Lawrence Dunbar:
I believe that in some cases where overheating occured, it was down to the water pump shear pin giving way, this used to happen in thearley days when firms had there drivers draining the water off in the winter months because they didnt buy antifreeze, How things have changed Eh, can you imagine what would happen if those days came back. Regards Larry.
Mayhem Larry, bloody Mayhem !! Cheers Dennis.
Lawrence Dunbar:
I believe that in some cases where overheating occured, it was down to the water pump shear pin giving way, this used to happen in thearley days when firms had there drivers draining the water off in the winter months because they didnt buy antifreeze, How things have changed Eh, can you imagine what would happen if those days came back. Regards Larry.
We had a couple shear of Larry, not due to frost though but general fatigue. The shaft was “waisted” so that it broke before the drive gear became damaged. I recall three drain points, the radiator, the elbow near the waterpump plus a drain ■■■■ on the pump itself? We also had one engine that ran warm when the timing chain was tightened, slack it off slightly more than normal and it was fine! Funny things engine’s aint they, every one has different characteristics. 
Pete.
richgriff:
Not talking Yank crap. Gardner quality in mini subs .[zb] Wikibollux.Carryfast:
richgriff:
Seem to remember Gardners being fitted to mini submarines during WW2 CF. Quality installed for quality men.Gardners always get you home :smiley: May have been noisy, thank f*** they didnt fit two strokes
Maybe this is ok then.No wiki here and I’d bet everyone who served on that boat during ww2 also thought it was fitted with the best diesel engines in the world at least for as long as it was in production in all it’s forms.The difference is they were probably right. 
Larry. We bought a LWB ERF Stock lorry.230 Gardner C Series.Got it cut down to a SWB tipper. The 230 turbo Gardner was a problem to start when it was brought out. Watts of Lydney reconditoned them with high compression pistons.We had a new engine put in ours very little smoke on start up and went very well indeed,mercs,Scannies playing catch up.Great lorry.
Lawrence Dunbar:
I believe that in some cases where overheating occured, it was down to the water pump shear pin giving way, this used to happen in thearley days when firms had there drivers draining the water off in the winter months because they didnt buy antifreeze, How things have changed Eh, can you imagine what would happen if those days came back. Regards Larry.
Here Carryfast, just think about this for a moment, you obviously have a dislike for the Patricroft Products, without looking back through the whole thread I can’t be sure, but I’m sure you haven’t had a single good word to say about them. There are those that do have a soft spot for them, but they’re not comparing them with anything, they’re just say that they were a good engine. Some of those people have a great deal of experience on which to base their opinions.
You are comparing them to engines that were never their natural competitors, so you kind of lose your argument before you start
The fact is, they were a bloody good engine in their day, to ignore that the way you have is like saying that The Beatles are no good because they haven’t sold a record for 40years
I often heard my Dad say that a 150 Gardner made you fell like you were King of the Road, usually when I was moaning about my 180 
newmercman:
Here Carryfast, just think about this for a moment, you obviously have a dislike for the Patricroft Products, without looking back through the whole thread I can’t be sure, but I’m sure you haven’t had a single good word to say about them. There are those that do have a soft spot for them, but they’re not comparing them with anything, they’re just say that they were a good engine. Some of those people have a great deal of experience on which to base their opinions.You are comparing them to engines that were never their natural competitors, so you kind of lose your argument before you start
The fact is, they were a bloody good engine in their day, to ignore that the way you have is like saying that The Beatles are no good because they haven’t sold a record for 40years
I often heard my Dad say that a 150 Gardner made you fell like you were King of the Road, usually when I was moaning about my 180
But they were their natural competitors because as I said previously nothing in life is fair and even Bewick eventually saw the light.In my case history repeated itself because I can remember my Dad telling me about the difference between the Diamond T and the Pioneer and how lucky he’d been not to have been lumbered with one because he was lucky enough to be put on Diamond T’s hauling tanks in Austria,Yugoslavia and Northern Italy during and just after WW2 instead 
.
Then I ended up just missing being lumbered with a 180 Gardner powered heap on night trunking on a regular basis because of fate in that I was lucky enough to have started at the right time when at least one operator had finally seen the light just like many others by the mid 1980’s.Not to mention being lucky enough to have had (a lot) of fun with some decent yank powered fire engines for a while even if it wasn’t for as long as I’d have liked.Our totally opposing views have obviously arisen from our different backgrounds in the industry.
But just like VALKYRIE I’ve not said a bad word about Gardners engineering or design.All I’ve said is that it’s outputs were never better than average,if that,compared to it’s competition throughout most of it’s production life and I can’t see how you can get round that by just trying to ignore that fact by writing off all that competition as not being a fair comparison.History of what actually happened shows it is/was a fair comparison.Wether during WW2 comparing the Pioneer with the Diamond T or a 180 or even 240 powered SA with the DAF 2800 etc during the 1970’s/80’s.
The fact is the only rules are/were that there are/were no rules but 10-12 horsepower per tonne gross weight ( so long as that extra power is mostly tyhe result of extra torque ) would have been a lot more efficient than having a lot less than that at least during the 1970’s.Which is why Scania and Volvo are now (rightly) fighting each other for supremacy in the horsepower race with an eye to the future of possibly larger scale use of 60 t gross outfits throughout Europe not just Scandinavia although their domestic market is probably good enough to justify the effort anyway.It’s also why the domestic market eventually (rightly) turned it’s back on Gardner but the only question is what took them so long to do it when the engines to do the job were already available during the 1970’s.
But I think that history of that unmentionable US engine which I’ve posted shows which was arguably the holder of the diesel engine that ruled the world title at least while it was in production which seems to be longer than the Gardner ever was. 
You a bit of a boy racer on the quiet then Carryfast 
I get that impression I myself like a lorry with a bit of oomph, my own purchase history contains a 470 F16, a 480, 520 and a few 540 IVECOs and of course the best of the lot, my little 143, but, and that’s a big but, I don’t expect to climb hills as if they weren’t there, I’m in a lorry FFS, so I’m going to slow down, if I drop 5mph or 20mph, it doesn’t really make much difference at the end of the day. I used to do a trip to Italy every week for years, I did it with a two ton load in a 480 TurboStar and I did it with 26tons of Copper Wire in a 1729 Merc, it was a bit quicker in the big FIAT, but that gutless windbag of a Merc still got me down there and back in a week I also spent a lot more money on tyres, brakes and fuel running those top of the power range lorries than I would have with a more basic fleet spec lorry
All this 10hp per ton that you keep saying means is that anyone who runs at anything less than full weight with a 440hp lorry is an idiot and anybody who buys anything with more than 440hp is an idiot unless they’re doing heavy haul
I reckon that back in the 70s there were ten times as many Daf, Scanias and Volvos repossessed as there were Gardner powered lorries, the saying “all flash and no cash” springs to mind…
the gardner engines were originaly designed as a marine engine.
they were very reiable over a tenyears off driving atkinson borderer eight legger
i only broke down once when a pushrod broke combined with a david brown box they were very good .
The odds on a Jimmy doing an almost immediate self destruct if started after a very long rest far exceed that of a Gardner not starting after the same rest.
newmercman:
You a bit of a boy racer on the quiet then CarryfastI get that impression
All this 10hp per ton that you keep saying means is that anyone who runs at anything less than full weight with a 440hp lorry is an idiot and anybody who buys anything with more than 440hp is an idiot unless they’re doing heavy haul
I reckon that back in the 70s there were ten times as many Daf, Scanias and Volvos repossessed as there were Gardner powered lorries, the saying “all flash and no cash” springs to mind…
I was fortunate to drive a 480 turbostar when it was brand new (G370 JCP) and it left an impression with me that has never been matched for sheer power it was unbelievable it just didnt see hills i now have a 460 Daf and its nowhere near as willing ,i took a merc 1729 to Germany once and my biggest sin was bringing it back ,someone knicknamed it a “German Gardner” , an insult to the Gardner i had
Lorry power outputs seem to increase by about 40% every 20 years. At any time, there will be a “normal” range of outputs, above which there will be a “supertruck” category. This category will always be seen as “heavy haulage or show-offs only.” The numbers just increase, steadily, over time. In 20 years’ time, 600-700bhp will power the majority of tractor units and the more “forward-thinking” operators will be proudly displaying their 1000bhp vehicles at Truckfest.
At any time, you could put a Gardner 6LX150 into a 44-tonner, gear it for about 35mph at 1700rpm in top gear and deliver loads anywhere you wanted. You may be at odds with the expectations of the period, but if you didn’t mind being a mobile roadblock, you would get there in the end.
newmercman:
You a bit of a boy racer on the quiet then CarryfastI get that impression
All this 10hp per ton that you keep saying means is that anyone who runs at anything less than full weight with a 440hp lorry is an idiot and anybody who buys anything with more than 440hp is an idiot unless they’re doing heavy haul
I reckon that back in the 70s there were ten times as many Daf, Scanias and Volvos repossessed as there were Gardner powered lorries, the saying “all flash and no cash” springs to mind…
You’re never going to climb hills as if they weren’t there with 10-12 hp per tonne but you’re going to get over them a lot easier and more efficiently with that amount of power (so long as it’s the type of power that’s made by multiplying loads more torque by around the same engine speed hence you’ll need something that can be turbocharged and stand up to it).
Anyone who buys a 440 hp wagon to run at less than max weight isn’t an idiot just so long as they don’t use everything that’s available most of the time.Although when there’s a few hills thrown into the equation the more power (torque) that you’ve got,relative to the weight you’re hauling,the more fuel efficient and productive the wagon will be because all those faster average speed journey times add up over the course of a year while the idea of increasing the power (torque) to weight ratio,has been the basis of truck diesel design for at least the past 42 years and,so far,no one seems to be saying lets get back to naturally aspirated diesels with around 5-6 hp per tonne because we’ve been going backwards,in terms of truck diesel efficiency,since the end of the 1960’s,not forwards.
As for me a boyracer.The average boy racer wouldn’t dream of using an old modified 1980’s BL built,almost 1.8 tonne Jag XJ saloon, with ‘only’ around 350 bhp,because they’ve grown up being fed all the Thatcherite bs about useless British car manufacturing workers and the power to weight ratio on paper is no good .While forgetting that the difference is the thing is putting out that figure at less than 5,500 rpm so it will last longer and it’s puttting out around 400 lbs/ft of torque at around 3,000 rpm so it really does climb hills as if they weren’t there and leaves those mickey mouse hatchbacks of the line as if they were standing still helped by chucking the auto box where it belongs in the skip and lowering the final drive ratio while the 5 speed manual box still lets it run at lower rpm at 165 mph on the flat than it did before with the auto at 150.All that without bothering with turbocharging or supercharging.Hugh Gardner would have been proud. 
[zb]
anorak:
At any time, you could put a Gardner 6LX150 into a 44-tonner, gear it for about 35mph at 1700rpm in top gear and deliver loads anywhere you wanted. You may be at odds with the expectations of the period, but if you didn’t mind being a mobile roadblock, you would get there in the end.
Blimey now you’re talking sense.
By the way what would the fuel consumption of a 150 be running at 1,700 rpm in gallons per hour.
In answer to Valkyrie and without wishing to get into a long drawn verbose nit-picking argument I stand absolutely by what I wrote both on here and in the Gardner book. The Gardner L2 design was the first commercially successful DIRECT INJECTION diesel engine that was used in road going vehicles. Anything else before that engine was announced was unreliable mainly because of fuel injection pump problems. The key to the Gardner 4L2s success was Hugh Gardner’s design of fuel pump cambox and timing. Valkyrie, please remember that an author sometimes has to generalise in print because otherwise the book would become so wordy that it would be unreadable to the vast majority of its intended readership. If you like the last iota of detail then I’m sorry, such a book as the Gardner one is not for you. Plenty of others out there must rate it though, it’s gone to a second reprint and sold out again. As for relative power outputs and of Gardner, AEC, and Leyland engines in the 1950’s for wagon and drag operators all that drivers and operators knew was that both AEC and Leyland had more powerful engines than Gardner and they were better for the job.
Carryfast:
newmercman:
You a bit of a boy racer on the quiet then CarryfastI get that impression
All this 10hp per ton that you keep saying means is that anyone who runs at anything less than full weight with a 440hp lorry is an idiot and anybody who buys anything with more than 440hp is an idiot unless they’re doing heavy haul
I reckon that back in the 70s there were ten times as many Daf, Scanias and Volvos repossessed as there were Gardner powered lorries, the saying “all flash and no cash” springs to mind…
You’re never going to climb hills as if they weren’t there with 10-12 hp per tonne but you’re going to get over them a lot easier and more efficiently with that amount of power (so long as it’s the type of power that’s made by multiplying loads more torque by around the same engine speed hence you’ll need something that can be turbocharged and stand up to it).
Anyone who buys a 440 hp wagon to run at less than max weight isn’t an idiot just so long as they don’t use everything that’s available most of the time.Although when there’s a few hills thrown into the equation the more power (torque) that you’ve got,relative to the weight you’re hauling,the more fuel efficient and productive the wagon will be because all those faster average speed journey times add up over the course of a year while the idea of increasing the power (torque) to weight ratio,has been the basis of truck diesel design for at least the past 42 years and,so far,no one seems to be saying lets get back to naturally aspirated diesels with around 5-6 hp per tonne because we’ve been going backwards,in terms of truck diesel efficiency,since the end of the 1960’s,not forwards.
As for me a boyracer.The average boy racer wouldn’t dream of using an old modified 1980’s BL built,almost 1.8 tonne Jag XJ saloon, with ‘only’ around 350 bhp,because they’ve grown up being fed all the Thatcherite bs about useless British car manufacturing workers and the power to weight ratio on paper is no good
carryfast,what xj jaguar have you got_i’m guessing xj 12 if its 300 odd bhp.had a few series3 xj6’s myself but always wanted an xj 12 lol.my dad has a supercharged xjr at the moment and i love that,but couldnt affoerd to run it.what mods have u done to your xj? any chance of some pics?
gingerfold:
As for relative power outputs and of Gardner, AEC, and Leyland engines in the 1950’s for wagon and drag operators all that drivers and operators knew was that both AEC and Leyland had more powerful engines than Gardner and they were better for the job.
That’s not exactly the same thing as saying that those operators didn’t know or didn’t care about power outputs then.While it also shows that what the army knew in the 1940’s those operators,who were trying to run more efficient operations,also knew in the 1950’s at least.So that’s two decades of Gardner’s production lifetime guilty as charged.We can also add to that the 1970’s if we add DAF’s development of the 680 at least.
But the issue of direct injection wasn’t exactly a technological breakthrough which Gardner actually owned any itellectual rights or patent to.The combination of unitary injectors and direct injection which the Americans were working on through a similar period in time (pre ww2) was probably more of an acheivement .
Carryfast:
Thank you.
Carryfast:
By the way what would the fuel consumption of a 150 be running at 1,700 rpm in gallons per hour.
Approximately, SFC=200g/kWh; 140bhp (assuming the engine is running at about full load at that speed)=100kW, I make that about 20kg/hr. SG of diesel is about 0.8g/cc, so that’s 25litres. Call it 5 gallons per hour for cash. Surprised you didn’t do the calculation yourself. Oh, I forgot: you don’t have any of the data and cannot do the calculations.
andrew.s:
Carryfast:
newmercman:
You a bit of a boy racer on the quiet then CarryfastI get that impression
All this 10hp per ton that you keep saying means is that anyone who runs at anything less than full weight with a 440hp lorry is an idiot and anybody who buys anything with more than 440hp is an idiot unless they’re doing heavy haul
I reckon that back in the 70s there were ten times as many Daf, Scanias and Volvos repossessed as there were Gardner powered lorries, the saying “all flash and no cash” springs to mind…
You’re never going to climb hills as if they weren’t there with 10-12 hp per tonne but you’re going to get over them a lot easier and more efficiently with that amount of power (so long as it’s the type of power that’s made by multiplying loads more torque by around the same engine speed hence you’ll need something that can be turbocharged and stand up to it).
Anyone who buys a 440 hp wagon to run at less than max weight isn’t an idiot just so long as they don’t use everything that’s available most of the time.Although when there’s a few hills thrown into the equation the more power (torque) that you’ve got,relative to the weight you’re hauling,the more fuel efficient and productive the wagon will be because all those faster average speed journey times add up over the course of a year while the idea of increasing the power (torque) to weight ratio,has been the basis of truck diesel design for at least the past 42 years and,so far,no one seems to be saying lets get back to naturally aspirated diesels with around 5-6 hp per tonne because we’ve been going backwards,in terms of truck diesel efficiency,since the end of the 1960’s,not forwards.
As for me a boyracer.The average boy racer wouldn’t dream of using an old modified 1980’s BL built,almost 1.8 tonne Jag XJ saloon, with ‘only’ around 350 bhp,because they’ve grown up being fed all the Thatcherite bs about useless British car manufacturing workers and the power to weight ratio on paper is no good
carryfast,what xj jaguar have you got_i’m guessing xj 12 if its 300 odd bhp.had a few series3 xj6’s myself but always wanted an xj 12 lol.my dad has a supercharged xjr at the moment and i love that,but couldnt affoerd to run it.what mods have u done to your xj? any chance of some pics?
6 Litre XJRS engine weber multiple throttle bodies,engine management injection and ditributorless ignition,manual five speed box 3.06:1 final drive from 2.88.90 mph at 3,000 rpm in fifth where it still pulls like it’s in 3rd or 72 mph in 4th where it’ll take off up to 5,500 rpm (around 130 mph) in no time when you can put it back into 5th and it’s still pulling like a train.
Carryfast:
gingerfold:
As for relative power outputs and of Gardner, AEC, and Leyland engines in the 1950’s for wagon and drag operators all that drivers and operators knew was that both AEC and Leyland had more powerful engines than Gardner and they were better for the job.That’s not exactly the same thing as saying that those operators didn’t know or didn’t care about power outputs then.While it also shows that what the army knew in the 1940’s those operators,who were trying to run more efficient operations,also knew in the 1950’s at least.So that’s two decades of Gardner’s production lifetime guilty as charged.We can also add to that the 1970’s if we add DAF’s development of the 680 at least.
But the issue of direct injection wasn’t exactly a technological breakthrough which Gardner actually owned any itellectual rights or patent to.The combination of unitary injectors and direct injection which the Americans were working on through a similar period in time (pre ww2) was probably more of an acheivement
That’s right CF, Gardner never patented the direct injection system. They had first successfully used direct injection fuelling on large slow revving horizontal industrial engines almost 20 years earlier. The relevant issue is that Gardner was able to produce a reliable direct injection system for relatively high revving small road going compression ignition engines before anyone else perfected the system. That is the one achievement that Gardner deserves recognition for if nothing else because it did revolutionise the economics of commercial vehicle operations (goods and passenger) in Great Britain in the 1930s. In this country AEC and Leyland were developing direct injection at the same time as Gardners, but Gardners beat them to it. Similarly, Saurer and MAN in Europe had prototype DI engines running before Gardner, but these had serious reliability problems, and that is the crux of the matter.
I would worry about running ANY automotive engine continuously at full load and revs for extended periods.
The Gardner would possibly tolerate it better due to the design of Hugh Gardner’s governor, which only allows the throttle to dictate revs and not load. However I would still be concerned about overloading.
An interesting point is that Gardner developed a diesel engine which was direct injection in 1930whatever. That was their way of doing things and they kept to it. Their competition messed around with different designs of indirect and direct injection systems for the best part of the next 20 years.