Out of the AEC thread, another of our units on J&J Campbell was a Leyland Beaver with a semi-auto box. There was no clutch pedal. The gear-lever was a silly little stubby floppy thing. It had a fluid clutch similar to Leyland buses at the time (early 70s). Anyone else recall these?
I think it was a five speed box, but I might be wrong. What I do remember is that you could easily stick it in a wrong gear if your got the shift wrong, and that could potentially do a lot of damage.
It did motor well though, over 60mph on the level, a great waggon for doing Fenwick to Colney Heath on trunk. It kept up with Smiths of Maddiston waggons and passed not a few of them (downhill!).
canaldrifter:
Out of the AEC thread, another of our units on J&J Campbell was a Leyland Beaver with a semi-auto box. There was no clutch pedal. The gear-lever was a silly little stubby floppy thing. It had a fluid clutch similar to Leyland buses at the time (early 70s). Anyone else recall these?
I think it was a five speed box, but I might be wrong. What I do remember is that you could easily stick it in a wrong gear if your got the shift wrong, and that could potentially do a lot of damage.
It did motor well though, over 60mph on the level, a great waggon for doing Fenwick to Colney Heath on trunk. It kept up with Smiths of Maddiston waggons and passed not a few of them (downhill!).
richgriff:
I think Morgans of Cwm had one, used to fly off the lights at Monmouth.Maybe one of my South Wales compatriots will know.
hi all,
ten out of ten richgriff.morgan’s had a h registered beaver new.they sold the rmains of it to my mate neil james from stourbridge in 2004 and he has fully restored her.it’s the only turbo beaver that i have ever seen.
regards andrew
I worked with three of these two pedal beavers all J reg. From a standing start empty in a highish gear you could suprise quite a few car drivers. The gearboxes were open to abuse by the drivers, you were supposed to wait between gearchanges before selecting the next gear. Many drivers would just push the gearlever straight through which momentarily engaged two gears at once which wore out the bands in the box.
We asked for advice from the local Leyland agent when one of the boxes gave trouble and they asked if we had changed the oil filter. We did not know there was one. There was a plate on the bottom of the box and when this was dropped down the filter was mounted to it.
A couple of times the drivers of these Beavers parked up about 20 miles from base and thumbed a lift home. In cold weather they got back to the lorry the next morning to find water in the gear selectors had frozen and they could not get any gears. I had to boil up some 5 gallon drums of water with a live steam pipe and take them out in the pick up and pour them over the pipes and valves to thaw everything out and get them mobile.
I also ended up in hospital when I was knelt in front one of them over a pit when someone tilted the cab with the safety link disonnected and it came right over and crushed me. I had my revenge eventualy when I cut it up for scrap.
canaldrifter:
Out of the AEC thread, another of our units on J&J Campbell was a Leyland Beaver with a semi-auto box. There was no clutch pedal. The gear-lever was a silly little stubby floppy thing. It had a fluid clutch similar to Leyland buses at the time (early 70s). Anyone else recall these?
I think it was a five speed box, but I might be wrong. What I do remember is that you could easily stick it in a wrong gear if your got the shift wrong, and that could potentially do a lot of damage.
It did motor well though, over 60mph on the level, a great waggon for doing Fenwick to Colney Heath on trunk. It kept up with Smiths of Maddiston waggons and passed not a few of them (downhill!).
Tone
I used to run To Baxters at Fochabers every week, I would stay at Jayne Laings on George Street Montrose. Naylor’s Drivers from Leyland also
stayed there as they did a lot of work out of Chiver’s factory at Montrose. With them being a Leyland based company I am fairly sure they had
the Two pedal Beaver on demo before it went out on general sale. regards Big Al
We ran 4 Beaver Automatics, the early ones were fitted with a 5 speed box and Eaton 2 speed this was a better combination than the later ones which were a 5 speed box with splitter, the problem was the splitter diaphragm which kept blowing, we even resorted to fitting two at once. These were the only automatics that I actually stripped.
The other problem was they were not idiot proof, we had a holiday relief driver who dropped a gear at speed going down Aberford; the cam follower came out the side of the block, which ment a new engine for a relatively new truck. Leyland did help with the cost of a new engine.
Hiya …Adams butter had a beaver IICR ere…535E it did london trunk for about 8 years with no trouble it then give way
the engine was rebuilt and it give way within a week so it was parked up and used for spares.
Adams also rented a scammell off avis that had a gardner 180 with a semi auto box. commonly know as a legless wonder.
I drove both on odd ocasions.
John
hi all,
in 1968 my father,seen here on the driver’s side, had this truck brand new.one of the first of two that joint motorways ran.the old man tells me that in the years he drove it all over the u.k,she never missed a beat.though she didn’t go as well as the mk5 mandator he had before.the ergomatic cab was a big improvement over the park royal mk5.the first trip he ever did in the two pedal beaver was a load of abbey coil to the hillman imp factory near linwood in glasgow,he met up with joints shrewsbury foreman cliff ashley at warrington,cliff drove nny 846e,the sister motor.when they got to the drop in scotland,they were on strike and brought both loads back! .this was the first truck i ever remember,i was three years old when the old man had here new and this two pedal beaver is soley responsible for my life long love of trucks .
I remember that Brady’s had one two pedal Beaver,and Eric the driver I was one the Octopus with “cracked” it up as he had driven it in Barrow a time or two.They also ran One AEC Mandator in advance of taking delivery of half a dozen Mammouth Minors,but they couldn’t keep the Mandator on the road so the Minors were cancelled.It was about the time I left and shortly afterwards Brady’s started to buy Mk1 6X2 Atki tractors as-well as 110 Scanias,the era of being 100% Leyland was well and truly over!Dennis.
I hated tipping those ergo cabs up to work on them, I had the bar snap on an E’reg comet and it went straight the way over. No damage to the cab, not even a broken screen but the curved sprung bar that assisted with the weight nearly took my head off when it broke. I am to this day nervous of tipping up cabs !
Trev_H:
I hated tipping those ergo cabs up to work on them, I had the bar snap on an E’reg comet and it went straight the way over. No damage to the cab, not even a broken screen but the curved sprung bar that assisted with the weight nearly took my head off when it broke. I am to this day nervous of tipping up cabs !
Hiya Trev,Nelsons of Arnside had an Ergo Marshal 6 wheeler and the cab tilted on its own with the driver,Walt Allen, who got it new sat in the drivers seat.I don’t know the exact detail but apparently he had a very lucky escape! Cheers Dennis.
The early Ergo’s had a tendency to tilt unaided, until they fitted locking bolts either side after reports of this happening, could be dodgy as the drivers seat, steering wheel etc stayed put but to tilt the cab the seat back had to come forward, with a driver still sitting there though the rising cab was trying to shove him into the dash and Sixties drivers were not known for their catwalk model bodystyle! The drivers floor area staying down wasn’t exactly ideal but it was handy though if you wanted to move the wagon a few feet with the cab up. Franky.
.this was the first truck i ever remember,i was three years old when the old man had here new and this two pedal beaver is soley responsible for my life long love of trucks