Maybe I missed this driving technique for getting a truck back to the yard that’s consuming and consumed all of its coolant faster than it could ever have been replenished between motorway services and junctions is then relying on its engine oil for cooling.Bearing in mind thanks from my guvnors for trying and good riddance to the heap from the workshops.
How could the F86 have been a ‘taste of what was to come’ when the F12 was Volvo’s biggest UK seller by the early 1980’s combined with domestic manufacturers’ reliance on 14 litre Cummins sales.
It was just evidence of buyers underspeccing trucks to save a bit of cash.The results wouldn’t become apparent until after the warranty had run out so a win win for Volvo.
If anyone is competent to actually drive a truck then synchro is just a needless retrograde obstructive addition.Which slows down shifts and makes them more heavy.Which ironically can be alleviated by double de clutching bearing in mind you still need to rev match the clutch and flywheel on engagement anyway.
Yes you probably did miss something quite alot to be fair.Go back to 1967 when the F86 first appeared here.Many were sceptical and quite right too.How could a 6.7 engine pull 32 tons around.Well it did and word got around it could do it very well too hence the numbers Volvo sold over here.But having said that those hauliers wouldn’t have had your vast knowledge at the time so couldn’t have corrected their mistakes.They were very similar to what we were producing.If you wanted more power the F88 was there , again a 9.6 with a blower which again gave great performancefor its engine size. The reason it was the taste of things to come is just that.They wiped the floor with a simple design that gave the British hauliers just what they wanted.No doubt at 32 tons they wouldn’t be to your taste but most drivers were quite happy with them after driving some of the British contingent no heaters drafty cabs hot in summer cold in winter.That slow synchro that not all could master only 99.9% of driver.You would probably lose a fraction of a second with a synchro over a constant mesh but by the time you’d waited for the revs to die down it probable evened itself out. A radio you could actually hear a demister. Why would anyone want those.It would never catch on.Now if they had puta V8 Detroit in there they would have killed the market. You did save your best 'til last though .The F12 was Volvos biggest seller by the early '80s .I dont think so maybe your google finger needs servicing.
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A mate had his own F88 290, when they were new to the UK:
He was pulling a tipper trailer rapidly through Wiltshire when a Police M/Cycle pulled him over. The copper gave him a good telling off then said:
“And if you ever drive at those speeds loaded, it will be a ticket for you!”
Yeah…fully freighted…
I wasn’t there, but it is a good yarn.
This from a bloke who cooked an engine to death! Call yourself a driver? Steering wheel attendant more like.
No wonder you employers wanted to see the back of you. Unwilling to assist in normal non-driving duties, incompetent as a driver and constantly pointing out the error of management decisions. 
I think the diplomatic way of putting it which he will have heard on several occasions is " thanks but you’re not quite what we are looking for"
Maybe "Don’t ring us we’ll ring you " we had a few of those “CF” type applicants over the years at Bewick Transport.
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Oz isn’t usually known for its big climbs.Maybe some common ground here with SDU and the topic ?.
Strangely that just doesn’t sound like a 12v71 either idling or under load.
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You should get a job as a journalist with the Sun.
‘This driver’ actually stopped said heap on the motorway, Informing the motorway control and thereby relayed to our night management, who informed our local fleet engineer, that the vehicle needed recovery.It could no longer maintain any coolant level let alone pressure over any distance and was burning oil instead.
THEY instructed ME to keep going on the basis of nothing to lose if it didn’t make it it would need recovery anyway and be sold at scrap value, at the cost of an artic load of next day guaranteed delivery service failures either way.
I won’t lie by saying I didn’t relish the opportunity of THEM killing the cramped gutless piece of zb by THEIR instruction.
As for the narrative regarding the small Volvos.It was more or less the last cheap small fleet spec vehicles I drove.From that point on the depot fleet policy had already changed to decent sleeper cab and engine long term rentals or lease.In my case Merc 1628, Scania 112, MAN, DAF 95 and 85 and Merc 2534 rigid.
With the exceptions of DAF 2300 ATI rigid which was the best small engined motor I drove helped by a 16 speed box and being geared to perfection but still relatively challenged by the hills on the nightly Scottish trunk.
Also the worst of the worst Renault G290 which I hated even more than the F7 even with the roomier sleeper cab and which took its unfortunate driver with it off a motorway bridge.
Kill a zb truck indeed.
Let’s get this right.I replied to a comment regarding the small cramped Volvo screamers.
SDU then replied with a facetious comment as to my being misled by credible sources regarding the Fuller 15 speed range change box deep reduction range, being justifiably confused with a splitter.
I replied with an equally facetious comment regarding 15 speed boxes and said small engined gutless Volvos.
The topic has no rule regarding comments not being allowed, only photographs.In which numerous other forums actually welcome comments with photos.
Especially comments which can add a bit of humourous banter.
As opposed to your contributions like Tnet is dead let’s bury it and walking off in a huff because the new format upset you.A bit like a dyed in the wool Gardner fan running off to the turbocharged foreign opposition but steering clear of 6 and 7 litre Volvos supposedly because the wheels wouldn’t fit on an Atki.
Only confused by someone like you, who would relish catastrophically vandalising an engine. You’d wreck a 15 speed in short order, because of your know it all attitude. Most blokes on this forum have forgotten more than you will ever know.
You do understand how time works, don’t you. Or do you? Who knows…
@Carryfast FFS .When or more likely if it ever sinks in lorries are a tool. They are not racing cars.They are there to transport goods not teararse up and down the motorway at 70 mph all day long .The lower powered heaps as you call them could have been bought for many reasons .Productivity , have you heard of that.F86s were a light alternative to the run of the mill British contingent of the time.ERFs Fodens Atkis Seddons Leylands AECs.All would at some point have been powered by 180 - 220 bhp engines of varying kind 220 bhp being the top end when the F86 arrived.It held its own and performed better than some of the aforementioned and in relative comfort.If you wanted more power and payload wasn’t your priority they offered the F88 240. Speccing the right vehicle for the job was and still is a big factor.In the early to mid 70s power started to rise and all manufacturers joined in.Just because some hauliers decided to buy F86s instead of the highest powered vehicles available doesn’t make them heaps.It makes it more challenging for the driver but i cant imagine Carryfast Transport needing V8 Detroits to move parcels on trunking work.Some of your comments are spoilt childlike from a playground and belong there and not here.I would be asking for the Atki with the 240 Gardner not the F86 is one that’s popped up. Good grief you sound more like the new breed than the older end.I sometimes think that you have never driven a lorry never mind done it long term
So sayeth the sooth. And if the operator had specified synchro boxes, you’d have quit the job on principle, wouldn’t you…
I presume all this wisdom (not certain that’s the word I’m after, but it’ll do) you dispense is gleaned from decades of experience with all sorts of vehicles. Perhaps unlike you, I had to make do with what I was given and (if you’ll pardon the presumptuousness) I made a decent job of it. These days I don’t pretend to better than I do.
I told you that I would have sorted out the 15 speed low, mid and high range box before leaving the yard despite Fuller’s best efforts to confuse matters with two separate range control switches and calling the mid range low range in that regard.
I also told you that I stopped the piece of junk predictably cooking F7 heap and requested recovery for it.
My guvnors, relayed by motorway control, instructed me to keep going and try to get it back regardless until/unless it could no longer move.
Or synchro boxes trying to reinvent the wheel and providing a retrograde solution to a non existent problem.Possibly might even make a few more bob from burnt out and smashed clutches by lack of rev matching and worn out brakes from brakes to slow gears to go block change driving standards.
As for F86-F7 32 tonners probably more a case of Volvo marketting saying so long as they want to buy em well flog em and bet on the thing not blowing up before the warranty runs out.
While if we’re really lucky they’ll buy a new engine off us rather than sending it to the gas axe.
Keep diggin’ mate, keep diggin’!