ramone:
Carryfast:
kr79:
I remember reading years ago that the fixed head engine was reduced in size during the design to bring the weight under 1 ton. Dont know if theres any truth in it though.
Also that there was a high rejection rate on the production line but how many also slipped through the net.
So it could be poor tooling and casting that didnt help as it seems by all acounts you got one that was either super reliable or more likely one that [zb] it self on s regular basis.There seems to be a difference in the reasoning given in some explanations compared to others for the capacity of the 500.IE some say it was all about space while others say it was all about weight.
It wouldn’t be surprising that ‘if’ it had been the case,that Leyland’s bean counters had been stupid enough to order just the downscaling of the 700,instead of ordering the designing a different smaller capacity fixed head engine,and then expected it to work,to have then had to think up an excuse quick to put the blame anywhere else but where it belonged when it inevitably didn’t work.
Which might be a possibility considering the documented reports that the thing was manufactured on new machinery which was purchased to do the job which would then make the excuse of so called out of tolerance machining less credible.
It would also explain why Dr Fogg seems to have walked away because of his ‘issues’ concerning the use of the 500 engine design with no documented reports as to his exact reasoning for doing so.Especially if,to add insult to injury of using a too small engine capacity for it’s design aims,the beancounters then also effectively and erroneously butchered the 700 engine design,that he seems to have had faith in,to do it.All because of a bs weight saving crusade,let alone if it had been because Leyland needed something which would fit under the too small/low set ERGO cab.
However engineering logic says that there’s no way that the 500 could have had any connection with the 700 with both having had to have been two different engines.Which would have simply meant that the bean counters in control of Leyland chose the wrong option beween the two ideas possibly in view of the documented compromised engine space available with the ERGO cab.Then true to form tried to cover themselves by putting the blame elsewhere and using misinformation to change story of how it all happened from the outset.Especially if the whole thing had been the result of flawed thinking in following Mueller’s advice.
As for the reliable 500’s v the grenades I’d bet that would have been a case of those that were used in the lighter weight applications running at a lot less than 32 t gross.
Well according to what i
ve read it was Sir Henry Spurrier who was the brains behind the 700 ,he was still in conversation with Dr Mueller whilst the project was going on but his untimely death broke links with Germany and the project was taken over by Norman Tattersall ,no mention anywhere of Dr Fogg .It clearly states that the only reason it was downscaled was the height of it.Now reading into it im sure you would have been a big fan of Sir Henry Spurrier as he wanted back in59/60 an engine that could have produced 300 bhp+ so obviously the forward thinking was there
Which still leaves the inconvenient matter as to where did Knowles get the idea that it was Spurrier ( obviously with the connection with Mueller ) who stated that the 500 idea was there from the outset with references to it’s design aims being that of ‘doing the work of an 11 litre + engine in the long haul sector’ 
.Added to which is that issue that there’s no way that a 700 engine can just be ‘downscaled’ to make it into a 500.The two engines would have needed to have been different designs,using different coponents,from their respective outsets.
Reading between the lines of all the different accounts there was definitely plenty of forward thinking going on in at least one of the firms that made up the Leyland Truck Group.However all the evidence seems to suggest that the forward thinking in question was all on the part of Dr Fogg and AEC not Spurrier and Leyland.What followed seems to have been a an orchestrated campaign of misinformation to cover up what actually took place concerning the bean counters backing the wrong choices in the case of Spurrier’s ( and Mueller’s ) 500 engine idea and the ERGO/Marathon cab as opposed to Dr Fogg’s 700 engine idea and the 3 VTG project.In this case,as I’ve said,the VTG cab would have at least made for a more competitive product than the ERGO/Marathon while the 700 engine might just have given Leyland the breathing space and time it needed to develop the TL12 asuming that it was cost effective to do so v the use of outsourced engines.
It’s my bet that Mueller might have foreseen Leyland’s development programme possibly moving forward along those lines which would explain his advice to Spurrier concerning wasting loads of money on the 500 engine project especially when it seems that Mueller had no long term plans of becoming a German ex pat Englander working for the long term interests of Leyland.
Which leaves the question as to why was such an immigrant worker was brought in from BMW to ‘advise’ the Brits when it had already been shown that British engineering could easily sort out anything which BMW’s engineers could produce in the case of the Mk IX Spitfire v the Focke Wulf 190 and then when ze Germans ( rightly ) junked the BMW radial in favour of the Jumo 213 to keep up the Brits just answered that with the Griffon powered versions of the Spit. 
As I’ve said the whole story of the ERGO/Marathon and the 500 engine v the Mercedes LP range is just another story in the sad case of how the Brits won the war but lost the peace all because of the stupid British ‘bankers’ who seemed to have been working more in the interests of the post war German economy than their own. 
