Mal:
well lads, i dont want to be contraversial, but!1, reynolds boughton from 1963 did conversions is what ive got here, though primrose for certainly rings a bell, and i’ll take your words for it there were more! maybe rb were bedford authorised or summat?
2, the 1969 model kme, it had the km cab of course, looked a nice motor!
ive got a pic of an 8 wheeler tk here, anyone ever see one of them in the wild??
Yep, there is an 8-legged TK in preservation
Marky,
Looking at your Silver Knight and Southport based I just thought you might have worked there because I knew a lad that was a fitter over there, but then we all know what ‘Thout’ did, 
240 Gardner:
[
Ha!! I bet there’s not many on here who have driven a Thorny as many miles as I have - especially one from 1924 with oil lamps, opening screen, hand start and no front brakes!!!
One of the (very) few marques I have never driven, the Thorny. I’m trying to think of others and having some difficulty. I don’t think I ever drove a Dennis, but I may have, Crossley, definitely not but I did ride in a single decker coach version in N.Queensland which had been converted to railmotor 
. Very strange watching the driver operate 3 pedals and change gear in the normal way alongside the engine hump - but no steering wheel 
. He just sat there between stops with his hands in his lap . I tried recently to find a picture through an Aussie rail enthusiast’s site but hardly anyone could remember it, much less show it 
. If I’d realised it was that rare at the time I’d have paid more attention
I’d draw the line at taking it abroad (at 18 mph) but I’m sure my Rear Steer Atki would make it
Yes, at that speed you are much closer to the average in England these days 
I think the Bedfords, TK & KM, were the first comfortable British motors, maybe the Ford D series too. But as they were not really heavies aspiring young long haulers like me tended to treat them with contempt and prefer a cold draughty Atki, Foden, or ERF, the ‘cool’ (in more ways than one) wagons of the day 
.
I’m sure I’ve seen an 8 legger KM but can’t for the life of me remember where, probably Oz and maybe that low loader tractor unit I mentioned earlier. In answer to the question ‘how did you miss remembering 4 axles?’ I can only say I was gobsmacked at seeing a big CAT engine with a shiny shed perched on the top. I’m not joking, you could plainly see almost the whole of the engine under the wheel arches .
Mal:
ive got a pic of an 8 wheeler tk here, anyone ever see one of them in the wild??
Let’s see it then
Spot on Taskman, but 240 got there first for the spare bedroom . Mind you I would take it as a personal affront if anyone passed through this neck of the woods without giving us a call
Salut, David.
David,
For my sins I do tow a caravan so watch out
The most Vintage lorry I drove was an AEC Matador which was the artillery tractor used during WW2, we used it on winch jobs and machinery moving, god knows how long this had been in storage because this was the late 60’s but it was like new when our bloke got old of it from ‘Crook brothers’ Military vehicle specialists, but the first job the fitters did was to change the 28mph diffs and put a couple of coach diffs in then the old girl flew along .
At JCW’s we had a night watchman ’ Owd Shaw’ this was about 1967 and he was in his seventies then and he had been a ‘Carrier’(his term) all his life starting on the steamers, he would shut anybody up if they started on about how hard the job was at the time.
240 Gardner:
Ha!! I bet there’s not many on here who have driven a Thorny as many miles as I have - especially one from 1924 with oil lamps, opening screen, hand start and no front brakes!!!
well 240, i aint thats fir sure, ive never even sat in a thorneycroft let alone drive one!
the olderst lorry i can remember driving was a d reg 1966? bedford, with a leyland redline diesel fitted i believe from new, next oldest is a f reg 67? borderer. ive never drove anything from the 50’s or earlier, one day maybe!
Taskman:
David,
For my sins I do tow a caravan so watch out
No problem mate, so do I, plenty of parking round here though
Salut, David.
Mal:
240 Gardner:
Ha!! I bet there’s not many on here who have driven a Thorny as many miles as I have - especially one from 1924 with oil lamps, opening screen, hand start and no front brakes!!!well 240, i aint thats fir sure, ive never even sat in a thorneycroft let alone drive one!
the olderst lorry i can remember driving was a d reg 1966? bedford, with a leyland redline diesel fitted i believe from new, next oldest is a f reg 67? borderer. ive never drove anything from the 50’s or earlier, one day maybe!
I did the Trans-Pennine Run to Harrogate with the Thorny 5 times in the 1990s (about 75 miles), and its party trick when it got hot with all the hill climbing was for the steering to seize up. Yes, really! You could get onto a roundabout, let go of the wheel and then stay there all day if you got the radius right!!
I also drove it from Chiswick to Basingstoke and then Winchester for the Thornycroft centenary, and on various other local jaunts when I was daft enough not to bother with a transporter.
Your F-reg Atki would have been a Mk.1 ‘Silver Knight’, I should think (with an exposed rad), as the Borderer didn’t appear until Autumn of 1970, a couple of years after the introduction of the Mk.2 cab with the dummy rad.
240:
Your F-reg Atki would have been a Mk.1 ‘Silver Knight’, I should
think (with an exposed rad), as the Borderer didn’t appear until Autumn of
1970, a couple of years after the introduction of the Mk.2 cab with the dummy
rad.
How I loved those Mk.1 real radiators. The long unscrewing job gave
you a chance to avoid a scalding as you got near the end of the thread, so
much more user friendly than scrambling up onto a slippery chassis to press
and turn that little cap with frozen hands
The Mk.1 rad. came in very handy when I lightly shunted the tipper in front
during stop/start traffic. A Mk. 2 would have been an accident report
Salut, David.
ok as requested heres the tk 8 wheeler
and i might as well put the kme up as well. sorry theyre not great pictures!
Mal,
At least the lad on the six legger knows how to finish a sheet off over the front headboard
it might have been a silver knight 240, did they ever have twin headlights? i seem to remember that lorry did, it definately was a 180 and a db 6 speed. if they didnt, ive made a mistake. but i know the one borderer was an L reg, and the engine blew, the other i got while the engine blew was a f reg, but im sure it looked like the other! god im ■■■■■■■ useless at memory sometimes!
he certainly does taskman! i used to love it when i had a trailer for a while, specially on steel, you could get the front nice and not have to bother with it over and over again…course till you got summat that had to go tight to the heaboard!
Mal:
it might have been a silver knight 240, did they ever have twin headlights? i seem to remember that lorry did, it definately was a 180 and a db 6 speed. if they didnt, ive made a mistake. but i know the one borderer was an L reg, and the engine blew, the other i got while the engine blew was a f reg, but im sure it looked like the other! god im [zb] useless at memory sometimes!
Yep, the Mk.1 cab sprouted twin headlights from about 1963, wide wings in 1967 (5.5 ton fromt axle instead of 5 ton) and was then replaced by the Mk.2 cab shown at Kelvin Hall in late '67, and available in '68.
I’ve covered many, many happy miles in Bowker’s E-reg Mk.1 unit to the same spec as yours.
If I could ever overcome the technical barrier, I will post you a photo to show the Mk.1 and Mk.2 parked alongside each other. Apart from the rad, the Mk.2 is taller, with deeper screens and a flat floor.
The Borderer was a different animal again, appearing in 1970 with a new chassis frame (deeper section and longer wheelbase than the Mk.1 and Mk.2 Silver Knight)
ta for that info 240! it’s all on here!
OK peeps, here is the evolution of the Atkinson tractor unit from 1958 to 1973.
Firstly we have the original single-headlight Mk1 Silver Knight tractor - in this case with a Gardner 6LX-150 installed.
Following on, we have the twin-headlight Mk 1 Silver Knight tractor, introduced as 240 rightly pointed out in 1963 - this one having the Gardner 6LXB-180 installed. By the time this one was built, the 5.5-ton front axle was fitted and flared arches were added to cover the extra track.
The next major revision was the introduction of the Mk 2 cab, and here we have a 1968 Silver Knight variant which has almost the identical drivetrain as the picture above.
The final revision before everything went downhill and pictures of snails appeared on the grill was the Borderer, in this case fitted with the Gardner 8LXB-240, surely one of the most evocative combinations in British commercial vehicle manufacturing history.
excellent stuff ! ive been educated again, i thought all the mk1s were like the first pic you posted single headlight, and i knew damend well i never drove one off those. anyway, the thrid down, the g reg, thats the kiddie. i even can see the halfshafts look right, i broke both of them at the same time! 
thanks for that marky!
Nice pictures Marky, but 2 points.
First, that 1st Mk.2 you showed isn’t the earliest of the breed, the single arm
mirrors on the doors carried over from the Mk.1s originally.
Secondly, I never noticed before the name plates on Ridings vehicles, did they
always have them?
Also, I notice that none of them have the full width crash bar, the pointy end of
which neatly pierced the side of an ■■■■■■ van driven by 2 Yanks from Upper
Heyford base who turned across my path one day . Was this Riding’s
policy for some reason?
Going back to the mirrors. I wish I had a photo of my Mk.1 at Midland Storage. I
took the mirror arms off, turned the whole thing upside down and fitted them
under the side of the windscreen. Do you think Mr. Atki saw me one day and
pinched the idea?
The boss never said a word, they were like that in those days, at Shaws I
coach painted my Albion and put Standard Vanguard twin horns on to make it
go ‘barp’ instead of ‘beep’. Not on the roof though
Salut, David.
Cheers David, the pictures above were all (apart from the first one) taken by Geoff Milne at the South Bank yard at Middlesbrough. The first one was taken by Tom (Riding).
Here’s a picture of the type of Mk2 Silver Knight you refer to.
With regard to the name plates, these were started with an ex-Monkland Motors (fellow TDG company) Mk2 (AMS 113K - Fleet Number 33) which was called Invincible. I’m sure I’m not speaking out of turn by saying that Tom’s great passion (apart from Preston North End) is railways, and he started naming the fleet after renowned steam locomotives, later after prominent hills and fells.
The short crash bars were a weight-saving measure, given that whatever was going to hit the outer ends of the standard item would inevitably damage the glass-fibre bodywork behind it anyway. The short bar at least protected the radiator if nothing else.