in to adaptive cruise, so that it never gets too close to anything else, it’s not too far removed from a driverless lorry, clever it may be, but from a driver’s point of view, it’s too bloody clever 
newmercman:
Yes it was SAMT, I first came across it on an M reg EuroTech, my EuroStar was on an N plateThe problem with a lot of the AutoShifts is that the software has glitches in it, the hardware is fine, but let down by the controls
AS Jones in Bromborough ran a few of these under the watchful eye of the manufacturer, now as you may remember this branch of P&O were on road tankers, the hardest thing for a gearbox to learn was the swill of a liquid load, but they did manage it and although there was nothing wrong with a Twin Splitter, technology moves forward and SAMT was a part of that journey.
The majority of my driving career has been on tankers and from driving an 8 speed F7, 16 speed F10 through to various 400 plus motors with manual transmission I was convinced that the ishift could not do the job as well as a driver with the feel of the shifting weights and points of balance.
How wrong was I, the very first time I drove a loaded tank around the yard in Erp I was amazed, a driver can make those things sing in such a way we did with the Eaton TS.
Let me remind you what it was like with an F717 going over Brough and Bowes, just after Greta Bridge, the road started climbing towards the quarry, the F7 could hold its revs in 4th but would die in 5th, add to this a slack fluid load and the runback could stop the truck in its tracks. I have seen it happen to many who tried to grab another gear, the 1/2 splits made it slightly easier on the F1020
Move on 30 years with the Volvo automatic box and a few more horses, the transmission was smooth, the truck still gaining speed over the same section and no dramas. Someone mentioned a slow change on a gearbox and the TS was so fast, so was the Fuller. Any constant mesh box will be faster than synchromesh. We are still driving lorries for a living, we don’t need Flappy Paddle controls or Quickshifters yet.
Marmite or Vegemite, jam or marmalade?
There have been various gearbox & clutch innovations in my time as a driver, the 13 speed fuller, those early Scania automatics, the TS, MAN Comfort Shift, Mercedes EPS, many have tried, most have failed, until the launch of the automatic clutch and selectors of the Volvo i Shift.
If a transmission can cope with the abuse a tanker or tipper can give, then to me they are fit for purpose 
And no-one has yet changed my mind or likely to do so here.
Well,NMM if it’s travelling at the legal limit it can’t speed up for the hill can it which defeats the purpose,and I imagine that almost every driver will be driving at the legal limit.Mind you, if thats a 750hp motor there are no hills.
NMM lets keep it all in perspective it was essentially a bit of humour, it s highly unlikely that i ll ever cross the pond to you but should you ever come across here i ll gladly buy you a pint but it won t be Coors you can t get it ,cheers Crow.
newmercman:
just fitted some fancy cross drilled and slotted bad boys on my Charger, however I’m not silly enough to touch them after they’ve been used, so I’ll have to buy my own beer
Go on, rub it in why don’t you, do i think Charger is the dogs ■■■■■■■■, me jealous?..
We have to get an estate or something similar in due course, otherwise i had me heart set on a Caddy STS the few of which post 09 models here are among the best bargains i’ve ever seen in cars, mind you £470 VED to a corrupt regime goes against the grain.
Jeez, 470quid on tax, to ■■■■ you off a bit more, the tax on my Charger costs me…$0:SFA 
Mind you, having experienced the thrill of the HEMI, you’ll have a job getting that much fun anywhere else for 470quid, so I’d consider the Caddy
Crow, I know you were kidding mate, Cooper told me you’d never bought a round in your life
newmercman:
Jeez, 470quid on tax, to ■■■■ you off a bit more, the tax on my Charger costs me…$0:SFAMind you, having experienced the thrill of the HEMI, you’ll have a job getting that much fun anywhere else for 470quid, so I’d consider the Caddy
Crow, I know you were kidding mate, Cooper told me you’d never bought a round in your life
470 quid on tax!! don’t come to Holland Juddian,thats roughly half of what I have to pay on an ‘S’ type,it costs me 900 euro a year here.John Cooper is right about the crow though NMM,the last time he bought a round I was still in short pants.It’s rumoured that his wallet is fitted with a time lock,it only opens when the pub closes.