Greetings,Toxic Gas Man.
You’re quite correct.I did drive one on Shell.It’d pull a house down but the noise from the gearbox was hell to listen to.It had the Leyland 0.680 engine and could get along when needed.It’s number was ALH 470 B.
Merry Christmas to all,regards,900x20. 
seddon atkinson 301 l10 250 and spicer box at 38ton useless and had such a bad steering vibration I kept stopping to check the wheels weren’t loose
Ford D series factory 6 wheeler with 380 turbo engine,full time job replacing engines,best thing that happened to it was the day a chimney that was being demolished nearby fell the wrong way and totally flattened the (zb} luckily no one was harmed except the truck. 
Juddian:
Several from my time spring to mind.
Ironically the 401 twin steer i received in 84 still stands as the best lorry for a days work i’ve had, to date, in some ways reflected in manual square cabbed Axors of all things, last simple rugged working lorry, that market now being the forte of Hino?.
there aren’t many lorries I’ve driven that I’ve truly hated to get get behind the wheel every morning(and I know its not an oldschool motor) but the rotten poxy Hino’s are really the last word in dreadful!! I’ve been unlucky enough to drive a couple of them for a day or two,then lumbered with one for over a year- I would much rather have an old F7 or the like than ever suffer that awful Japanese dross ever again.
I have helped in the restoration of ,and driven my mates 1971 Bedford TK/KH artic and can honestly say it’s a much more pleasant thing to drive than any of the Hino’s ive been subjected to driving.
progress isn’t all its cracked up to be sometimes lol
andrew.s:
Juddian:
Several from my time spring to mind.
Ironically the 401 twin steer i received in 84 still stands as the best lorry for a days work i’ve had, to date, in some ways reflected in manual square cabbed Axors of all things, last simple rugged working lorry, that market now being the forte of Hino?.
there aren’t many lorries I’ve driven that I’ve truly hated to get get behind the wheel every morning(and I know its not an oldschool motor) but the rotten poxy Hino’s are really the last word in dreadful!! I’ve been unlucky enough to drive a couple of them for a day or two,then lumbered with one for over a year- I would much rather have an old F7 or the like than ever suffer that awful Japanese dross ever again.
I have helped in the restoration of ,and driven my mates 1971 Bedford TK/KH artic and can honestly say it’s a much more pleasant thing to drive than any of the Hino’s ive been subjected to driving.
progress isn’t all its cracked up to be sometimes lol
Had a Hino hire truck in yard one morning I could not get seat back far enough,my knees were against the bottom of the dash and head was against cab roof and as for all that crappy plastic trim, one redeeming feature I think it had a fuller gearbox but could not be sure as I refused to drive the piece of junk 
One I absolutely detested was a Sudden Accident 400 on a V plate, it was a day cab with a 180 Gardner, 6spd DB box and two speed axle. I did the south coast in it carrying gypsum boards on a 40’ flat, it was lethargic even for a 180, I bumped into the driver that had it from new in a cafe somewhere and he said it was a dog from day one.
Going down the A21/22/24/29 was painful, I was scared to look in the mirrors at the bloody great line of people stuck behind me! Even worse was that before that I had a really nice 111 with all the bits on it, visor roof rack, big tanks etc, but the guvnor’s brother hit a lorry up the arse at the Blackwall Tunnel and wrote it off, so I got relegated to the SA.
I had it spin over backwards on me at the north pier of the Woolwich Ferry, there was a big bump and it nearly stalled as I went to pull away, so I dipped the clutch and gave it a boot full, it started revving its nuts off and belching smoke out of the air filter stack, so like a fool I stalled it instead of letting it self destruct. It did me a favour though as I told the guvnor and he didn’t believe me (I was always moaning about it) until he pulled the air filter and saw that it was full of soot. He bought a 2300 Daf that weekend, a sleeper cab too, it was almost as slow as the poxy Seddon Atki and had that horrible Chinese 12spd ZF box in it, but even so it was a massive improvement, I could actually load and go to Bognor Regis, in the SA I had to have it on wheels or I ran out of hours and had to crash across the seats.
We had a Sed Ak 400 on a P plate (the first one Tilcon had) and that was fitted with the DB 6 speed box as well. It soon returned to the factory and came back with the DB 8 speed range change and it was a big improvement. My 400 with a Gardner 201 ran backwards as well, a cab full of smoke through the open cab window!
Pete.
My mates rolonoff 400 with 201 Gardner would run backwards too, 6 speed DB in that too and they fitted the PTO to the wrong gear so the hydraulics ran far too quick, could lift and load a full bin in about 10 seconds though danger of splitting the gearbox casing above about 800rpm, which it did once.
Keep the revs too low and it could stall the engine, if it did stall soon as he pressed the clutch the engine would spin back and fire up backwards.
Having said that it was good tool for the job, being NA it could lug right to stall speed on the heaviest of tips so proved a good motor overall.
Despite sharing the basic cab there was a big difference between a 400 and 401 for the driver, many things were improved particularly steering and handling which were as good as anything the foreigners could offer at the time, though anything with a 180 Gardner was a miserable tool to get saddled with, bloody unlucky to find a 401 with a 180.
carryfast-yeti:
Juddian:
I’d have liked to drive a Highwayman, think Harrisons from out Sheffield way were the last regular users of them in this country that i used to see on my journeys anyway, i’m a bit too young for their era.
Enjoyed the Crusaders though they could be a handful too (and as far from Highwayman as you could get), for some reason they gave a sense of driver satisfaction cos they were a handful that few other lorries gave except maybe a good 2800, make any sense?i used to see Harrison’s Scammell’s regularly when i was on the way back to Leicester from Dewsbury night trunking in the '80’s.they used to go quite well surprisingly.Sid had dumped the Leyland engines and fitted Gardner 180’s in them.i think most of his old motors are still parked up in the garage and yards
One of sids in the snow found on the net.
