flishflunk:
How about walking round your wagon kicking all the tyres, pretending you knew what you was doing
Ray
An old mate of mine still does that except he carries a lump hammer, he can tell to within a couple of pounds if the tyre needs air. He has used the same method for at least 30 years
Wheel Nut:
flishflunk:
How about walking round your wagon kicking all the tyres, pretending you knew what you was doingRay
An old mate of mine still does that except he carries a lump hammer, he can tell to within a couple of pounds if the tyre needs air. He has used the same method for at least 30 years
Itās still common practice this side of the pond, itās actually part of the pre trip inspection, drivers often do it at fuel/rest stops too, the best thing about it is the truckstops sell a mini baseball bat, cleverly disguised as a tyre thumper, which obviously lives right next to the driverās seat 
Running backwards was a phenomenon usually associated with 2 strokes & 5 pot Gardners, the Bedford TM with the screaming Detroits (calm down Carryfast 
) had a kill switch on the dash for this very reason. I had it happen to me in a Sudden Accident with a 180 Gardner on the north side of the Woolwich Ferry, as you leave dry land & go onto the pontoon bit that houses the ramps, thereās a bit of a bump, I was on this & creeping forwards in the queue to join the boat, as I came off the clutch the thing went mental, screaming its nuts off & blowing blue smoke from the air cleaner, I let the clutch up a bit more & went backwards in 2nd gear 
I put the handbrake on & dumped the clutch stalling it, when I got back to the yard I told the boss man about it, he thought it was another one of my methods to get another motor (I hated that lorry with a passion) but believed me when I popped out the air filter & it was black with soot on the clean side, it turned out to be the final straw for me & that piece of junk, I got my wish & got another lorryā¦ A bloody KM 4 wheeler with a 26ā flat, me & my big mouth
Chris Webb:
Zetorpilot:
Mine was a Gardner (100). It was a long time ago now, I remember it made a very bad noise and IIRC I stalled it out immediately.Wilsons JP?
Go on - tell me how you guessed!!!
What about the Commer two stroke me and a mate were delivering to a golf course in Kent he got he,s old girl stuck in a rut and tried to rock it out engine went backwards and blew its self to bits he had vac brakes and all our lorries had tow bars on so draged him home through Blackwall tunnel no H&S then.
Kettle on, jeans on and if no ones around, out for a pee against the back wheels of the trailer but why against the trailer wheels was it so the dust wouldnāt splash up on your feet or was it in case if anybody did come along you could pretend that you were doing your trailer inspection .
Those heaters that looked like a V2 rocket, The Salamanders 
are there any more apprentice mechanics on here whoās first job in the winter mornings was to syphon five gallons of diesel out of any lorry that had been parked in the garage overnight and get the heaters going. Using a length of hose pipe and sucking up the diesel you soon learnt how not to get a mouthfull but if you did your bacon and baked bean butty two hours later always tasted funny. I can still picture all those mechanics coming in and holding their damp overalls up next to the heater to get them dry with all the steam coming off them 
.
Changing a wheel on the side of a road was another thing a driver did on their own,if you were lucky another driver came along and offered to give you a hand. Changed a few myself,we carried a jack,wheel brace and a length of pipe to give you extra leverage on the wheel brace,no torque bar then or ATS to ring,no phone box handy anyway.
Slacken the wheel nuts jack the lorry up take the nuts off,wriggle the wheel off the studs,two if it was the inner one on the back,then lever the spare onto the studs to put it on,also you had to get it off the carrier and the flat one onto it.
No driver does that these days. I think they would be struggling with super singles.
Cheers Dave.
Dave the Renegade:
Changing a wheel on the side of a road was another thing a driver did on their own,if you were lucky another driver came along and offered to give you a hand. Changed a few myself,we carried a jack,wheel brace and a length of pipe to give you extra leverage on the wheel brace,no torque bar then or ATS to ring,no phone box handy anyway.
Slacken the wheel nuts jack the lorry up take the nuts off,wriggle the wheel off the studs,two if it was the inner one on the back,then lever the spare onto the studs to put it on,also you had to get it off the carrier and the flat one onto it.
No driver does that these days. I think they would be struggling with super singles.
Cheers Dave.
How many times did the wire on the spare wheel carrier break it seemed to me that it only ever happened to me but someone would always stop and help you get it on the trailer somehow.
Dave the Renegade:
Changing a wheel on the side of a road was another thing a driver did on their own,if you were lucky another driver came along and offered to give you a hand. Changed a few myself,we carried a jack,wheel brace and a length of pipe to give you extra leverage on the wheel brace,no torque bar then or ATS to ring,no phone box handy anyway.
Slacken the wheel nuts jack the lorry up take the nuts off,wriggle the wheel off the studs,two if it was the inner one on the back,then lever the spare onto the studs to put it on,also you had to get it off the carrier and the flat one onto it.
No driver does that these days. I think they would be struggling with super singles.
Cheers Dave.
Hi Dave,and it always seemed to be the inside wheel that was flat,and you had to make sure the valves were opposite when spragging the wheel onto the studs.Always a bit dodgy on the motorway especially on the offside so I used to get onto a slip road or find a lay-by to change the wheel.Lay-bys didnāt smell too much of p*** in them days
Tell me about broken wires on the spare wheel carriersā¦ 
Dave the Renegade:
Changing a wheel on the side of a road ā¦
ā¦
ā¦
No driver does that these days. I think they would be struggling with super singles.
Cheers Dave.
Wrong! Changed an inner wheel on my drive axle early last year, first trip in the firmās brand new F12. I changed one a few months later on the tag too, but I saved that one and did it back at the yard.
Dave the Renegade wrote:
Changing a wheel on the side of a road ā¦
ā¦
ā¦
No driver does that these days. I think they would be struggling with super singles.
Cheers Dave.
We still do it as we carry spares for the unit and trailer,but on the type of work we do were are out of reach of tyre fitters so no option.
I changed a trl wheel about a month ago in Spain in a parking area and whithin ten minutes a spanish driver came and gave me a hand, we had it done in thirty minutes, cost me a couple of beers from the fridge 
Another routine i have, is when i stop i feel the tyres to check none are hotter than the others also looking at the wheelnuts at the same time.
Klunk
Ok Guyās I take it all back about you drivers not being albe to change super singles. 
How many of you remember taking an ex army grub bag to work with your tin full of sandwiches and a couple of flasks of tea,plus a few spanners in the bottom of it for emergencies,obviuosly on nights out you took a bigger type of bag.
Dave the Renegade:
Ok Guyās I take it all back about you drivers not being albe to change super singles.
How many of you remember taking an ex army grub bag to work with your tin full of sandwiches and a couple of flasks of tea,plus a few spanners in the bottom of it for emergencies,obviuosly on nights out you took a bigger type of bag.
Iāve still got my ex RAF snap bag Dave and used it regular until I went shunting.And I managed to keep a greatcoat,should have handed it in.Came in Handy when cabbing it in Reivers and MK3s
I never witnessed the running backwards thing (except during school sports day!) but have when the engine has run away when either the pump govenor has been dicky or the engine runs on oil that has got into the air intake, this can be quite scary and the fumes are lethal, thereās also not much chance of stopping it before it blows, a Rolls powered T45 ran away once after a fitter had put a re-furbished pump on, it filled the small workshop up with acrid fumes in seconds and was screaming its nuts off. We had both made a quick exit and waiting for it to go bang the lad turned to me and said he knew where his hacksaw was and dashed back inside, which was like the Black hole of Calcutta by now, to cut the fuel lines. A few moments later the revs died and he came out choking and eyes streaming, it turned out the pump hadnāt quite been put back together properly on the overhaul. We both had a good laugh about it later but at the time it was like Bedlam. When I was a young lad at Alfie Ellisā Transport (where I became familiar with the Salamanders) a tall Welsh driver was pointed out to me, the story was Taff had an Ergo Mandator and the engine run away so he slammed it in gear, handbrake and footbrake on and slipped the clutch to stall it. The flywheel and clutch exploded and shattered the bell housing, bits of shrapnel flying all over, stopped the engine though! On routines, my dad told me of a driver who worked at the same firm and that he had a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale for his breakfast from the four he kept each day in his cab to keep him going. I wasnāt sure this was true until I had to do a job in his cab and sure enough there were three full bottles down the side of his seat and one empty, I never did except a lift from him. Cheers Franky.
