newmercman:
There were a few aggregate firms around my way that ran T45 8 wheelers with Gardner 6LXCs in them, probably for the lighter tare weights, which are useful in that payload sensitive segment. They were badged as Leylands, but the 8 wheeler Constructor range was really a Scammell product and, as we all know, they had a long history with Gardner Engines
Good evening Geoffrey, errr…Mark ( ). This point is often forgotten: power-to-weight ratio is the important thing, power-per-litre is irrelevant. If the fuel consumption is good, is does not matter how big the cylinders are. Another feather in Hugh Gardner’s cap.
If that’s right then everyone would still be speccing naturally aspirated Gardner designs to this day remembering that there’s nothing stopping any other manufacturer using the same formula as Gardner were using ‘if’ of course that idea is/was correct.The fact is specific outputs are just as important as making an engine which leaves ‘enough’ margin for a productive payload.
History shows that the only mistake is when customers then throw away that advantage by going for a smaller engine,with (what looks good on paper) specific power outputs.When the idea is to go for a decent sized engine together with high specific outputs because as everyone knows productivety and fuel efficiency is all about high specific torque outputs and lots of it.Which,of course,was the naturally aspirated Gardner’s weak point.
Are you serious
Other manufacturers are using the same formula That’s why the L10 ■■■■■■■ at 290hp was a hundred times more popular in an 8 wheeler than the E290 was
You continue to show your lack of experience in the real world of haulage with your power crazy theories Tearing up and down the M1 or M4 at night in your lightly loaded 2800 or belting a fire engine around a test track are totally different to most haulage operations, in some cases payload is critical, in some cases speed is irrelevant, but in every single case, making money is the reason for running a lorry and Gardner Engined lorries made people money
The relevant bit (if you’d have read the post correctly) is that ■■■■■■■ never picked up that supposedly better money making design of the naturally aspirated Gardner and used that instead of it’s own turbocharged designs.Hence the reference to specific outputs and the fact that there’s no substitute for combining decent engine capacity with high specific outputs when it comes to the issue of making loads of torque and it’s having loads of torque which matters at the end of the day wether it’s a 30-32 t tipper or a 60 t drawbar outfit.
If you’re right then I’m sure that operators like Bewick would have been buying those ■■■■■■■ (Gardner) powered SA’s intead of those turbocharged Scanias and just think of the missed opportunities for ■■■■■■■ in the export markets and all the money lost by operators, because the 240 should have been put into everything,that a V8 Merc,V8 Scania,8V71,8V92 and CAT 3408 went into,instead,and you obviously would also have chosen that over that 143 or V8 FIAT which you seem to have said elsewhere also 'earn’t you money.
But a 240 Gardner would obviously have earn’t you more in your world so why didn’t you buy one of those old 240 Gardner powered heaps like Bewick did instead if you thought it would have earn’t you more .
I’m too young, they were gone before I was buying lorries of my own (first one in 1994) had I been in business in the 60s and 70s, yeah I probably would’ve had a Gardner or two in my yard
I’m too young, they were gone before I was buying lorries of my own (first one in 1994) had I been in business in the 60s and 70s, yeah I probably would’ve had a Gardner or two in my yard
The fact that the 240/265 Gardner was gone by the 1990’s but Merc V8,FIAT V8,Scania V8,CAT 3408,Detroit 8V71/8V92 were all still being used at that time and at least the 3408 and the Scania V8 still is in updated developed form,is the clue.While obviously Gardner’s previously loyal customer base didn’t agree with you and if it was as good as you’ve said then natural selection would have mean’t that the firm would have survived producing naturally aspirated 8 cylinder engines with similar specific outputs as the 240/265 today.
I very nearly posted a ‘clear off Carryfast’ post then, but then I would be beaten with my own words, so pride got the better of me and I resisted, but just so you know, I’m thinking it
The Gardner Engines were good in their day, as history has written, that day was in the past and by the 70s they were long in the tooth and not capable of competing with the higher powered turbocharged offerings from everyone else, nobody has said otherwise, even the most ardent Gardner fans agree with that, but even then there was still a place for Gardner’s products in some operations, there could still be a case for a basic, simple, easy to work on engine today and a Gardner fits that bill perfectly, unless you want to win the Traffic Light Grand Prix
You keep banging on about 8V92s and 3408 CATs, they’re both boat anchors too, unreliable and thirsty, the two biggest enemies of any road haulier, unless that haulier’s main purpose is to put videos of his howling exhausts on youtube The Detroit sold in very small numbers and was sold in fewer numbers than the L10 ■■■■■■■ (light weight, low power) in your beloved Bedford TMs and nobody in Europe ever fitted a V8 CAT in a standard lorry, if at all
The FIAT V8 also fell off the map over ten years ago and the Merc V8 of today shares very little with the Merc V8 of the 70s apart from the basic design
5Valve:
Anorak:- Increasing production of truck engines to negate the ‘premium’ asked by the OEM’s was not possible for many reasons, the main one being that perhaps 90 odd percent, of the engine, was built ‘in-house’.
(From the castings made in the foundry, to the completed tested engine). As I have said before, Gardner was a “family business” and the man in charge, for whatever reason, did not want to relinquish any control to outsiders. This would have been necessary in order to refine the production facilities and increase output. The company, at best, only produced 6090 engines p.a. (in 1971).
Only with the advent of the Hawker Siddeley takeover, in 1977, was there a view that we could at last start the process of improving engine volumes and producing products that met most of the market sectors we were involved in.
As an aside, the American competitor I joined in 1966 already had plants in the US,India,Brazil,Germany and three plants in the UK, the magnitude of the job in hand, if you view it as such, is obvious.
Hi 5valve, thanks for an informative reply. The Man in Charge seems to be taking the brunt of the flak for Gardner’s decline. Of course, the buck must stop at the top, but there must be mitigating factors.
Why do you think he did not recruit the extra shopfloor staff the company required gradually, while keeping his trusted allies at the top of the hierarchy? Do you think paucity of engineers in senior management in Britain made it difficult for him to recruit colleagues he could trust, making him wary of expansion?
Please forgive me if my line of enquiry has a “badgering” tone to it, but I regard a failure to expand production volumes in the 1950s and ‘60s as the most significant symptom of the British lorry manufacturers’ malaise. Gardner seemed to exhibit this symptom more clearly than than any of the other patients, leading me to focus on it.
I very nearly posted a ‘clear off Carryfast’ post then, but then I would be beaten with my own words, so pride got the better of me and I resisted, but just so you know, I’m thinking it
The Gardner Engines were good in their day, as history has written, that day was in the past and by the 70s they were long in the tooth and not capable of competing with the higher powered turbocharged offerings from everyone else, nobody has said otherwise, even the most ardent Gardner fans agree with that, but even then there was still a place for Gardner’s products in some operations, there could still be a case for a basic, simple, easy to work on engine today and a Gardner fits that bill perfectly, unless you want to win the Traffic Light Grand Prix
You keep banging on about 8V92s and 3408 CATs, they’re both boat anchors too, unreliable and thirsty, the two biggest enemies of any road haulier, unless that haulier’s main purpose is to put videos of his howling exhausts on youtube The Detroit sold in very small numbers and was sold in fewer numbers than the L10 ■■■■■■■ (light weight, low power) in your beloved Bedford TMs and nobody in Europe ever fitted a V8 CAT in a standard lorry, if at all
The FIAT V8 also fell off the map over ten years ago and the Merc V8 of today shares very little with the Merc V8 of the 70s apart from the basic design
Blimey nmm I should be getting a medal not told to clear off for continuing to (try to) provide the reasons for the demise of those old boat anchors.It’s all about specific outputs and Gardners were at best just very average naturally aspirated old fashioned lumps in that regard even by the standards of their day.But my previous post was actually in reply to someone who suggested otherwise in seeming to make the case that the relevant criterea was power to weight ratio not specific torque outputs being the most important.In this case I’ve made a comparison of Gardner’s 8 cylinder offerings with the competition’s just as was the case with it’s 6 cylinder products.
As for the 8V92 and the 3408 being unreliable history seems to prove otherwise by the fact that both types have been in use running at the heaviest types of weights up to relatively very recently and maybe even to date and those videos on youtube seem to be more about showing the abilities of those old 1970’s designs to still do a decent job of earning a living for their operators,up to at least very recently maybe to date,than making a good noise doing it.Although that’s nothing to be ashamed of either .Thirsty maybe but not by the standards of the type of outputs v fuel efficiency equation required in their day.Whereas as I’ve said elsewhere on the topic the Gardner was just a one trick pony of reasonable fuel consumption at the expense of specific outputs so actually an inefficient boat anchor overall.Which is why the thing was effectively gone by the 1990’s let alone the 21’st century.
hej fellow,s gardner was good in 60,s ans 70,s ,nobody in britt,s did not no about(exept of carryfast)about ANY V8 and marveles 14lCUMMINS and V16DD, and a,s i,ll always dreamed about big motors started whit a economical and ceeper R6,BUT IT WAS STILL A SCANIA,as i,ll said it before i can understand why customer,s bye reiabyle and economical lorrie,s whit gardener ,until enouht OTHERS have proof there is better options, and carryfast you and i was right ,i whit scania,s you whit the good preforming DD,s but we are belivers and lovers,the others where hauliers and buissnesmen, ,cheers fron atrucker ,owner operator,and now grown up benkku
And so we plod merrily onward, like the Gardner engine’s under discussion, getting precisely nowhere and taking an age to do it! Amazingly the main poster (CF) is possibly the only one who has had no actual experience of either owning, driving or repairing them.
bma.finland:
hej fellow,s gardner was good in 60,s ans 70,s ,nobody in britt,s did not no about(exept of carryfast)about ANY V8 and marveles 14lCUMMINS and V16DD, and a,s i,ll always dreamed about big motors started whit a economical and ceeper R6,BUT IT WAS STILL A SCANIA,as i,ll said it before i can understand why customer,s bye reiabyle and economical lorrie,s whit gardener ,until enouht OTHERS have proof there is better options, and carryfast you and i was right ,i whit scania,s you whit the good preforming DD,s but we are belivers and lovers,the others where hauliers and buissnesmen, ,cheers fron atrucker ,owner operator,and now grown up benkku
That’s why the Gardner was known as a guvnor’s motor.‘Until’ those guvnors realised that there’s a big difference between a motor that can meet certain parameters at the expense of others.Compared to one that combines reliability,outputs and fuel consumption.It was then just a case of fine tuning all those parameters to get the best possible combination of them.But no surprise that Gardner fell at the first fence.
Which is why all those previously loyal Gardner customers eventually walked away and bought the US or Euro/Scandinavian competition.The British market’s and Gardner’s mistake was in thinking that reasonably big power outputs can’t be combined with the idea of a guvnors motor.Which the yanks had proven long before Garner sank.
windrush:
And so we plod merrily onward, like the Gardner engine’s under discussion, getting precisely nowhere and taking an age to do it! Amazingly the main poster (CF) is possibly the only one who has had no actual experience of either owning, driving or repairing them.
Pete.
But he has READ all the relevant books and info Pete so in to-days B.S. world that puts him way ahead of those of us who only drove and operated Gardner chassis and there is always the old adage,“B.S. baffles brains anyday” so that accounts for the bold “CF”'s success at converting the minions !! Cheers Bewick.
windrush:
And so we plod merrily onward, like the Gardner engine’s under discussion, getting precisely nowhere and taking an age to do it! Amazingly the main poster (CF) is possibly the only one who has had no actual experience of either owning, driving or repairing them.
Pete.
But he has READ all the relevant books and info Pete so in to-days B.S. world that puts him way ahead of those of us who only drove and operated Gardner chassis and there is always the old adage,“B.S. baffles brains anyday” so that accounts for the bold “CF”'s success at converting the minions !! Cheers Bewick.
It’s not BS it’s historical fact and we should both know because we were both actually there at the time while the things were still being turned out.
windrush:
And so we plod merrily onward, like the Gardner engine’s under discussion, getting precisely nowhere and taking an age to do it! Amazingly the main poster (CF) is possibly the only one who has had no actual experience of either owning, driving or repairing them.
Pete.
But he has READ all the relevant books and info Pete so in to-days B.S. world that puts him way ahead of those of us who only drove and operated Gardner chassis and there is always the old adage,“B.S. baffles brains anyday” so that accounts for the bold “CF”'s success at converting the minions !! Cheers Bewick.
It’s not BS it’s historical fact and we should both know because we were both actually there at the time while the things were still being turned out.
Well “CF” me old Mucker,I’ve been trying to reckon up how many Gardner engined motors we ran over the years and I’ve got to about 40 or so !They varied from a single 6LW,a couple of LX150’s and the rest a mixture of 180 & 240 LXB’s together with 5 LXC’s,they all gave excellent service both in reliability and economic terms.If you had been lucky enough to have been an operator in the 60’s and 70’s my Son you would have done a lot worse than running a fleet of Gardner chassis,and with regard to driver acceptance,well they stood a better chance of getting a wage packet EVERY week driving a Gardner engined motor than some of the exotic engined Gear you continue to promote !! Bewick.
Well said Dennis, But I dont think C/F Has any Idea obout running a fleet of motors & if he had tried with the crap he promotes I dont think he would have been very succesfull do you ?, Regards Larry.
Bewick:
Well “CF” me old Mucker,I’ve been trying to reckon up how many Gardner engined motors we ran over the years and I’ve got to about 40 or so !They varied from a single 6LW,a couple of LX150’s and the rest a mixture of 180 & 240 LXB’s together with 5 LXC’s,they all gave excellent service both in reliability and economic terms.If you had been lucky enough to have been an operator in the 60’s and 70’s my Son you would have done a lot worse than running a fleet of Gardner chassis,and with regard to driver acceptance,well they stood a better chance of getting a wage packet EVERY week driving a Gardner engined motor than some of the exotic engined Gear you continue to promote !! Bewick.
Ah, but what do you know about it, Dennis? After all, all you’ve done is to build a successful (PROFITABLE!) and highly respected haulage business from scratch - how on earth does that qualify you to offer comment on the suitability of certain equipment for the industry?
windrush:
And so we plod merrily onward, like the Gardner engine’s under discussion, getting precisely nowhere and taking an age to do it! Amazingly the main poster (CF) is possibly the only one who has had no actual experience of either owning, driving or repairing them.
Pete.
But he has READ all the relevant books and info Pete so in to-days B.S. world that puts him way ahead of those of us who only drove and operated Gardner chassis and there is always the old adage,“B.S. baffles brains anyday” so that accounts for the bold “CF”'s success at converting the minions !! Cheers Bewick.
It’s not BS it’s historical fact and we should both know because we were both actually there at the time while the things were still being turned out.
Well “CF” me old Mucker,I’ve been trying to reckon up how many Gardner engined motors we ran over the years and I’ve got to about 40 or so !They varied from a single 6LW,a couple of LX150’s and the rest a mixture of 180 & 240 LXB’s together with 5 LXC’s,they all gave excellent service both in reliability and economic terms.If you had been lucky enough to have been an operator in the 60’s and 70’s my Son you would have done a lot worse than running a fleet of Gardner chassis,and with regard to driver acceptance,well they stood a better chance of getting a wage packet EVERY week driving a Gardner engined motor than some of the exotic engined Gear you continue to promote !! Bewick.
I was thinking more along the lines of those who were working in the British truck manufacturing industry keeping a wage packet every week when all their once loyal customers had dissapeared over to the foreign competition when those customers finally realised that a 240/265 Gardner was no longer up to the job compared to something with a lot more output.
By the way I might be wrong but I thought you eventually had at least one Scania V8 on your fleet .
Here’s another question for those in the know: what was actually wrong with the 6LYT, which spoiled its reputation in the lorry industry? Bearing in mind that it was a success in coaches, surely the problems were not fundamental?
IIRC “CF” we actually ran about 6 or 7 V8 Scanias in later years along with 5 V8 Merc 1844’s !! As I have said previously,once Gardner moved into Turbos I didn’t want to know,and was proved right! Anyway this is a Gardner site so here’s a shot of the first Gardner we ever ran,a cracking motor it was as well ! 150LX/DB 6spd./Kirkstall BDR,10 MPG @ 32 ton GVW ( and I was filling it up and paying for the derv,but not driving it !) Sweet as a nut that engine was it was nearly silent when “ticking over”.Eat your heart out “CF” you don’t know what you missed my Son !!Happy days,Bewick.
[zb]
anorak:
Here’s another question for those in the know: what was actually wrong with the 6LYT, which spoiled its reputation in the lorry industry? Bearing in mind that it was a success in coaches, surely the problems were not fundamental?
I’ll stand to be corrected no doubt “anorak” but a coach is never run as “heavy” as say a 32/38 artic,I think there was a similar situation when CAT engines were tried in the Automotive industry as opposed to where they were “Kings” in the construction industry it didn’t work.It was a case of “D’ferrent strokes for d’ferrent folks” ■■? Cheers Bewick.
Evening all, well I see that we are still motoring along!!
5valve, very perceptive, Jo Cannaerts from Mechelen it was, (and very good “pro Gardner” company indeed)!!
!
gingerfold, noise, or engine note is perhaps subjective to the listners ear! Bernard “Gardners”, the few (worn), examples that I have driven, main difference, a much lighter throttle, and a more responsive take up on the revs. But the sound, pure Patricroft!! The Kromhouts that we used to get in Antwerpen, contrary to the engine that you experienced, ran so sweetly and well balanced, and the two drivers loved them, and swore that if their employer replaced them with 798 Serie J Saviems, well they would leave for pastures anew!
[ZB],“failure to expand production”, now you touch here on a very interesting point, and one that dovetails with the constant doctorine of our dear friend CF. Yes the individual manufacturing companys strategys may have been to stay within the capabilities of the domestic market. But why? Not as CF states “the fault of the buyers”, more that of the political masters, who controlled the legislation that fixed our manufacturers with a set of rules that forced them to produce products that were, (in relation to our cross channel neighbours), both lighter in nett, and gross weight, and lower powered in terms of specification. And culminated in preventing, for commercial reasons, development of a product range compatible with our European “friends” offerings, prior to us joining “their” club. The culpability of the political class in contributing to the demise of so much of our heavy industry is manifest, in terms of our commercial vehicle industry, it is even greater. Cheerio for now.
). This point is often forgotten: power-to-weight ratio is the important thing, power-per-litre is irrelevant. If the fuel consumption is good, is does not matter how big the cylinders are. Another feather in Hugh Gardner’s cap.
That’s why the L10 ■■■■■■■ at 290hp was a hundred times more popular in an 8 wheeler than the E290 was
.Thirsty maybe but not by the standards of the type of outputs v fuel efficiency equation required in their day.Whereas as I’ve said elsewhere on the topic the Gardner was just a one trick pony of reasonable fuel consumption at the expense of specific outputs so actually an inefficient boat anchor overall.Which is why the thing was effectively gone by the 1990’s let alone the 21’st century.
