I REMEMBER, when, if you had a 150 gardner doing max 45 mph,
now that was flying!!!
24 ton gross, sheets ropes , change your own wheels, often daily because the tyres were so bad, four in lines were the worst ones to change,
good hour slogging your balls off, then the question, where ast bin till naaaaah,
T,B.T. was often said to the gaffer 
DONâT YOU JUST ENVY US OLDIES
taâta stan-the-man
itâs just a piece metal,
donât fall in love with IT
We had 3 or 4 Guy Big Jâs with 150âs in them,on contract to OCL containers in Trafford Park,all Smiths motors were night trunked up to Maddiston for MOTâs and major works,so it was pot luck if you had to drive one of these Guys up to Maddiston,Falkirk,more than likely with 20 ton on its back,it was a long night at 50MPH max,bloody cold,you hoped you had a better motor to drive back to Manchester,but not always the case,you might have another Guy with a 150 in it,coming back south!
Take it easy,
David 
Sounds like you were fortunate to get 45 or 50 out of them, my old manâs Seddon only did 42 and that was after he rearranged the throttle linkage to try and get it over 40! He went to the factory at Oldham once to pick it up when it was only a Month or two old, it had gone back to have a double reduction rear axle put in as they had fitted the wrong one when new and he was snapping half shafts like carrots. When he complained about the speed he was asked to leave and not very politely. This was 1965 and although he loved this motor (it was the first 32 tonner the company had) because of its pulling power, he was exaspirated at times with the top speed.
I spent most of my youth travelling with him in this unit and probably knew it as well as him. I loved the sound of the engine and it never let him down, over Standedge on night trunk for three or four years in Sixties Winters no problem. True the heater wasnât much cop but I would risk chattering teeth just to be in the cab and when I was a little older the memory of driving it with a loaded trailer will still stay fresh as if it was yesterday. Franky.
stan-the-man, my first motor was not the 150 i was talking about,
it was a foden 8 legger, for brs, in 62
top wack 29 mph, 40 x8 tyres, speedo in centre of steering wheel,
direct engine brakes (no reserve tank_if engine stopped no brakes,
ratchet handbrake on transmission, uphill 2mph, 29 on flat, unlimited down hill,
if you dared! kept foot on throttle to make sure it never came down to tickover
when revs dropped so did braking power,
wooden cab no heaters, all noise and no guts, 6lw engine 120
nightmare to go to aberdeen from stoke, 10 hour drive to crawford on a saturday
sunday up to the deen, tip reload monday down to carlisle tuesday,
home to stoke wednesday, brill!!
dont you be to envious of us oldies,
stan-the-man
itâs only a piece of metal
donât fall in love with it 
A.E.Evans bought all secondhand AECs off petrol companies.When I started with them in 1969 I got a MK3 Mammoth Major TGJ 530,fleet 114,ex Shell Mex,9.6 engine BUT a six-speed box - over 50 mph,just.Some of the longer serving drivers had MK3s with the 5-speed box,38mph,so it didnât go down too well when a new driver got a faster wagon .
I remember one driver was upgraded to a MK5 from his MK3 with a 6-speed box only to find the MK5 had a 5-speedâŚhe werenât rayt happy 
.
When I was on the coles cranes, we used to have 7 hours to travel from Dunchurch to Rotherham, 4/5 hours to rig up in " Bachelors Peas" factory, we use to put in a iron rod to stop the limiter keeping the speed down, so we could make up time, and have a few breaks on the way up. When you was used to driving a lorry, the cranes seemed you was crawling.
Stan-you may have had poor lorries & alot harder manual work etc , but i would swap my era with yours tomorrow my friend ,no wonder the old hands canât wait to retire 
.The job is [zb] now . 
Congestion worse than ever , Dog eat dog on the road , drivers treated like âscumâ of the earth , speed limiters ,peaktime âno overtakingâ , speed/traffic light cameras everywhere ,more & more weight limits , CCTV monitoring everything ( take a wrong turn & you might get done! ) everbody in a hurry , no parking anywhere ,hardly any cafes left , more & more âpettyâ rules , jobsworths everywhere -security esp! , driver CPC , no smoking in cab ,H & S gone mad ( how did we get by before Hi vis â â ) , M25 , boring mways & bypasses ,roadworks , GPS tracking ,mobile phones , Supermarket RDCâs , foreign lorries âŚYes the lorries might be easier to drive & load/unload, but what else has improved 
Progress eh 
You have hit the nail right on the head Tony, how often can you say Iâll have an easy day today and make it up tomorrow ? (even with a150 gardner).
tonyhogi:
Stan-you may have had poor lorries & alot hardemanual work etc , but i would swap my era with yours tomorrow my friend ,no wonder the old hands canât wait to retire
Progress eh
I remember in the mid 70s i worked for parkers trp from bolton.He bought 2 brand new atki borderers with 150s in them and myself and a mate were the appointed drivers.Well pleased we picked up the trls for the maiden trip two 20ton loads of rsj,s to go to cadburys b/ham.as part of new extention.Joy was short lived as i kid you not 3and half hrs to brum[sat morn]and 3hrs back mt.Some things just stick in your mind[know what i mean]
regards dave.
Norman Ingram:
When I was on the coles cranes, we used to have 7 hours to travel from Dunchurch to Rotherham, 4/5 hours to rig up in " Bachelors Peas" factory, we use to put in a iron rod to stop the limiter keeping the speed down, so we could make up time, and have a few breaks on the way up. When you was used to driving a lorry, the cranes seemed you was crawling.
I used to run fresh peas into Bacholers in the early 60âs on an old ERF 6 wheeler with a 120 (6LW) Gardner
We were working round the clock keeping up with the pea vining machines taking the peas straight from
the field to Bachelors in one ton containers with about a foot 0f ice piled on the top. regards Big Al
as you can guess iâm retired now, i wouldânt do the drivers job of today at any price,
i did a year up to my 69th birthday, (after retirement,) running railway wheels about the country, needed to be on site by 8.am no matter where the drop was, i created myself a new nickname, JUSTNIP, it seemed just right for flying low, 1,2, 3 or 4 am starts was usual,
trucks were better but glad to pack it in,
got feet up now, having a laugh,
my lad sets the limiters on your scanias
ho, ho ,ho ta ta stan-the-man
itâs only a piece of metal,
donât fall in love with it,
hiya,
Bet nobody can report âblowing upâ a 150 Gardner, tough as old boots, i drove them hard but never succeeded.
thanks harry long retired.
Big Al:
Norman Ingram:
When I was on the coles cranes, we used to have 7 hours to travel from Dunchurch to Rotherham, 4/5 hours to rig up in " Bachelors Peas" factory, we use to put in a iron rod to stop the limiter keeping the speed down, so we could make up time, and have a few breaks on the way up. When you was used to driving a lorry, the cranes seemed you was crawling.I used to run fresh peas into Bacholers in the early 60âs on an old ERF 6 wheeler with a 120 (6LW) Gardner
We were working round the clock keeping up with the pea vining machines taking the peas straight from
the field to Bachelors in one ton containers with about a foot 0f ice piled on the top. regards Big Al
hiya,
Hello Al when you think about it at the time you mention a 6LW was a fair sized power pack for a six wheeler even an eight wheeler, one of the firms i did a bit for in the 60s was running Atkiâs and ERFs pulling tandem axle trailers with the 5LW as the âpowerâ source,believe it or not the same outfit had a couple of tractor units with the 4LW "pop wagon"engine installed, spent a lot of time in "crawler"in those far off but happy days.
thanks harry long retired.
PS made a boo boo there the 4 LK was the pop wagon engine the 4 LW was fitted in the 7 tonner which would just about drag you out of bed.
Stan-the-Man, that old 6LW in the old Foden would have only been 112 bhp, the 120 bhp version only appeared in the late 60âs but with having to go to Aberdeen in one I would have used a block to get a few more MPH out of it. The old 6LWâs I have driven or knew on the 3 different companies I worked for were totally different at each company, Inter-City had 3 8-wheeler Atkinsons ( two had the accelerater between the foot brake and clutch) which were slow and the DB box on the older two were dreadful, the also had an old 6-wheeler that did about 40 mph, a reasonable clip in the late fifties and this was not due to higher speed difs but the engine was governed at higher revs and it pulled well. Suttons bow fronted Atkinsons with the 6 LW could never be called fast but most would do between 34 to 38 mph and pulled reasonably and the DB box was fine. On the BRS any 6 LWâs I have driven, including the old Fodens were slow and awful, the point I am trying to make is that companies that ran a lot of 6 LWâs tended to set them up better, the 6 LX 150 on the other hand tended to be fairly similar at different firms and it was the gearbox used that could make the difference. I noticed that someone recieved a new Atkinson Borderer with a 150 in the mid 70âs, this would not have been thought of as a maximum weight unit with this engine and even the 180 would have been classed as under powered by the mid 70âs for maximum wight work and did not reach the 6 bhp per ton required by law at this dateâŚTony.
harry_gill:
hiya,
Bet nobody can report âblowing upâ a 150 Gardner, tough as old boots, i drove them hard but never succeeded.
thanks harry long retired.
Donât know about 150âs Harry (Iâm not THAT old 
) but we had plenty of 180âs expire when I was at Tilcon! One managed to bend the crankshaft AND twist the primary shaft in the gearbox, and several put âlegs out of bedâ resulting in me fitting new crankcaseâs and cylinder blockâs to them.
I recall one coming in with a bit of a knock, and while it was reversing into the workshop it gave a cough and a gudgeon pin was seen rolling down the yard! The Transport Manager at the time was stood alongside and asked me if that piece of metal was as expensive as it looked, ha ha!
Pete.
windrush:
harry_gill:
hiya,
Bet nobody can report âblowing upâ a 150 Gardner, tough as old boots, i drove them hard but never succeeded.
thanks harry long retired.Donât know about 150âs Harry (Iâm not THAT old
I recall one coming in with a bit of a knock, and while it was reversing into the workshop it gave a cough and a gudgeon pin was seen rolling down the yard! The Transport Manager at the time was stood alongside and asked me if that piece of metal was as expensive as it looked, ha ha!Pete.
hiya,
Well if they could kill 180s they would have succeeded with the lesser 150, just i had never heard of it before and i did try honestly, well you had to to try and find the fitters something to do come to think i never once had to have a clutch repaired either once had a new David Brown gearbox fitted to an ancient ERF and no doubt fit a new clutch as a matter of course no i didânt bust the box it had done over a million miles and was starting to slip out of cog on overrun.
thanks harry long retired.
Only old 150 I drove was in a Atki Chinese 6 twinsteer for old Bobby Durham in Billingham, my home town from long long agoâŚbloody thing had NO Power steering and the trailer was only 18ft. long with a tandem axleâŚused in Head Wrightsonâs casting factory to move castings from one bay to the nextâŚused to take up to 12 shunts just to get the thing manouvered from one bay to the next with upto 47 ton castings on the trailerâŚI had arms like treetrunks in them daysâŚcushy number thoughâŚalways indoorsâŚloads of paid overtime, usually while I was in the pub having a beer or two but was still officially getting paidâŚ
hi, boys, stan-the-man , i never loved my trucks enough to learn what power ratios they had got, just enough to know wether it was a atki, foden ,albion, aec leyland,thorneycroft or even an old guy invincible, commers, seddons, and erf,s,
whoever paid the most was where my interest was, dropped a few valves on the gardners with the jockey on, most lorries in those days carried a lot more than permitted,
did one run in an old badger 24 ton gtw, did a drop in bristol, 8 packs of bricks,
levelled the rest out to go to cardiff steel works, pulled onto the weighbridge,
youâre over loaded by 3 ton said the bridge man, i ought to call the ministry,
i reckon if heâd have known iâd already shed 8 ton he would have done,
in those days gaffer was almost alwayâs right wasânt he??
itâs only a piece of metal
donât fall in love with it
THIS AINT ABOUT THE MOTORS I DONT KNOW IF I HAD A BAD MOMENT BUT IM SURE I STOOD IN WH SMITHS ON SATURDAY AND READ THIS.
A COMMERCIAL MOTOR ARTICLE SAYIN HOW THE SCOTTISH VOSA WERE FINING DRIVERS FOR ROPED AND SHEETED LOADSâŚ
HELLO AM I WRONG OR DID I READ THIS REGARDS ALAN
Can anyone give me a quick refresher. The Gardner 6lxb had 150 or 180? It then got a turbo in the 80s and became the 230ish 6lxct, having been a 206hp 6lxc?
So what did the 5 and 4 cylinder have? Was the 5lw the ultimate incarnation of the 5? If so what did it chuck out. I only ask as there was one in a field near me a few years back.