Rolls-royce diesel engines (later perkins)

ROLLS-ROYCE DIESEL ENGINES (LATER PERKINS),TRUCKNETUK

Rolls-Royce produce The Best Motorcar In The World…or at least motorcars that have the best quality.
The Rolls-Royce Oil Engine Division produced a range of in-line and vee-type diesel engines for marine,industrial and automotive applications,and at least some of the Rolls-Royce Motorcar quality and precision was incorporated in to Rolls-Royce Diesel Engines
Strangely,these engines were unfairly under-praised,and at least one person wrongly stated that the Rolls-Royce C-Range Diesel Engines were “troublesome”,which is nonsense.They are great engines,and commercial vehicle manufacturers,such as Scammell,Foden,Thornycroft,Guy,Hayes,Sisu,Rotinoff,ERF,Atkinson,Seddon, etc,construction vehicle makers,such as Euclid,Aveling Barford, NCK Ransome Rapier and boat builders all knew they were great engines and fitted them in their products.And the same applies to the later Rolls-Royce Eagle,CV ,TX,etc engines. Furthermore,the British military specified Rolls-Royce Diesel Engines in some of their military vehicles,such as Diamond T and Thornycroft tank transporters,Scammell Constructors.Speaking of which,Pickfords Heavy Haulage operated beautiful Scammell Constructor 6x6 Heavy Haulage Road Locomotives which were powered by Rolls-Royce C-Range Diesel Engines…two or three of these Scammell road locomotives,in push pull combination,hauled loads of 200 tons or more!
Oh yeah…these engines were “troublesome” alright Actually,I would say that they were really reliable,and that is why all of the above manufacturers,Ministry of Defence,Pickfords,and many other manufacturers and operators,such as Sunters,Esso,Wynns,Wimpey,Shell and Vickers all specified C-Range
engines
The C-Range engines laid the foundations of the later Rolls-Royce diesel engines that I have already mentioned: The successful Eagle,CV,TX,etc,engines
What is your experience of all of these great Rolls-Royce Diesel Engines?,please.

VALKYRIE.

Rolls Royce: the most unreliable luxury car.

In Finland Roll Royce Eagles were constantly dropping cylinder liners which caused coolant leaks and the British built injection pumps (Majormec?) were nothing but trouble.

But has been one of the most reliable engines in finnish truck racing and pulling circuits, with Bosch injection pump from F16 Volvo. youtube.com/watch?v=a77dfH37PDw

We changed from Gardners to Rolls Royce diesels, 265 and 265 LI, and they were excellent for our work which was eight legger tipper and powder tankers. We kept them for around 10 years and they would have had a set of liners and pistons in that time, my 265 LI did ten years without even an injector replacement though by then it was totally worn out and was replaced with a second hand engine which was worse than the one taken out! I then had a Perkins version, 335, in a P reg Foden but I changed jobs after a year so cannot really comment on that. Parts were expensive though, I remember replacing some liners in one of our 220 Eagles back in the late 70’s and the gasket set alone was over £600 but having said that Gardner parts were not cheap either.

Pete.

VALKYRIE:
ROLLS-ROYCE DIESEL ENGINES (LATER PERKINS),TRUCKNETUK

Rolls-Royce produce The Best Motorcar In The World…or at least motorcars that have the best quality.
The Rolls-Royce Oil Engine Division produced a range of in-line and vee-type diesel engines for marine,industrial and automotive applications,and at least some of the Rolls-Royce Motorcar quality and precision was incorporated in to Rolls-Royce Diesel Engines
Strangely,these engines were unfairly under-praised,and at least one person wrongly stated that the Rolls-Royce C-Range Diesel Engines were “troublesome”,which is nonsense.They are great engines,and commercial vehicle manufacturers,such as Scammell,Foden,Thornycroft,Guy,Hayes,Sisu,Rotinoff,ERF,Atkinson,Seddon, etc,construction vehicle makers,such as Euclid,Aveling Barford, NCK Ransome Rapier and boat builders all knew they were great engines and fitted them in their products.And the same applies to the later Rolls-Royce Eagle,CV ,TX,etc engines. Furthermore,the British military specified Rolls-Royce Diesel Engines in some of their military vehicles,such as Diamond T and Thornycroft tank transporters,Scammell Constructors.Speaking of which,Pickfords Heavy Haulage operated beautiful Scammell Constructor 6x6 Heavy Haulage Road Locomotives which were powered by Rolls-Royce C-Range Diesel Engines…two or three of these Scammell road locomotives,in push pull combination,hauled loads of 200 tons or more!
Oh yeah…these engines were “troublesome” alright Actually,I would say that they were really reliable,and that is why all of the above manufacturers,Ministry of Defence,Pickfords,and many other manufacturers and operators,such as Sunters,Esso,Wynns,Wimpey,Shell and Vickers all specified C-Range
engines
The C-Range engines laid the foundations of the later Rolls-Royce diesel engines that I have already mentioned: The successful Eagle,CV,TX,etc,engines
What is your experience of all of these great Rolls-Royce Diesel Engines?,please.

VALKYRIE.

I don’t know from where you got your information. We ran a 32ton GVW Foden with Rolls Royce Eagle engine that was mostly used at about 24 ton GVW; so to say the least it had light usage.
Fuel consumption was dreadful and it was a very unreliable engine.
In late 1979 dad replaced his 3 year old Mercedes Benz 280 SE with a new Rolls Royce Silver Shadow which was a beautiful car, but in the six years he used it, with only about 40,000 miles on the clock it had several design problem that materialised, and dad had to admit it certainly had never been designed or built to Mercedes Benz standards.
The engine on the car however was wonderful, but that knowledge and skill was never passed on to the diesel Eagle engine.

Mmmmmmm, ours were very good on fuel, around 7 - 8 mpg. Tilcon seemed very pleased with them, around 30+ vehicles in our area alone, and the only downside of the early 220 bhp ones was that the Foden gearbox couldn’t take the power and tended to disintegrate! As I said mine did well over a million km’s without a spanner on it, though it was never a good ‘puller’ after Fodens cut the rpm down to 1900 under warranty and it was a gear down on hill’s compared to the rest of the fleet. Have to admit that they were not as well engineered compared to Gardner, but they were well on top of our type of work and in a Foden still gave a good 20 tonne payload at 30.50 tonnes gross. I do know that some fleets had problems with them though, just as we did with the Patricroft product!

Pete.

This Foden had a Perkins Eagle engine and gave the owner good service.Previously he had a Foden with a Perkins Eagle 300 engine.The lorry was stolen,so this was the replacement.

This Rolls Royce you speak of, is it a new company?

Having lived in Derby for almost 10 years I have learned to call it Royces, they do not accept the full name round these parts

I never had a problem with any RR Eagles I drove in Atki’s and Big J’s, I have to say they pulled like trains.

Dieseldog66:
I never had a problem with any RR Eagles I drove in Atki’s and Big J’s, I have to say they pulled like trains.

IMHO RR 220’s et al were total bags of ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ were just fitted by Atkys,ERF’s,Fodens,Scammells and Leylands as a means of keeping build costs down and thereby secureing large fleet orders that were driven by “the bean counters” who were only interested in front end cost and not in “whole of life cost”.The Gardner and ■■■■■■■ engines were far superior to the crappy RR diesels,they really were !! Bewick.

Dieseldog66:
I never had a problem with any RR Eagles I drove I have to say they pulled like trains.

^ + 1

At least in all the wagons the same as these ones which I drove which by all accounts still seem to have been in use with private council sub contractors up to recently.

users.totalise.co.uk/~thetyke/45f9c140.jpg

Bewick:

Dieseldog66:
I never had a problem with any RR Eagles I drove in Atki’s and Big J’s, I have to say they pulled like trains.

IMHO RR 220’s et al were total bags of [zb],honestly,and were just fitted by Atkys,ERF’s,Fodens,Scammells and Leylands as a means of keeping build costs down and thereby secureing large fleet orders that were driven by “the bean counters” who were only interested in front end cost and not in “whole of life cost”.The Gardner and ■■■■■■■ engines were far superior to the crappy RR diesels,they really were !! Bewick.

So we can add Rolls to CAT and Detroit motors now.

Carryfast:

Bewick:

Dieseldog66:
I never had a problem with any RR Eagles I drove in Atki’s and Big J’s, I have to say they pulled like trains.

IMHO RR 220’s et al were total bags of [zb],honestly,and were just fitted by Atkys,ERF’s,Fodens,Scammells and Leylands as a means of keeping build costs down and thereby secureing large fleet orders that were driven by “the bean counters” who were only interested in front end cost and not in “whole of life cost”.The Gardner and ■■■■■■■ engines were far superior to the crappy RR diesels,they really were !! Bewick.

So we can add Rolls to CAT and Detroit motors now.

Very perceptive of you “Geoffrey” we now have all the ■■■■■ in one place!!! brum brum !! Cheers Bewick.

Bewick:

Carryfast:

Bewick:

Dieseldog66:
I never had a problem with any RR Eagles I drove in Atki’s and Big J’s, I have to say they pulled like trains.

IMHO RR 220’s et al were total bags of [zb],honestly,and were just fitted by Atkys,ERF’s,Fodens,Scammells and Leylands as a means of keeping build costs down and thereby secureing large fleet orders that were driven by “the bean counters” who were only interested in front end cost and not in “whole of life cost”.The Gardner and ■■■■■■■ engines were far superior to the crappy RR diesels,they really were !! Bewick.

So we can add Rolls to CAT and Detroit motors now.

Very perceptive of you “Geoffrey” we now have all the [zb] in one place!!! brum brum !! Cheers Bewick.

I can just imagine what a Challenger tank or a Scammell Commander would have gone like with a 240 Gardner instead of a Rolls.

Carryfast:

Bewick:

Carryfast:

Bewick:

Dieseldog66:
I never had a problem with any RR Eagles I drove in Atki’s and Big J’s, I have to say they pulled like trains.

IMHO RR 220’s et al were total bags of [zb],honestly,and were just fitted by Atkys,ERF’s,Fodens,Scammells and Leylands as a means of keeping build costs down and thereby secureing large fleet orders that were driven by “the bean counters” who were only interested in front end cost and not in “whole of life cost”.The Gardner and ■■■■■■■ engines were far superior to the crappy RR diesels,they really were !! Bewick.

So we can add Rolls to CAT and Detroit motors now.

Very perceptive of you “Geoffrey” we now have all the [zb] in one place!!! brum brum !! Cheers Bewick.

I can just imagine what a Challenger tank or a Scammell Commander would have gone like with a 240 Gardner instead of a Rolls.

Well CF me old mucker,if said Military equipment had been fitted with the LXB240 they would NEVER have broken down I would wager !! Bewick

brum brum brum brum -brum brum brum brum -

Bewick:

Carryfast:

Bewick:

Carryfast:

Bewick:

Dieseldog66:
I never had a problem with any RR Eagles I drove in Atki’s and Big J’s, I have to say they pulled like trains.

IMHO RR 220’s et al were total bags of [zb],honestly,and were just fitted by Atkys,ERF’s,Fodens,Scammells and Leylands as a means of keeping build costs down and thereby secureing large fleet orders that were driven by “the bean counters” who were only interested in front end cost and not in “whole of life cost”.The Gardner and ■■■■■■■ engines were far superior to the crappy RR diesels,they really were !! Bewick.

So we can add Rolls to CAT and Detroit motors now.

Very perceptive of you “Geoffrey” we now have all the [zb] in one place!!! brum brum !! Cheers Bewick.

I can just imagine what a Challenger tank or a Scammell Commander would have gone like with a 240 Gardner instead of a Rolls.

Well CF me old mucker,if said Military equipment had been fitted with the LXB240 they would NEVER have broken down I would wager !! Bewick

I don’t think there’s many hills in the desert so I reckon they could have saved the taxpayer a fortune in diesel costs during the Gulf War if they’d have taken your advice.But getting the things down to Southampton docks might have been more of a problem unless they’d have used the whole fleet of tractor units all tied together to pull each tank down there one at a time.Maybe that was a bit unfair three or four units per tank probably might have covered it.

All very interesting gentlemen maybe Bewick would prefer something powered with an elastic band. As previously stated on the middle east thread the ex Sammy Williams Scania that I had was fitted with RR Eagle 280 and apart from shearing the injection pump drive gave no trouble in the 3 years i owned it ,going as far as Izmir Turkey twice and Romania 6 times and countless trips to Italy inc Mt Blanc and Mt Cenis.Rgards Crow.

Fortunately I never had to work on one of these in a fixed cab. The water pump on a 265 in the Constructor was a ■■■■■, didn’t you have to take the crankshaft damper off to get at one of the bolts? I remember injector hold down studs shearing, and injectors that simply would not come out. The need for some £600 worth (in 1980’s prices) of special tools to change injector sleeves. There was a fair number of oil cooler failures in both the L series and the 800 (Perkins). Although simpler than a Gardner, the Eagle still retained some plumbing for the bottom end and the liners were more difficult to remove than those of a big ■■■■■■■■
I recall being disgusted to find that a simple flaw in the top face of the block was going to result, by choice, in a complete exchange engine rather than attention by specialist.

geoffthecrowtaylor:
All very interesting gentlemen maybe Bewick would prefer something powered with an elastic band. As previously stated on the middle east thread the ex Sammy Williams Scania that I had was fitted with RR Eagle 280 and apart from shearing the injection pump drive gave no trouble in the 3 years i owned it ,going as far as Izmir Turkey twice and Romania 6 times and countless trips to Italy inc Mt Blanc and Mt Cenis.Rgards Crow.

Didn’t Sammy Williams also run a Scania fitted with a ■■■■■■■■■ Or was it something else other than the RR?

cav551:
Fortunately I never had to work on one of these in a fixed cab. The water pump on a 265 in the Constructor was a ■■■■■, didn’t you have to take the crankshaft damper off to get at one of the bolts?

Blimey you should try changing the timing chain,tensioner and all the sprockets on a V12 Jag engine.

youtube.com/watch?v=z7Bvd33V9dQ