Hi All,
Going back to the Comfort Shift box on the MAN,s the ones that I drove were on Y plates so maybe the dash message was a later addition or possibly the warning light wasn,t working.
I certainly liked that system ,especially when doing town or city work. I do remember that if you ,inadvertantly ,pressed the switch and the clutch pedal together that the pedal just went straight to the floor with no resistance as if it had broken.
Regarding “two stick” boxes, I remember drivng a Leyland Beaver, early 60’s model with two sticks, the other stick operated the splitter.
Cheers Bassman
Bassman:
Regarding “two stick” boxes, I remember drivng a Leyland Beaver, early 60’s model with two sticks, the other stick operated the splitter.
Cheers Bassman
The “splitter” box on those trucks was actually only a crawler gear.
They were a 5+1 or a 6+1 box, remember how the factory crawler gear stick was a little short thing?
It didn’t take long before the crawler stick got extended and was then used as a split for most of the gears.
The crawler gears were straight cut whereas the layshaft drive gears were helical, you could always tell from the noise what range you were in.
But I preferred a 2nd stick compared to a splitter or range change button.
I was forever getting lost with my AEC’s air operated 6x2 splitter but had no trouble with the Beaver’s sticks or even the Mack quad boxes.
I take my hat off to blokes working GM’s with 15 or 18 speed Roadrangers.
That,s an interesting reply. I didn’t, experience a Leyland with a short 2nd stick and the one I did drive was early on in my driving life so I wasn’t, aware of the differences.
What I do remember is that if you was in 6th low and you wanted to change down you had to put the splitter into high or it wouldn,t go in. This seemed a bit puzzling because Iirc 5th gear was direct,by which I mean it didn’t, have a split on it
One thing is certain, gearbox,s like that make today’s offerings a bit mundane.
The splitter was on the layshaft drive gear (driven by the first motion shaft) so direct 5th did not drive thru the layshaft but 6th or O/D did so it had a split but was much the same ratio as direct 5th but those old Reivers,Bears,Super Comets & the later"G" range Reivers used to suffer a few gearbox problems.
ramone:
Didn`t AEC have two sticks in some of their motors in the earlier years , how did they work ,i remember my dad saying they were a booster box■■?
That’s correct Ramone, My cousin ran a 6 wheeler AEC Majestic with the booster box in, He reckoned if it was turned around it increased the top speed by about 10 mph, But it made it to high geared in bottom gear & it used to lie down on some steep inclines, Regards Larry.
We used to put a Clydesdale 6th gear into the Reiver splitter box which dropped the revs right down at 60mph, the last Reiver I had with the G series cab ( a Locomotors sleeper too, with a night heater! ) was an 81 and would easily hit 70 mph but the gearbox and transfer box got very hot. Saying that I done 3 Dundee trips a week with it for 5 yrs and it never let me down once.
Trev_H:
We used to put a Clydesdale 6th gear into the Reiver splitter box which dropped the revs right down at 60mph, the last Reiver I had with the G series cab ( a Locomotors sleeper too, with a night heater! ) was an 81 and would easily hit 70 mph but the gearbox and transfer box got very hot. Saying that I done 3 Dundee trips a week with it for 5 yrs and it never let me down once.
Trev_H:
We used to put a Clydesdale 6th gear into the Reiver splitter box which dropped the revs right down at 60mph, the last Reiver I had with the G series cab ( a Locomotors sleeper too, with a night heater! ) was an 81 and would easily hit 70 mph but the gearbox and transfer box got very hot. Saying that I done 3 Dundee trips a week with it for 5 yrs and it never let me down once.
Cowboy !:shock:
That old Reiver had a 17 ton payload, it got replaced by a constructer which carried 2 t less was no faster and burnt more fuel !
Trev_H:
We used to put a Clydesdale 6th gear into the Reiver splitter box which dropped the revs right down at 60mph, the last Reiver I had with the G series cab ( a Locomotors sleeper too, with a night heater! ) was an 81 and would easily hit 70 mph but the gearbox and transfer box got very hot. Saying that I done 3 Dundee trips a week with it for 5 yrs and it never let me down once.
Cowboy !:shock:
That old Reiver had a 17 ton payload, it got replaced by a constructer which carried 2 t less was no faster and burnt more fuel !
Progress Trev, was definitely progress mate. Dennis.
Bassman:
Splitshift & Cargo I wish you two had been around when they chucked the keys at me and said take that Beaver for a few days. 21yrs old and in at the deep end.
Bassman
I was driving our Beavers pretty young, well before I was licensed but country towns in Aus were more forgiving in those days.
Got to know the insides of that particular box intimately, they had a few design faults.
One thing was never to split overdrive as it was the weakest gear in the box and ratio wise was same as direct anyway.
Overdrive driven gear was integral with the mainshaft so when it wore, you had to buy a new mainshaft and matching layshaft gear.
The layshaft was prevented from moving front/back by a plate with 3-capscrews tapped into the front end of the shaft. Was way too puny and the screws stripped/snapped, then the layshaft wandered forewords/backwards and chewed out the oil pump.
Don’t know what the Leyland UK did but Leyland Aus drilled and tapped the layshaft for a massive single stud up the centre and job done.
We’d drop a box and replace the layshaft after a day’s work, oil didn’t even cool off.
Did the job twice one night when I fitted one of the selector forks back to front on the splitter, got both gears together on the first test drive…
My AEC Monarch had a separate splitter box tacked onto the front of their 6-speed box. I hadn’t even worked that truck before Leyland did a recall and replaced the baulk rings with a much tougher design.
But it was air change with interlocks on the change speed mechanism and it did the change when you shifted through neutral.
I’d forget if I’d flipped the air switch or not…mind wasn’t on the job I guess, but wasn’t a problem with 2-sticks.
They persisted with the 3 cap scews (wired together) for quite a while,the modified layshaft had a stud & nut,a lot of mods done in Aus & NZ ended up adopted by LeylandUK,those guys out there were good practical engineers knew their stuff & were free from interference by the the people who knew it all!
This Riever of ours had the transfer box in, Not the best of pullers on the hills, But it could carry 17.300. Tonnes, & was good on fuel & gave us good service on local & distance work, Regards Larry.
hi, didn’t they call this a quad box? just a range change with four ranges. one stick four gears, but you only used three, the other stick for changing range. you didn’t need clutch for gear change, only range change. I had a go in a mack when I went to Australia. ray.
I used to drive R600 Macks in WA for Bell Bros and they had a 5-speed main box with a 4-speed Joey box hung on the back of the main. This was called the ‘quad box’ You very rarely had to use Lo Lo in the Joey box and just used the three highest cogs which were called, if my memory is correct, Lo Split, Direct and Hi Split. These ratios were so close that you couldn’t use the clutch to change between them. You just eased off the go-pedal and slipped the lever quickly up into the next cog. When you got to max revs in Hi Split, you used both hands to complete the next change up which was, change the main up a cog and at the same time, drop the Joey down to Lo Split. One thing you had to do was to hold the steering wheel with you right elbow on top of it, not through it otherwise as the dirt roads were so rough in those days, you could get a broken arm for your troubles. If you tried to do a split change using just one hand, by the time you had changed up in the main box and given the revs a bit of a blip to change down in the Joey, your speed had dropped off so much, you had nearly stopped. Don’t forget that the old Mack unblown 711 engine only put out just over 200hp and the only way we could pull two dogs loaded sometimes to over 70 tons (illegally) was because of the close ratio gear box.
callme57:
hi, didn’t they call this a quad box? just a range change with four ranges. one stick four gears, but you only used three, the other stick for changing range. you didn’t need clutch for gear change, only range change. I had a go in a mack when I went to Australia. ray.
ramone:
Didn`t AEC have two sticks in some of their motors in the earlier years , how did they work ,i remember my dad saying they were a booster box■■?
Correct sir, we had some MM’s at Harrisons of Dewsbury (this was 1959, they were “well worn” then), they had 2 sticks. IIRC it was 1 2 3 4 5 , reach for the second stick (very long travel) and hey presto, No.6.
) was an 81 and would easily hit 70 mph but the gearbox and transfer box got very hot. Saying that I done 3 Dundee trips a week with it for 5 yrs and it never let me down once.
