Regarding the DAF, with the oil tank and cooler setup behind the cab and that massive beast of arm on her back. My guess is that the front wheels would be powered with hydraulics similar to multi wheeled mobile cranes.
Titan are a well renound builder of specialised trucks for difficult jobs and the DAF looks more of a tool for putting heavy things in tight spaces rather than chomping down the motorway day after day.
Thanks.
Reading that CM article I guess that the AEC had underslung worm diffs like a bus etc allowing the propshaft to fit below the load bed.
Pete.
windrush:
Reading that CM article I guess that the AEC had underslung worm diffs like a bus etc allowing the propshaft to fit below the load bed.Pete.
Yes. Good deduction of the method of reduction. 
“…A heavy I-section stamping forms the first axle, whilst the second is machined to rectangular section from the solid. The rear axles incorporate one-piece steel casings. Both are driven by worm gears affording a reduction of 10-k to 1, and between the final drives there is a third differential. Torque reaction is resisted by a flexible plate mounted below the axles…
Read more at archive.commercialmotor.com/arti … d81o7RL.99”
They did well to keep the unladen weight at four tons, given details like a solid second axle.
AndieHyde:
Regarding the DAF, with the oil tank and cooler setup behind the cab and that massive beast of arm on her back. My guess is that the front wheels would be powered with hydraulics similar to multi wheeled mobile cranes.
Titan are a well renound builder of specialised trucks for difficult jobs and the DAF looks more of a tool for putting heavy things in tight spaces rather than chomping down the motorway day after day.Thanks.
With the exception of the unlikely possibility that it uses some type of Citroen Traction Avant type transmission set up,resulting in even more front axle/suspension design headaches,that would be the best explanation.
[zb]
anorak:windrush:
Reading that CM article I guess that the AEC had underslung worm diffs like a bus etc allowing the propshaft to fit below the load bed.Pete.
Yes. Good deduction of the method of reduction.
“…A heavy I-section stamping forms the first axle, whilst the second is machined to rectangular section from the solid. The rear axles incorporate one-piece steel casings. Both are driven by worm gears affording a reduction of 10-k to 1, and between the final drives there is a third differential. Torque reaction is resisted by a flexible plate mounted below the axles…
Read more at archive.commercialmotor.com/arti … d81o7RL.99”
They did well to keep the unladen weight at four tons, given details like a solid second axle.
Blimey.So the prop shaft runs to the rear axles at ‘lower’ than the load deck height to equally low set diff inputs. 
Which then logically must have meant an equally imaginative engine and gearbox mounting position to keep it all in line.If not a massively vertically misaligned prop shaft arrangement,taking drive from the higher set gearbox output to the lower diff inputs.
Carryfast:
[zb]
anorak:windrush:
Reading that CM article I guess that the AEC had underslung worm diffs like a bus etc allowing the propshaft to fit below the load bed.Pete.
Yes. Good deduction of the method of reduction.
“…A heavy I-section stamping forms the first axle, whilst the second is machined to rectangular section from the solid. The rear axles incorporate one-piece steel casings. Both are driven by worm gears affording a reduction of 10-k to 1, and between the final drives there is a third differential. Torque reaction is resisted by a flexible plate mounted below the axles…
Read more at archive.commercialmotor.com/arti … d81o7RL.99”
They did well to keep the unladen weight at four tons, given details like a solid second axle.Blimey.So the prop shaft runs to the rear axles at ‘lower’ than the load deck height to equally low set diff inputs.
What is the configuration of the drive train on your Reliant “CF” ? 
and a Happy New Year by the way ! Cheers Bewick.
Obviously not a truck, but the AEC Q Type bus of the 1930s (Single deck and double deck models) had a side mounted vertical engine behind the offside front wheel with the drive taken down the side of the chassis to a diff which was mounted virtually on the inside of the offside rear wheel. It allowed front entrance bodywork which pre-dated the Leyland Atlantean rear engine design with front entrance body by over 20 years. Maybe someone can find a chassis design for the Q Type?
So, if I understand well, that AEC flatbed truck was fitted with a drive on the 3rd axle? All that looks very clever back in 1935!
What about the most obvious strange transmission layout, considering Scammel built 20,000 of them, the Scammel Scarab mechanical horse.
This had a unit engine,(originally Scammel and later Perkins), gearbox and rear axle, sitting low in the chassis behind the cab.
bestbooties:
What about the most obvious strange transmission layout, considering Scammel built 20,000 of them, the Scammel Scarab mechanical horse.
This had a unit engine,(originally Scammel and later Perkins), gearbox and rear axle, sitting low in the chassis behind the cab.
Including this ingenious preserved one with detachable living-body, I snapped at Llandudno! Robert
robert1952:
bestbooties:
What about the most obvious strange transmission layout, considering Scammel built 20,000 of them, the Scammel Scarab mechanical horse.
This had a unit engine,(originally Scammel and later Perkins), gearbox and rear axle, sitting low in the chassis behind the cab.Including this ingenious preserved one with detachable living-body, I snapped at Llandudno! Robert
0
Yes Robert, this and the Hanomag next to it are renovations done by the Walsh brothers who take on basket cases and turn them out in quick time,I follow them in one of my vintage truck mags.
gingerfold:
Obviously not a truck, but the AEC Q Type bus of the 1930s (Single deck and double deck models) had a side mounted vertical engine behind the offside front wheel with the drive taken down the side of the chassis to a diff which was mounted virtually on the inside of the offside rear wheel. It allowed front entrance bodywork which pre-dated the Leyland Atlantean rear engine design with front entrance body by over 20 years. Maybe someone can find a chassis design for the Q Type?
That was also followed by the early 1950’s horizontal under floor engined Regal IV which was still running well into the 1970’s on many of the Kingston to Weybridge type routes.
gingerfold:
Obviously not a truck, but the AEC Q Type bus of the 1930s (Single deck and double deck models) had a side mounted vertical engine behind the offside front wheel with the drive taken down the side of the chassis to a diff which was mounted virtually on the inside of the offside rear wheel. It allowed front entrance bodywork which pre-dated the Leyland Atlantean rear engine design with front entrance body by over 20 years. Maybe someone can find a chassis design for the Q Type?
A tall order, but give me time.
Your comment about bus drivelines is, I suppose, what prompted me to kick the thread off in the first place. I knew of Atlanteans and Bristol VR’s (deckers) and Bristol RE’s and Leyland Nationals - all rear engine, rear drive, and as common as sixpenny pieces in the 70s and 80s. So, why not wagons as well? Obviously it’s hard to design OMO buses where passengers (sorry, customers) have to negotiate a large hump above the engine/ transmission, but given the range of practical applications in distribution alone, I was slightly surprised I couldn’t readily think of any truck chassis that weren’t front engone/ rear drive.
Happily, responses to this thread have shown me that there have been many weird-and-(not so) wonderful alternatives.
Bumping an old thread. The Dennis Loline was a licence built copy of the Bristol Lodekka chassis.
flickr.com/photos/36844288@N00/44804730575
This employed a different mehod to the AEC of driving the rear axle while utilising a very low floor albeit only really 'low in the centre gangway. Three designs were tried. In the prototype and trial vehicles a drop down gearset lowered the output from the gearbox. The propshaft ran through the offside crossmembers but inside the main chassis rails. Mid chassis it met a crossdrive gearset incorporating differential gearing. From there the drive was split the offside continuing in a straight line while the nearside turned 90 degrees across the chassis to another set of bevel gears which turned the drive rearwards again. Both rear propshafts then drove separate worm and wheel final drive gears on each side of the rear axle.
The first production version was simplified, eliminating the centre gearing and twin rear propshafts and substituting spur gears on either side of the rear axle with spiral bevel gear final drive and a differential gearing in the offside unit.
The final version employed air suspension using trailing arms, a cross beam and a Panhard rod.
archive.commercialmotor.com/arti … ng-lodekka
The use of dropdown gearing for the gearbox output resulted in clockwise propshaft rotation requiring, like the plumber block and transfer case Albion transmission, special final drive gearing.
As far as I can see AEC’s machinery carrier could have been made to be front wheel drive. From AEC’s experience with FWD and Hardy designs they could have incorporated a transfer gearset behind the main gearbox with its propshaft running forwards to a driven front axle.
Reading Corporation Transport had a fleet of Lolines, I know a chap who spent his whole working life in their workshop and he rated them as the worst busses they ever ran. Now also in Reading were based the Thames Valley Traction company, later renamed Alder Valley after amalgamating with Aldershot and District (who also ran Lolines! 
) but Alder Valley ran a large Bristol Lodekka fleet and they liked them.
The AEC Q Type was mentioned previously, here is an old pic (not mine) of a local one in service in Matlock. It hasnow been in preservation with different owners for a number of years, infact our vintage club secretary actually drove it out of the workshop for the previous owner as he couldn’t fathom how the gearbox worked!
Pete.
Ta for dusting off this thread, completely forgotten about it!
