Austin Morris BMC

I spent my early working life including an apprenticeship at a BMC dealer and they were a decent enough truck until the coming of the underfloor engined FJ series that is! :blush: It was brought out to try and rival the D series Ford but lacked development time, it suffered numerous changes to its cooling system over the years to try and correct airlocks but eventually the engine was fitted in the vertical position to become the Boxer and was much improved. The Bathgate built engines were the worst, they were 1/8th" longer than the Birmingham built ones and were hopeless, I fitted three different replacement engines into one Prime Mover and not one of them was any good. They all overheated in the workshop and were returned to the factory without even venturing past the garage doors.
The earlier FFK and FHK series were reliable enough and the FGK’s (30cwt, 2, 3 or 4 tons payloads) proved fine for local delivery work, though a couple of local companies ran them on a trunk service from Reading to Glasgow which stretched the four cylinder engine a little. :open_mouth: I drove them for many miles and they were ok for the time, steering was a little heavy but men were men back then! :laughing:
The 6 cylinder FGK 100 was a better machine with an optional five speed gearbox, two speed axle and optional power steering, they could carry 6 tons and tared at under 3 tons so could be driven on a car license.
The BMC 3.4 and 5.1 diesel engines were developed from Saurer units, hence the fuel pump was on the drivers side, the earlier Morris- Commercial lorries and vans were very well built and many did 20+ years of service, we were still repairing trucks from the early 50’s in the early 1970’s which were owned by the Gas Board amongst others.

Pete.