gingerfold:
And a view of the pedestal gear change.0
Has that geezer had his hair cut like that or is it a shadow on his head ? Bewick.
I’ll check my pics, but I’m sure our '69 Beaver’s had windscreen pillar mounted mirror arms(?)
No need to check pics, the mirror arm position moved by the time (68)F Reg vehicles were put on the road, although some early F Reg models still had the arms mounted on the door, as has been mentioned it was to eliminate wheel spray dirt which quickly covered the mirrors in the door position. I always thought the cabs looked a little smarter with the mirrors mounted forward. This pic is the final Two-Pedal Beaver with Turbocharged P.680 to produce the 690 engine, a BV69.32PTR model of 1968, note the mirror position.
Hi all,
My father had this two pedal beaver new in 1968.believed to be one of the first in south Wales.a phenomenal machine in it’s day,the old man went all over the uk and never had any trouble with it.seen here in jones motors’ yard kenfig hill loaded with tinplate for metal box Arbroath 
.
Sure i remember the driver of this saying it was a 2 pedal beaver.
if the link works,seen on the scottish run a couple of years ago with a 2oft skelly and box,it seemed to go very well indeed.
Bewick:
gingerfold:
And a view of the pedestal gear change.0
Has that geezer had his hair cut like that or is it a shadow on his head ? Bewick.
Hope it’s a shadow. 
gingerfold:
Bewick:
gingerfold:
And a view of the pedestal gear change.0
Has that geezer had his hair cut like that or is it a shadow on his head ? Bewick.
Hope it’s a shadow.
Poor chap looks like he’s just got out of bed, after an evening on the jazz cigarettes.
As mentioned earlier in this thread we ran 3 semi automatics, F,G & H reg, the first 2 were bouught new & the third inherited when we took over the Carrimore fleet. The first one was a 5 speed with 2 speed rear axle, we did suffer a premiture diff failure which Eaton looked after with no quibble; the other problem which was driver & not vehicle related occured when the regular driver was on holiday, the relief driver dropped a gear going down Aberford on the A1 which resulted in the camshaft comming out through the block. There was no restriction on dropping a gear to early. Leyland did help us out with a new engine,
The second 2 were the 10 speed splitter box which were more troublesome as they kept blowing splitter diaaphragms, at one stage we even resorted to fitting 2 at a time. I can remember having one stripped for some reason managed to borrow parts from one of our local bus workshops. Its one & only auto box that Ive worked on.
They were a good easy & comfortable motor to drive at the time.
Gullick Dobson of Wigan and their ‘Two-Pedal’ Beaver. These particular Beavers were usually fitted with the wider front wings used on AEC variants of the Ergo cab.
When I was a lad, they had Leyland Atlantean buses in Liverpool with, I think, a version of this transmission. Better-informed contributors will know how it differed from lorry version. The sound of the transmission obscured the engine and exhaust noise, making the vehicle sound very smooth and refined, for a commercial. The gearchange itself was instant, usually jerk-free and the transmission allowed plenty of “slippage”, when accelerating from rest (more than a clutch, anyway). These characteristics seemed to give the vehicle very good performance for its size, or at least a perceived sense of urgency! The drivers used to take full advantage, throwing the buses about with alacrity, their left hands occasionally flitting to the gear selector (were they pre-select gears?). I had the opportunity to “roadtest” a modern bus a few weeks ago. It was like sitting on the loadbed of a lorry. Progress my arse, as a well known Scouse television actor would have said.
I thought automatic 'boxes and torque converters were inefficient transmissions. How did the fuel consumption of these compare with manual Beavers?
The transmission used in the ‘Two-Pedal’s’ was different to that in Atlantean buses as the latter could also be used in fully automatic mode. The earlier Leyland PD3 (I think) buses used an identical transmission to the Beavers. I know what you mean about the pe-select looking characteristics of the little lever on Atlanteans, I watched bus drivers move the gear selector well before the next gear up or down engaged. A pre-select gearbox, such as the Wilson type used on buses, also had a pedal in the same position as a conventional clutch pedal. This was actually the gear change pedal. The driver would select his gear on a quadrant mounted on the steering column, then when ready he would depress the gear change pedal and the gear then engaged. I remember those gearboxes on Salford City Corporation Daimlers running on the number 8 Bolton to Manchester route, which was one of the most tightly timed routes in the country per route mile. The drivers were always chasing timings and they really rushed their gear changes with those Daimlers. The bus used to lurch with a vengence and any standee passengers had to hang on tightly.
B J Myers Transport, then of Bermondsey, London SE16 had two such trucks - PRH 928G and PRH 929G - both ex MAT Transport with extra long chassis to connect to 6’1" deep kingpins.
Good to drive and fast - keeping them on the road another matter.
One unreliable piece of kit.
K
Pentus Brown ‘Two-Pedal’ Beaver. I like the trailer.
One of the Tayforth two-pedalers.
They were a god-send after driving these!!!
v7victor:
One of the Tayforth two-pedalers.
What a super photo. Thanks foe posting it.
That Albion must have fallen off the ugly tree and hit all the branches on the way down 
Was the two pedal set up always behind a Leyland Engine 
If so, was it only the big power model
My Dad worked at a firm that had a Scammell Trunker with that gearbox, they also ran F86 Volvos and they were the lorry the drivers all wanted, as nice as they were, an F86 wouldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding, the loads were always heavy (too heavy at times, but that’s another story) so the Scammell should’ve been the lorry to have on paper, but I can remember my Dad swapping a job with one of the rigid drivers so he didn’t have to drive it, the rigid in question was an Albion Reiver and we were going to Doncaster and back from East London, my dad was a big bloke at the time, so the LAD cab wasn’t a lot of fun for him, which leads me to believe that the Scammell wasn’t up to much 
newmercman:
Was the two pedal set up always behind a Leyland EngineMy Dad worked at a firm that had a Scammell Trunker with that gearbox, they also ran F86 Volvos and they were the lorry the drivers all wanted, as nice as they were, an F86 wouldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding, the loads were always heavy (too heavy at times, but that’s another story) so the Scammell should’ve been the lorry to have on paper, but I can remember my Dad swapping a job with one of the rigid drivers so he didn’t have to drive it, the rigid in question was an Albion Reiver and we were going to Doncaster and back from East London, my dad was a big bloke at the time, so the LAD cab wasn’t a lot of fun for him, which leads me to believe that the Scammell wasn’t up to much
we had an ex watney mann scammell handyman with the semi auto box,also with a 680 engine. certainly a basic truck, but it was faster away from the traffic lights than an F86. i remember reversing it was an experience never to be forgotten,and changing down on a hill could result in head hitting roof.when it expired with a cracked block we got an F86 funnily enough.
newmercman:
Was the two pedal set up always behind a Leyland Engine
The gearbox was used principally behind the Leyland Power-Plus P.680, the turbo-charged version of this engine which was the Leyland 690, plus the AEC AV760 engine, and the AEC V8 engine. Atkinson also used the gearbox but I’m not certain which engine it was mated to. Approximately 30 AEC Mandator V8s had the two-pedal set up; Hipwood & Grundy of Farnworth, Lancs. had eight of these but due to problems AEC bought them back and used some of them in their own works transport fleet. As already mentioned by another contributor drivers tended to rush through neutral when changing gear, which could cause problems. The recommended technique was to pause in neutral as you would with a constant mesh gearbox. Other problems with the gearbox were gland failures, the tendency for the splitter switch to change itself because it was very sensitive, and the gearbox oil could boil after a long high speed motorway run at top weight. Modern lubricant technology would have solved that particular proble.