I drove many Gardner engined motors during the early sixty’s, most of which were old man Suttons, including passing my test in one of his old Atky 8 wheelers and also on BRS, these would have been 6LW’s, 6LX’s, 5LW’s and the odd 4LW’s and I never found them to leak any more oil than AEC’s (My favorites) or Leylands! Valkyrie has in several of his posts mentioned that drivers would have known the power and torque figures of respective engines, well in my experience as first a trailer mate and then as a driver we did not discuss or talk about bhp because we didn’t know them, or care that much, and as for torque, a wagon was a good or bad puller or an old slogger. The first wagons to have an output figure on the front were those with the Gardner 150 in them, I was fully aware that an AEC or Leyland would be in most cases livelier, but at the time was not aware that the AEC 11.3 or the Leyland 680 were also rated at 150 bhp. Also Valkyrie most wagon and trailers at that time did not have the most powerful engines, on Suttons we had an Atky 8 wheeler and trailer with a 6LW,112 bhp, two Leyland Octo and trailers both with the 9.8 125 bhp 600 engine,one 6 wheel (single drive) TVW, two Atky Chinese 6’s with the LW, a TVW 4 wheeler and trailer with the LW and a Leyland Beaver 4 wheeler with the 600 engine plus a Atky Chinese 6 and some Atky 4 wheelers with the Gardner 150, most of the trailers were twin wheeled with 10.00 x 20 tyres and regularly would be loaded with 10 tons or more. I know that Bewick when he was a trailer mate on Brady’s later Leyland Octo and trailer had the 680 Power Plus & 200 bhp which i belive had a 6 speed box and could really fly. From around the mid 1950’s you could order and eventually recieve a AEC Mk 3 with the 11.3 and a 6 speed G/box but very few company’s would buy such a good motor sticking instead to the 9.6 and 5 speed box although this began to change in the move from the rigid 8 to Artics, and opening of sections of Motorway, When the M1 first opened there was no speed limits for lorry’s and you could even use the third lane for overtaking, but this was not a lot of use if your wagon could only do 30 mph…Tony
Suttons Tony:
I drove many Gardner engined motors during the early sixty’s, most of which were old man Suttons, including passing my test in one of his old Atky 8 wheelers and also on BRS, these would have been 6LW’s, 6LX’s, 5LW’s and the odd 4LW’s and I never found them to leak any more oil than AEC’s (My favorites) or Leylands! Valkyrie has in several of his posts mentioned that drivers would have known the power and torque figures of respective engines, well in my experience as first a trailer mate and then as a driver we did not discuss or talk about bhp because we didn’t know them, or care that much, and as for torque, a wagon was a good or bad puller or an old slogger. The first wagons to have an output figure on the front were those with the Gardner 150 in them, I was fully aware that an AEC or Leyland would be in most cases livelier, but at the time was not aware that the AEC 11.3 or the Leyland 680 were also rated at 150 bhp. Also Valkyrie most wagon and trailers at that time did not have the most powerful engines, on Suttons we had an Atky 8 wheeler and trailer with a 6LW,112 bhp, two Leyland Octo and trailers both with the 9.8 125 bhp 600 engine,one 6 wheel (single drive) TVW, two Atky Chinese 6’s with the LW, a TVW 4 wheeler and trailer with the LW and a Leyland Beaver 4 wheeler with the 600 engine plus a Atky Chinese 6 and some Atky 4 wheelers with the Gardner 150, most of the trailers were twin wheeled with 10.00 x 20 tyres and regularly would be loaded with 10 tons or more. I know that Bewick when he was a trailer mate on Brady’s later Leyland Octo and trailer had the 680 Power Plus & 200 bhp which i belive had a 6 speed box and could really fly. From around the mid 1950’s you could order and eventually recieve a AEC Mk 3 with the 11.3 and a 6 speed G/box but very few company’s would buy such a good motor sticking instead to the 9.6 and 5 speed box although this began to change in the move from the rigid 8 to Artics, and opening of sections of Motorway, When the M1 first opened there was no speed limits for lorry’s and you could even use the third lane for overtaking, but this was not a lot of use if your wagon could only do 30 mph…Tony
hiya,
Tony I never found Gardners any worse than any other engine at leaking oil if the sump and cover plates were “nipped up” at service intervals oil leakage was minimal all Suttons maintainence staff did this at every service, no doubt a job entrusted to the apprentices not a lot of skill was involved and it didn’t take long to complete this part of the service procedure was a recommendation by the Gardner company and if followed to the
letter Gardners were as drip free as any engine of that time.
thanks harry, long retired
Hi, Sutton’s Tony,
Just read your post on the subject of power ratings and whether a truck was a slogger or a flier. You mentioned the days before trucks were not limited on motorways(as you said ,provided your truck could do more than 30mph) I can recall being stopped on the M1 by the police and being asked where the fire was and would I like an ■■■■■■!! The fact that I was empty in a Guy Invincible with a 180 ■■■■■■■ under the bonnet and coming up the bank out of the Black Hole at Chesterfield wasn’t taken into account. The words " I’ve got my eye on you " ring a bell.
Incidentally , I’ve been trying to remember when they did put the speed limit on trucks on motorways, can anyone tell me?
Cheers Bassman
Bassman:
Hi, Sutton’s Tony,Incidentally , I’ve been trying to remember when they did put the speed limit on trucks on motorways, can anyone tell me?
Cheers Bassman
At a guess late 1980s, possibly 1989 ■■?
Hi, Gingerfold,
I think it would have been a lot earlier than that.I was referring to the 60mph limit on trucks travelling on a motorway.
Had you possibly thought that I meant speed limiters ,as fitted to a truck, they did come in during the mid/late 80’s.
Something at the back of my brain thinks it had something to do with oil restrictions and an Arab /Israeli war so I think it must have been late 60’s early 70’s.
Cheers Bassman
Bassman nothing to do with wars or oil restrictions it came about after a horrific bus crash in France in which a lot of French school children were killed . The French then brought in speed restrictions on HGVs and coaches culminating later on the introduction of speed limiters on vehicles manufactured after a certain year, ther ll be some info regarding which year somewhere. It would nt affect any thing fitted with a Gardner or our old Volvos it was nt retroactive, incidentally the legal speed limit for HGVs in the UK is still 60 MPH but you try telling VOSA that ,regards Crow.
No the lack of a Motorway speed limit had nothing to do with speed limiters on Trucks, all we had was the engine governer, and on a LW you would be fitting a saddle made of a block of hard wood and a piece of piano wire well wrapped in insulating tape so it left no marks. At a guess it would have been about 1966 when the speed limits were change on Trucks on the Motorway, It could have been one of Barbara Castles first changes, and of course of the Motorway a Wagon and Drag would have been limited to 20 mph, so why Bewick and his Driver were doing 70 mph with there 680 Power Plus Octo I can not imagine, or so I heard, ha,ha,ha…Tony.
Bassman:
Hi, Gingerfold,I think it would have been a lot earlier than that.I was referring to the 60mph limit on trucks travelling on a motorway.
Had you possibly thought that I meant speed limiters ,as fitted to a truck, they did come in during the mid/late 80’s.
Something at the back of my brain thinks it had something to do with oil restrictions and an Arab /Israeli war so I think it must have been late 60’s early 70’s.Cheers Bassman
Yes, I was thinking of speed limiters.
The limit for car speed limits on motorway was introduce in 1965 so would it have been then?
Suttons Tony:
No the lack of a Motorway speed limit had nothing to do with speed limiters on Trucks, all we had was the engine governer, and on a LW you would be fitting a saddle made of a block of hard wood and a piece of piano wire well wrapped in insulating tape so it left no marks. At a guess it would have been about 1966 when the speed limits were change on Trucks on the Motorway, It could have been one of Barbara Castles first changes, and of course of the Motorway a Wagon and Drag would have been limited to 20 mph, so why Bewick and his Driver were doing 70 mph with there 680 Power Plus Octo I can not imagine, or so I heard, ha,ha,ha…Tony.
Come on Tone ! 20MPH went out with “the Ark” !!Although I’ll give you that 20mph was just about all those breathless waggon and trailers of Alf’s could manage,and they were even slower on the A5,didn’t half get under our feet sometimes !! I think it was 30 mph on A roads and 40 mph on M/ways with a W/trailer IIRC.Well 40mph was a bit too “tastie” for Suttons and Athersmiths motors on the M1 so they had no danger of “drawing a tug” eh!! lol 
Cheers Dennis.
Hi, All
With reference to my query regarding Motorway speed limits for HGV’s and when they were imposed . Many thanks for the response. I can say that when I started on HGV’s in 1968 there wasn’t ,at that time , a maximum speed limit on HGV’s. But how soon after that it came in I,m not sure.
Crow mentioned a coach crash in France involving a lot of school children, I have a vague recollection of that but I can’t remember when it was.
Generally it didn’t matter what the top limit was because you weren’t usually driving a truck that could get anywhere near it, I’m not talking about downhill in Paddies, I mean on the level and under power.
IIRC there was a story doing the rounds in the mid to 'late 60’s about a Leyland being pulled for speeding was clocked at 96mph!!. I seem to think the story was in the Headlight (remember that magazine?)
but how true it was I haven’t a clue.
Cheers Bassman
Bassman:
Crow mentioned a coach crash in France involving a lot of school children, I have a vague recollection of that but I can’t remember when it was.
That was indeed the incident that led to speed limiters becoming mandatory. From memory, it applies to vehicles first registered from 1 January 1988 onwards.
240 Gardner:
Bassman:
Crow mentioned a coach crash in France involving a lot of school children, I have a vague recollection of that but I can’t remember when it was.That was indeed the incident that led to speed limiters becoming mandatory. From memory, it applies to vehicles first registered from 1 January 1988 onwards.
Bonsoir, oui, c`est vrai, 100% correct, as ever Chris! Cheerio for now.
Gardner engines. Like a few on Truck.net, i remember those oilers as the muts nuts engine to have. in its day it was a mavelous piece of engineering. In fact the head gaskets was thin shims with rubber ‘o’ rings for the seals and they had no sump gasket ‘face to face’ fitting, that 240- 8’s was like a coffin. Worked on them over 45 + yrs and i still love em. As of all engines from my early days ALL the big weight truck engines was heavy, as was the 680 Leyland (yer still have my whitworth spanners lol) nice lump and it sounded sweet in the LAD cabbed Beavers.Then the ■■■■■■■ Big Cam 14 became the prince and slowly we lost the race. The problem was, british engine builders didn’t run fast enough to keep up with tech. Even the truck builders was to slow to catch on .We even used cabs from foriegn builders with a our tags. We had the knowledge and the skill but just missed the bus. I’m glad i lived and worked that era, and I did a fair bit of driving and driver mating <(does that sound bad lol) on slack days, happy days. Drivers was drivers and rope and sheeting was an art ‘nothing nicer to see a realy tidy sheet up was there’ I got Job satisfaction at working on them finding the problems unlike now just plug in your lappy and let it find the probs. vehicle technictions (can’t even spell it ) now lol .Naaa I prefer being called a Truck mechanic. Here i go again Sorry to harp on be safe all
Mr Bewick, with respect, Alfs motors used to pull Trailers not prams these were Dysons with twin 10.00 x 20 tyres on the corners, 20ft x 8ft body, a thick chassis, massive springs and a twin brake system so they could be towed by either an air braked or vacuum brake Lorry, these used to tare at more than three and a half ton and could have coped with twice the 10 ton they normally carried and several times had 14 ton of Orr,s Zinc White aboard. My Driver and I was once leisurely on route to Key Glass, Harlow through Epping Forest on the A104 when one of the newly acquired Police Daimler Dart sports cars sneakerly crept up behind us and clocked us at 48 mph when we should be limited to 20 mph, my Driver was subsequently fined, this was in a newish Atky 4 wheeler and Trailer with a 150 and D/B 6 speed box. Most of the earlier 150’s had the ZF 6 speed box but I preferred the D/B. Suttons Trunkers were paid 11 hrs a night which was common in those days and and was the 20 mph, with an average of 16 mph, the BRS were paid 10 hrs for the 30 mph, the St.Helens General Manager, a Mr Lloyd used to take the mileometer readings. he would then drive down to London Depot and take the mileometer readings again to check that the trunkers had not been swanning about Birmingham or somewhere to put time on the wind up clock on the back of the inside of the cab, this will explain the stately progress of Suttons Trunkers, the 4 London based Trunkers used to do a change over at Bobs and were always in trouble with Ken Brown for finishing at 3 am but while they ignored him, no action was ever taken and of course us Shunters took no notice of clock’s, we were on tip and turn…Tony.
Suttons Tony:
Mr Bewick, with respect, Alfs motors used to pull Trailers not prams these were Dysons with twin 10.00 x 20 tyres on the corners, 20ft x 8ft body, a thick chassis, massive springs and a twin brake system so they could be towed by either an air braked or vacuum brake Lorry, these used to tare at more than three and a half ton and could have coped with twice the 10 ton they normally carried and several times had 14 ton of Orr,s Zinc White aboard. My Driver and I was once leisurely on route to Key Glass, Harlow through Epping Forest on the A104 when one of the newly acquired Police Daimler Dart sports cars sneakerly crept up behind us and clocked us at 48 mph when we should be limited to 20 mph, my Driver was subsequently fined, this was in a newish Atky 4 wheeler and Trailer with a 150 and D/B 6 speed box. Most of the earlier 150’s had the ZF 6 speed box but I preferred the D/B. Suttons Trunkers were paid 11 hrs a night which was common in those days and and was the 20 mph, with an average of 16 mph, the BRS were paid 10 hrs for the 30 mph, the St.Helens General Manager, a Mr Lloyd used to take the mileometer readings. he would then drive down to London Depot and take the mileometer readings again to check that the trunkers had not been swanning about Birmingham or somewhere to put time on the wind up clock on the back of the inside of the cab, this will explain the stately progress of Suttons Trunkers, the 4 London based Trunkers used to do a change over at Bobs and were always in trouble with Ken Brown for finishing at 3 am but while they ignored him, no action was ever taken and of course us Shunters took no notice of clock’s, we were on tip and turn…Tony.
Hiya Tone I always believed that BRS were paid on 23 mph,they’d have to have been “airbourne” to average 30 mph,as for the Suttons drawbars,yes I will agree that those trailers were superb in every way compared to the older single wheel drawbars.We normally caught up with a group of Suttons waggon and trailers at the Hollies when we stopped for breakfast on the way to London ( remember,we’d come down from Barrow-in Furness that morning!) Those,cough,cough,idle backs had only trundled down from St.Helens that morning and they defo were not trunkers they were usually loaded with Pilks and going to Dagenham and Luton etc.Our regular loads to London were always about 27/28 ton of Cellophane for a closing ship that day! or if we were lucky British Waterways at Brentford.We had no time to parp about playing “patter cake,patter cake” with Suttons Atki’s!Cheers Mr.Bewick.
Oh! by the way Tone,I’m not so sure that the Suttons Dyson drawbars were on 10.00X20 twin tyres.In my distant photgraphic memory they were on smaller twins something like 825X17ins,they wouldn’t have needed 8 10.00X20 tyres for the wieghts they carried,I stand to be corrected but I do believe this to be the case.Cheers Bewick.
Mr Bewick believe me they were 10.00 x 20’,s I’ve had to change them! though some of the older Atky’s and Leylands were shod with 900 x 20’s we certainly never had any 8.25’s but we had two Hands Trailers with balloon tyres and one Dyson of about 21ft length with single 10.00 x 20’s but this was still expected to carry 10 tons even when hooked to an old Atky LW 8 wheeler. I left Suttons for BRS, a big mistake! around 1964 and at that time there were no general haulage day Trampers, all general haulage was on trunk. The shunters doing Loose glass used to be paid £5 by the glazier company’s to get up on the back of the lorry to pass the glass sheets to the guy’s on ground, this was strictly against Pilkington’s rules and if a Pilkington rep saw you you would be in big trouble, we also used to receive an extra £10 if we would take the load to a building site to unload on occasions. Shunters in London were paid a 68 hr some of which was at time and a quarter and some at time and a half, a week on tip and turn for 2 weeks of 6 days and i of 5, Sundays and bank holidays were treble time it was a good job…Tony.
Just incase it is thought I don’t know tyres one of the first jobs I was taught at Inter City, my first job after leaving school, was to repair punctures using a vulkaniser including 8.25’s, 900’s, 10.00’s and 900 x 24’s (40 x 8’s) and I can assure you I was very nervous of the spring rims because we had no cage so I would have to stand on them and the blowing them up, dish towards me, to 90 lbs or 100 lbs. and hearing about the young lad, a year older than me, who had his head taken off by a spring rim at Tony’s of Granthem. Oh yes they were 10.00 x 20’s…Tony.
Reference the speed limits, the motorway limit of 70 mph came in during 1965 for all vehicles, non before that but as far as wagons were concerned its already been said most pre motorway era engines were underpowered so were restricted anyway. In 1971 the limit for lorries over 3 Ton ULW came in and the 50 limit for roads was during the Arab-Israeli War oil crisis and effective between 8 Dec 1973 to 28 March 1974.
As far as HGV’s were concerned it was a 20 mph limit until 1957 when it changed to 30 apart from rigid and trailer which kept the 20 limit. With the 70 motorway limit there also came a rise to 40 but the Wagon and Drag still only went to 30 on A routes. I remember the 40 to 50 limit coming in during 1984, I was pulled up for doing 50 on the A1 and the cop didn’t believe the limit had gone up until he checked with base, I never got an apology just a few profanities about the cops employers for not telling him! Limiters came in 1992 for new motors over 7.5 tonnes, at first to 60 then to follow EU regs to 56 mph (90 km/h). Hope this helps put things in the correct order.
Franky.