Caught you Bewick !! trying to steal my thunder !!!
NURSE ! NURSE! 
Fergie47:
Caught you Bewick !! trying to steal my thunder !!!
NURSE ! NURSE!
Heres me thinking Matron had tucked you up for the night but you must have climbed out the bleeding window and come round the front !! Matron ! Matron ! Look Fergie you SOM Boys have had your shot on your own site and have only succeeded in nausing up my very sensible enquiries (re. Big J 8LXBs) !!! So I started a new thread and guess what they’ve all followed me !!! Cheers Bewick.
I think they were available in the Seddon, easily confused for a Guy from behind, just a thought 
Bewick:
Carryfast:
12 litres +, 8 cylinders,massive price difference,all for 240 horses.Why would anyone have bothered to spec it anyway?.Probably the same managers who asked Bedford to use the 7 Litre V6 Detroit in the TM to run at 32 tonnes and who would’nt buy the 8V92 version maybe and the ones who would’nt give me a job when I was a new driver in the 1980’s might have done.If you looked like a sensible lad Carryfast I would have given you a start but not on a TK on Steroids !! You would have gone onto a Big J (180LXB ) which was enough of a motor for a lad !! Then once you had proved yourself an 8LXB was a definite possibility!! But don’t compare a Detroit clockwork orange with the creme de la creme Gardner 8LXB they are not in the same leauge !!! Cheers Bewick
No thanks bewick.I was happy enough when they gave me a DAF 2800 for my first job on artics at 25.We did have a Gardner powered heap but it was our yard shunter which is about all it was quick enough for. 
But I actually preferred those proper yank engines over anything else I’ve driven since and my first guvnors were happy enough to trust me at 21 with a new licence with up to more than double the amount of power that old plodder of a Gardner could even come close to.Just hope there’s no yanks who read the best truck engines made described as clockwork.Unless you know where there’s a 400 horse or 635 horse Gardner fitted in a Guy Big J
hi dennis,
it’s just occured to me,seriousley who would know the answer to this one.my old mate richard stanier,he owns a very late “b” registered big j with a 180 in it.richard or “the brochure king” as he is known on big lorry blog would have a brochure or two on guy big j’s.as delboy once said “what can’t speak can’t lie”.
regards andrew
Carryfast:
12 litres +, 8 cylinders,massive price difference,all for 240 horses.Why would anyone have bothered to spec it anyway?.Probably the same managers who asked Bedford to use the 7 Litre V6 Detroit in the TM to run at 32 tonnes and who would’nt buy the 8V92 version maybe and the ones who would’nt give me a job when I was a new driver in the 1980’s might have done.
The 8LXB was nearer 14 litres, and was actaully rated at 245bhp. Lovely engine, done many happy miles sat next to “Rain-Cooled” 8’s 
STRAIGHT EIGHT:
Carryfast:
12 litres +, 8 cylinders,massive price difference,all for 240 horses.Why would anyone have bothered to spec it anyway?.Probably the same managers who asked Bedford to use the 7 Litre V6 Detroit in the TM to run at 32 tonnes and who would’nt buy the 8V92 version maybe and the ones who would’nt give me a job when I was a new driver in the 1980’s might have done.The 8LXB was nearer 14 litres, and was actaully rated at 245bhp. Lovely engine, done many happy miles sat next to “Rain-Cooled” 8’s
But I meant 12 litres in comparison to the 8V92 Detroit.Like the ■■■■■■■ the Gardner seemed to be a lot of engine for little return.In comparison with a 14 Litre capacity the 12V71 gave out (a lot) more than the 400 + horses which the 8V92 could and that motor was’nt turbocharged.Clockwork ■■.
Carryfast:
the Gardner seemed to be a lot of engine for little return
As I recall, the 6LXB and 8LXB achieved the highest thermal efficiency of any engine on the market at that time. And, according to the IRTE, the lowest maintenance costs.
An 8LXB-engined Borderer belonging to John Raymond held the fuel consumption record on Comical Motor’s Scottish test route for five years!! And it was also one of the faster vehicles round there. When it was finally beaten by a DAF 2500, the DAF was decidedly slower.
Apart from that, I suppose they didn’t offer much…
A properly driven Gardner is faster than you think across country, but doesn’t really feel it. My 150-engined Atki was geared for a top speed of 46 mph, but it was driven from Preston to Southampton, at 26 tons gross, at an average speed of 41.
240 Gardner:
Carryfast:
the Gardner seemed to be a lot of engine for little returnAs I recall, the 6LXB and 8LXB achieved the highest thermal efficiency of any engine on the market at that time. And, according to the IRTE, the lowest maintenance costs.
An 8LXB-engined Borderer belonging to John Raymond held the fuel consumption record on Comical Motor’s Scottish test route for five years!! And it was also one of the faster vehicles round there. When it was finally beaten by a DAF 2500, the DAF was decidedly slower.
Apart from that, I suppose they didn’t offer much…
A properly driven Gardner is faster than you think across country, but doesn’t really feel it. My 150-engined Atki was geared for a top speed of 46 mph, but it was driven from Preston to Southampton, at 26 tons gross, at an average speed of 41.
By thermal efficiency I think that they meant it never worked hard enough to warm itself up and there was’nt much point in fitting a heater in a truck which always ran cold .I’m not surprised that the DAF was slower cosidering it was only around 8 Litres in capacity although it was turbocharged.The 2800 would have been a fairer comparison.If Gardner had ever worked out how to make a turbo work on their engines then it might have even stood a chance against one of those .But while we were running Gardner powered wagons at 45-50 mph the yanks were running across the states at around 100 mph with those clockwork two strokes and a Gardner is as slow as you think when it’s struggling to climb a hill.Luckily for them we were’nt importing clockwork yank two strokes at the time .Not surprising with the quality of British transport management and it’s fear of a bit of fuel consumption.
Carryfast I know you have a two stroke Detroit fetish, but you got to admit a Gardner made a lovely noise too, especially the 8 pot & they could match any two stroke for smoke on a cold morning
As a piece of engineering a Gardner engine was about as good as it gets, just a shame the management team were so short sighted, who knows? If they had devoted the same degree of engineering to their turbo charged engines as they did the 4L, 5L, 6L & 8L series of engines, things would’ve been very different in the truck world today.
240 Gardner:
A properly driven Gardner is faster than you think across country, but doesn’t really feel it. My 150-engined Atki was geared for a top speed of 46 mph, but it was driven from Preston to Southampton, at 26 tons gross, at an average speed of 41.
The bloody hooligan
marky:
240 Gardner:
A properly driven Gardner is faster than you think across country, but doesn’t really feel it. My 150-engined Atki was geared for a top speed of 46 mph, but it was driven from Preston to Southampton, at 26 tons gross, at an average speed of 41.The bloody hooligan
Like another hooligan from the crew who managed to conduct no.47 across Staffordshire at dead of night, so that the following FL10 was dropping back!
newmercman:
Carryfast I know you have a two stroke Detroit fetish, but you got to admit a Gardner made a lovely noise too, especially the 8 pot & they could match any two stroke for smoke on a cold morningAs a piece of engineering a Gardner engine was about as good as it gets, just a shame the management team were so short sighted, who knows? If they had devoted the same degree of engineering to their turbo charged engines as they did the 4L, 5L, 6L & 8L series of engines, things would’ve been very different in the truck world today.
In their day, they were top dog on operating economics, unless speed at the expense of fuel consumption and maintenance cost was your overriding operational requirement. Of course, you can gear it to go at whatever speed you want. And as for hills, “Carryfast”, I remember being comprehensively left behind by a Killingbeck 8-cylinder Atkinson. It was across the moors of Lancashire, and I was driving a bobtail Volvo F12, weighing several tons less than his double-drive tractor and empty trailer.
Gardner were slow in upping the power, it is true, and developing the 6LXB into the 6LXC to meet the requirement for 6 bhp/ton at 32 tons was risibly late. Beyond that, and into the turbocharging era, they had ceased to be the masters of their own destiny, and investment by Hawker Siddeley was not sufficient to put them back at the top of the game. Perhaps that’s why the 6LYT ended up as the Triumph Stag of the commercial vehicle world? Top of the tree… till it broke!
newmercman:
Carryfast I know you have a two stroke Detroit fetish, but you got to admit a Gardner made a lovely noise too, especially the 8 pot & they could match any two stroke for smoke on a cold morningAs a piece of engineering a Gardner engine was about as good as it gets, just a shame the management team were so short sighted, who knows? If they had devoted the same degree of engineering to their turbo charged engines as they did the 4L, 5L, 6L & 8L series of engines, things would’ve been very different in the truck world today.
It’s not just the great noise that a Detroit made it actually delivered the goods when it came to specific power and torque figures too which is why we fitted them not Gardners in fire trucks.But even if Gardner had turbocharged something like an 8 lxb it probably still would’nt have matched the old Leyland 680 which DAF developed into the turbo charged motor for the 2800-3600 range.But on the subject of smoke many of us Detroit fans always said that it’s the ■■■■■■■ which is all smoke and no go wether it’s warmed up or cold
240 Gardner:
newmercman:
Carryfast I know you have a two stroke Detroit fetish, but you got to admit a Gardner made a lovely noise too, especially the 8 pot & they could match any two stroke for smoke on a cold morningAs a piece of engineering a Gardner engine was about as good as it gets, just a shame the management team were so short sighted, who knows? If they had devoted the same degree of engineering to their turbo charged engines as they did the 4L, 5L, 6L & 8L series of engines, things would’ve been very different in the truck world today.
In their day, they were top dog on operating economics, unless speed at the expense of fuel consumption and maintenance cost was your overriding operational requirement. Of course, you can gear it to go at whatever speed you want. And as for hills, “Carryfast”, I remember being comprehensively left behind by a Killingbeck 8-cylinder Atkinson. It was across the moors of Lancashire, and I was driving a bobtail Volvo F12, weighing several tons less than his double-drive tractor and empty trailer.
Gardner were slow in upping the power, it is true, and developing the 6LXB into the 6LXC to meet the requirement for 6 bhp/ton at 32 tons was risibly late. Beyond that, and into the turbocharging era, they had ceased to be the masters of their own destiny, and investment by Hawker Siddeley was not sufficient to put them back at the top of the game. Perhaps that’s why the 6LYT ended up as the Triumph Stag of the commercial vehicle world? Top of the tree… till it broke!
There’s nothing wrong with the maintenance costs of Detroit two stroke engines in fact they were probably far better on that than anything else in just the same way that they were on power.But there’s no way you can get good specific power outputs from an engine without using some fuel.But that comparison concerning the Atki versus F12 probably says more about the F12 than how good the Gardner was.But I think the opposition here might have been the only Gardner powered yank in existence .If I can find an old Bedford TM 4400 with an 8V92 in it I’ll put another turbo on it and then it’ll go like this and you can put a Gardner powered Atki up against it.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQRO2pvW4Sc
Never mind the 8LXB - you need the Mervyn Edwards’ flying machine… ■■■■■■■ 335 & 9-speed Fuller… back in action one day I hope… although he will probably put it straight back to work!
Hiya I’ve just had a look at the U tube video. Well are you telling me thats a standard engine with no ballancing or over fueling without waterinjection
and would do more than 2 miles without a rebuild.Some of us have done a bit of motoring and know thats just a way of using lots of Dollars for fun.
If you want to spend $5000 for 3 seconds thats your game.Gardner was building good Diesel engines when yanks was running sidevalve gas engines.
People always respected Gardner engines.the reason people do’nt drag race Gardner engines is after your 5 second drag some daft bugger strips the engine and sticks a new set of pistons back in ready for the next demo.Nowadays there are not many people willing to rebuild a Gardner engine not as they need a rebuild that often.If the rack stuck back on a Gardner it would rev itself till it blew up maybe this what the Detroit dose after every drag.New pistons and heads to me is a rebuild.I’ve driven Bedford two strokes and Gardner 240s and the Gardner will come out on top every time.Iam not saying Detroits are
bad but don’t come up to a 240 standard.
John.
pete 359:
hi dennis,
it’s just occured to me,seriousley who would know the answer to this one.my old mate richard stanier,he owns a very late “b” registered big j with a 180 in it.richard or “the brochure king” as he is known on big lorry blog would have a brochure or two on guy big j’s.as delboy once said “what can’t speak can’t lie”.
regards andrew
Hiya Andrew hope the weather isn’t causing you too many problems !! Good Idea about having a word with your mate Richard maybe he can help or does he maybe browse this site ? Any way I hope he can shed some light on the matter as the subject is stirring up a few emotions i. e. I am been threatened with deportation to the U.S. and put on trial for Dissing G.M. 2 strokes !!! How on earth a GM engine can be compared to a Gardner I fail to understand but there it is !! I only set out to " drain the swamp"and I have ended up up to my a**e in crocodiles !!!. Cheers Dennis.
Up to ya neck in it eh Bewick?
Re the Gardner/ Green leaker dispute, depends on your viewpoint, if you was a driver on trip money you’d want the Detroit, if you was buying the fuel it would be the Gardner.
I personally liked the sound of both, done thousands of miles with a 180 (gardner’s worst IMHO), the gardner always got you home…
…to late for tea though
Carryfast:
Bewick:
Carryfast:
12 litres +, 8 cylinders,massive price difference,all for 240 horses.Why would anyone have bothered to spec it anyway?.Probably the same managers who asked Bedford to use the 7 Litre V6 Detroit in the TM to run at 32 tonnes and who would’nt buy the 8V92 version maybe and the ones who would’nt give me a job when I was a new driver in the 1980’s might have done.If you looked like a sensible lad Carryfast I would have given you a start but not on a TK on Steroids !! You would have gone onto a Big J (180LXB ) which was enough of a motor for a lad !! Then once you had proved yourself an 8LXB was a definite possibility!! But don’t compare a Detroit clockwork orange with the creme de la creme Gardner 8LXB they are not in the same leauge !!! Cheers Bewick
No thanks bewick.I was happy enough when they gave me a DAF 2800 for my first job on artics at 25.We did have a Gardner powered heap but it was our yard shunter which is about all it was quick enough for.
Hiya Carryfast ! THE JOB ---- During the 70s & 80s we used to get any number of lads asking for starts who had only been taught to pass their test (not taught how to drive properly nor of course how to carry out the numerous other tasks they were required to carry out as a professional HGV driver ) However usually without exception they expected to be allocated nothing less than an F88 or a 111 !!! Of course they always recieved the same answer "Dont ring us we’ll ring you " . Those lads that did accept a spell being taught and guided for a while by our shunters always turned out to become 1st class employees and sailed up the ranks quickly . GM Vs GARDENER If you are talking about drag racing at Santa Pod we would appear to be on different planets because I am talking about running an economical , reliable truck in the tough environs of the road haulage business !! Unfortunatley it was totally futile and financially suicidal to even consider KM/TM as an alternative to operating Gardener/Scania/■■■■■■■■ Volvo engined tractors ! We did have a few visits from our local Bedford dealer to demo the KM/TM tractors in the 70s but if I had had a momentary lapse and agreed to taking one or two into the fleet I would have had a riot on my hands !! Not to mention the damage to our fleet profile and of course some of our customers would definitley have started asking questions ! In my opinion the ones we had on demo were (excuse my French )all wind and p**s and wouldn’t have lasted the distance in our fleet .I would not wish to get involved in the fine technical details I am only speaking as a former road haulier !! Please do not take a powder ! Regards Bewick.