That wheel looks to be on arse about.
I think (hope) it’s just parked against the hub..![]()
You could be right.
Gives you something to stand on while you clean the windows! ![]()
The French-spec Roadtrain had Rolls Royce 800 Li 350 bhp engines. It’s not an engine you hear much about. It must have been one of their last engines before Perkins took over. Was it any good?
The Eagle 800Li was I seem to recall the first redevelopment of the Eagle after the Perkins takeover. A sort of halfway house between the Eagle and TX. Was that when it was fitted with Bosch fuel pump and injectors or was that the Le, not certain. But I know that made a huge improvement in the Eagles fuel efficiency (not hard), compared to the previous Symms gear.
The TX name came for two reasons, one was to separate the hugely revised, and in my view, improved beyond recognition engine from the Eagle, but also that Rolls Royce had only given a short licence to use the name as part of the sale, so they had to call it something else.
Do you remember when they put one into a house on Balls Pond Road? killed the one that was in the bunk ( GMC ).
Many thanks for that, acd1202. You’ve got me researching a bit deeper and you’re right about the Eagle / TX fusion. Perkins took over Rolls-Royce diesel engines in 1984 and, according to Patrick Dyer’s ERF book, they marketed the ‘new’ 800 Li. The Eagle TX was basically a new engine but it retained the same bore and stroke as the old design, developed in cahoots with Leyland, who made quite a success of it in their LHD T45 Roadtrains for the northern European markets.
It was badged as 300 and 350 (bhp) in France but I’ve not seen the 350 elsewhere. I wonder whether it was tweeked for the French market (along with the 3.5m wheelbase) or whether they just badged the 340 using a Continental system.
The thick plottens!
EDIT to add that the Army used it in production rated at 350 hp as the 350e, for installation in the Leyland DROPS (8 x 6) vehicle. So perhaps after all there was a 350 for a while.
So was this Eagle TX 350 a good engine?
EDIT to add that yes, the 350 T45 was well-respected in France and quite a few sold. However, a couple or so years later in 1987, Leyland merged with DAF and the planned Mark 2 Roadtrain was abandoned.
With hindsight, it appears to me that Leyland dropped several bolleaux here! If they’d started out with a LHD (as well as RHD) high-datum Interstate high sleeper cab with a Cummins NTE 350 and Fuller RTX 11609 or 13 box from the outset, they could have competed with the Europeans. Instead they only offered them TL12 280 bhp with Spicer ‘boxes and guess what, for sheer stupidity, if you wanted an Interstate high cab you had to buy a minimum of five units! No wonder the owner drivers bought Scanias and Volvos.
Thanks for that valuable nugget, Vwnanman0! It appears to have a 13-speed Fuller box then.

