My bones still shake at the memory of driving those Atkinsons 
1 Like
I only had the Mk 2…it was even old then when I bought it…after coming off a F10 as an employed driver.
A masochist’s dream.
You were lucky to get up there GOM. I went up or didn’t as the case was empty and only got to the first ramp up and that was it.I had a one ton pallet on the front but after 3 attempts with diff locks and air dump no traction.I managed to reverse into a farm track and turn round.Traction was the problem not power .After that i always used the caravan route which can be quite testing loaded.There’s no weight limit on Sutton Bank but caravans are banned
1 Like
Just seen this by coincidence, this morning.
Ex Killingbeck?
And the one that I had…modelled by my girlfriend.
I had this. Lovely in the rain, the wiper motor was dead inline with the bit of the screen you wanted to look through, so with the unswept arc under it also in your face, it was stiff neck time looking round it, to add to ‘Atkinson knee’ from hooking the left leg around the steering column to reach the clutch pedal, and aching hunched shoulders because that meant the steering wheel was also in line with your left knee, so you were sitting at an angle in the seat.
Did you reposition the mirrors? I did that with my Mk1 at Midland Storage, amazed now that no-one objected to me drilling holes in the frame under the screen. I used the arms from a Mk 2 and as a result was nowhere near as good as the one I see in your picture. 
Keep 'em coming, Dennis. 
Two spotlights on Bewick’s wagon was bling in those days and I still think pinstriping looks better than chrome.
No it had the usual 8” ones like in the Bewick picture while I had it. The picture posted is of the same vehicle in preservation and re-registered. It has had several modifications over the years: an air suspension seat, a longer n/s mirror arm, a replacement cab, Mk2 style mirrors & arms and a brake upgrade from lock actuator to spring brake parking.
I see, my motive was to make the mirrors more foreward, viewed through the screen and get rid of the vibration of the door mirrors. I was only partially successful in that. I thought I already had the air suspended seat but maybe I am confusing myself with a later Mk.2.
There was a difference between air suspension v mechanical hydraulic type suspension seats.I preferred the latter types especially Bostrom v the awful air Isringhausen.
I didn’t know you ran an Albion Dennis that looks like around a 13 tonner.My dad drove a similar 16 tonner a bloody awful noisey beast in which he nearly froze to death when he broke down at the highest point on the M62 in snow in 1977. Jeese that was a rough motor.The 82/92 Scanias were absolute brilliant motors, in fact i drove one of our rigid P cabbed Scanias recently and forgot how nice they were to drive.(My first motor was a tag axle P cabbed 112 non intercooler ) .The Atki looks a tidy motor
Hiya “ramone” yes the Albion was a tidy little motor 100% reliable during the time we ran it. I bought it via a somewhat “circuitous” from the late John McGuffie who had bought it from T.Brady & Sons Ltd in Barrow. Neither Bradys nor John McGuffie ran the Albion so it had stood around for a while in Barrow. Apparently Bradys had bought out a small haulier in London and the Albion was in with the deal but even as it was about four years old when I bought it in 1970 it had done very little work and was as good as new. It was what I called a typical East End motor all Ali 20 ft flat with a cab high headboard for hauling fruit and veg. I bought it prior to Plating and Testing started so we ran it at 14 ton GVW and it regularly carried 9/10 ton loads of paper down to London and Kent then loaded back with lighter loads of Paper Sacks from Rochester. I did a few trips with it myself and the little four cylinder engine never missed a beat plus it always recorded well up the teens MPG.I had fitted it up with Tecalimit autolube and radio and with the 6 speed overdrive box and Albion axle it could cruise comfortably in the mid 50’s mph on the M/ways. However what scuppered it was when it came around for it to be tested and because it only had Air over Hydraulic brakes it was knocked back to 11:75 tons GVW .So it was clearly no longer a viable motor for us so I sold it to a Hay and Straw Merchant who also fell in love with it as it was perfect for his requirements !
1 Like
My Dodge unit had that and, when something happened to block the cylinder the brakes stopped working just as I descended a steep hill into a Cornish village. Thank goodness for the Cornish habit of building ‘hedges’ by embedding rock into solid earth I was able to bring it to a halt by repeatedly steering into it.
At best on the D series on a good day was how I learnt the importance of engine braking and the laughable delayed all or nothing action of its air over hydraulic brakes.Should have been banned.
Your beloved TKs had air over hydraulic. 
As does the modern Ishitzu I drive every day. IMO the two big problems with 60s/ 70s middleweight air over hydraulic systems were 1) drum brakes all round and 2) rubbish calibration.
D-series with organ stop brake pedal were horrible to work with, especially lightly-loaded on a wet road. But the problem is not its air/ hydraulic system, it’s calibration.