Flower Power! The Bus Industry's Love Of The Gardner Engine.
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- Опубликовано: 6 сен 2024
- Hi all,
This is the start of a new series about bits of the bus industry. The interesting (I hope!), the amusing and the down right strange.
In this first episode, I look at something that was a staple in the bus industry for sixty years and more - the Gardner engine.
I hope you enjoy the video and find it entertaining and a little bit different. If you do enjoy it please like, share and don't forget to subscribe to my channel so you don't miss my future releases. Later in this series we'll be looking at such random things as destination blinds, moquette and vehicle badges.
What's your memories on Gardner engines? Have you ever worked with them or driven a bus powered by one? Please comment below.
Thanks for watching!
Thanks - I learnt a lot about the legendary Gardner! I lived near 'North's' bus dismantlers in the 70's and knew they regularly removed Gardner's from buses to be sold to the far east for marinisation......wouldn't be surprised they're probably still chugging away in fishing vessel's today! I also was friendly with a fairground family - who of course - would only ever use Gardner's. Sad the UK had so many wonderful companies that didn't survive.
My experience of a Gardner engine is a friend buying a steel Dutch built 36 foot motorsailer fitted with a small 4 cylinder Gardner. It was just brilliant, fitted with a hand oil pump to build up oil pressure before you started it, thus eliminating the worst source of engine bearing wear, which is when an engine starts with no oil pressure.
That's a really good idea. We crank the engine over a few times to get the oil circulated before we fire them up if they've not been run for a while. But a hand pump in a brilliant idea.
Many companies in the British engineering industry have gone to the wall when really they should have been rejuvenated as part of some engineering heritage trust. In such a scheme I envisage that some sort of funding help could be provided to keep them current and competitive. A key thing would be to maintain a lineage of the engineering knowledge they established and made use of and apply it in the more up to date technology. Unfortunately, much of the knowledge, in many, cases has died with the passing of those employed. In Gardner's case the knowledge is still out there. I guess the prowess of Perkins is now at risk since they are now owned by Caterpillar.
Nice video once again 👍👍👍
The SBG liked the Gardners. Western SMT turned to the Seddon Pennine because Leyland were reluctant to put the Gardner in the Leopard, so I read in a book anyway...
@@craigsibley8161 thanks Craig. Yes Leyland we pretty reluctant to put Gardners in anything to be honest - until the National 2.
In the 1960s Birmingham had a big love affair with Gardner 6LX engined Daimler Fleetlines (DOC [10], GON [100], KOV [100], BON [25 single deckers plus 100]).
I think that the LG1200 is the final derivative of the LX line, and not the 6LYT as you stated, which was 16 litres.
Lots of 8LXBs were fitted to various Fodens and ERFs, even here in Australia there's a more than one plastic-cabbed Foden with an 8LXB.
I own a prototype 1978 Metrobus with a 6LXB and she never misses a beat, I have also driven many marques with them in, RE, VR, Fleetline, Dominator, Falcon, Olympian, Metrobus and even a retrofitted National in my bus driving career. There was no getting away from a Gardner!
I do like a Metrobus. Very underrated buses. Would yours be TOJ?
@@JakeSCOC no mate, SDA 832S, there are videos of it on my channel
@@DecalCentralUK I'll check it out.
I have worked in the bus and coach industry for nearly 40 years. I worked for AA Buses in Ayrshire. Mr Norman Dodds, the boss at the time put Gardner engines into many vehicles, he took a 4 cylinder Gardner out of a Guy Arab decker and put it into a 1930's Lagonda car! He put a 5 cylinder one into the bus! The bus still exists, I drove it. He fitted a Mk2 National with a 6 cylinder Gardner, but it wasn't as good to drive as the standard National.
Leyland later built National 2s with Gardners. But the few my local company, Eastern National bought, all had the O.680. Very noisy!
@crazyleyland5106 We had two A registered Nationals fitted with Gardner engines from New. Not a patch on the 680 or the TL11. The 680 fitted to a Leopard was my all time favourite bus. I drove Dennis Dorchesters with the Gardner Turbo, but the Leopards were so much more economical.
I love the clag of a Gardner engine, the Gardner engined Olympians EYMS had when I started in 2007 were some of the best buses I drove
Can't beat it can you?
@@JakeSCOC You certainly can't. One of the locos at the preserved railway I volunteer at has a Gardner engine as well
love the 6LXB in my metro
They're fantastic engines.
Hate to mention this, but your opening clip shows a Bristol RE with a Leyland O680 engine. The Bristol Omnibus Company (operator) didn't like Gardners in their REs, and standardised on Leylands as soon as they became available.
Yes that's the irony. It's a bit of stock footage I use as an opening clip for this series 😉
@@JakeSCOC Ah, sorry about that. I didn't realise it was on all of them, because the one I've watched most recently just happens to be the Bristol RE! Keep up the good work!
Do we think, engine design has gone backward with buses? I would say so. These powered the MCW coupled to that musical Voith Gearbox proper noise imho and before the low emission stuff. But mechanically miles better than the engines today
Hi i'm viatron from Sheffield, I remember back then when Gardner diesel engines were used such as the 7.0 litre 5LW 5-cylinder vertical type in an home made single deck bus chassis in C.I.E. Dublin known as the G.N.R. GARDNER via having a Leyland GB9 4-speed constant mesh gearbox what were provided for the pre-war Leyland Tiger TS6,7,8 & 11 single deck bus chassis in the mid-40s plus building them at their Dundalk & with their inportation of Gardner 5LW 5-cylinder diesel engines from Manchester to Dublin,s Great Northern Railway Co. subjected of making a CLASSIC BUS HISTORIES video on the classic G.N.R. GARDNER buses in a further volume plus a vintage bus ride on one & the connections to the Anglo British & Irish of bus building. Thanks for your co-operation on this topic from David Viatron Esquire of crookes Sheffield.
Great video. The 6LYT lacked development. In the mid 80s Neoplan sold the Skyliner with the option of the 350hp 6LYT in place of the normal 16L V10 Mercedes engines. Crosville, West Yorkshire Road Car and Yorkshire Traction bought Plaxton bodied examples. Although doubtless the Gardners were better on fuel consumption and were absolute flyers when they ran, too many ended up on the hard shoulder with blown gaskets and serious fuel problems, often ending in a trip home behind the company wrecker.
6lyt , blew head gaskets , So they upped the head torque to the point it pulled the block up , the area around the head studs stood level with the top of the cylinder liner .
Great video, such a shame how Gardiner went like so many other great British companies. 😢
It certainly is a shame
well that takes me back Mcall's of Dumbartion bought a job lot of WM Travel MCW Metrobuses and painted them in a rather garish colour scheme. Nice to drive.
Metrobuses are nice motors whether Gardner or Cummins engined
@@JakeSCOC We had Gardner engines. They do seem to have unique sound to them,. McCall's didn't like cummins engined vehicles at the time as they tended to go boom if not maintained well. 😂😂
My favourite sort of bus engine. Leyland Nationals are my favourite sort of bus, so a Crosville Gardner converted one ought to be right up my street. The Leyland O.600 series could be worth doing a video about, since they were in production for so long.
I think the Gardner engined National is a superb beast.
@@JakeSCOC I savoured one that was with Norfolk's of Nayland many years ago. I really enjoyed it. Hedingham took over Norfolk's, and quickly got rid of the 3 Nationals, despite the Gardner lumps.
another great vid jake,
Thanks. Glad you liked it.
Very interesting about the Gardner engine its sad they dont make them anymore
Had a ride on ribble vr's and olympians with 6lxb's fitted.
Can you do a video of the Leyland National Repower - DAF and Volvo
I will do a bit of research first but a very good suggestion.
@@JakeSCOC Yeah there were so many different engines and preferences with all their characterisitcs. There were a lot of in-life modifications and they all sounded different. I think Volvo and DAF really took alot from leyland. The core DNA is still there in their modern engines
Had a good old Gardner at the rear of my metro ,the whistle of the retarder when I slowed down voith gearbox or if it was an ex Airbus with its high speed axle 4 speed they still had the coach seats ,Bayswater road with a full load on my last run to Acton green on the 94 whoosh most got off at bush green great engine only breakdown I ever had was low water very reliable the metrobus was also my fav more than the Olympians we had
Those Airbuses were gorgeous buses.
@@JakeSCOCM1020 and M1022 I drove ,M1023 had the seats replaced with bus seats upstairs but using the later red/grey moquette but as they never had grab rails bec the high back seats had them getting up on the move meant you held onto the seat top rail also instead of the laminate they had they grey corded carpet on the panels
Just one caveat, do not, under any circumstances, increase your LW engine’s rpm from it standard 1700 rpm max otherwise there will be a horrible clattering noise and a vast amount of oil sloshing around and a great scattering of miscellaneous oily bits. We tried this with Bristol MW6G coaches when the motorway network was expanding and we needed to increase the vehicles speed, the revs went from 1700 rpm to 1850 and ended up with about 6 failures in 3 months, usually no 6 con rod letting go, this was from once in a blue moon.
Interesting - who did you work for with the MW's?
@@robertp.wainman4094 Western National, we operated them under the Western / Southern National fleet names and also the Royal Blue fleet name. We ran both the five cylinder service cars and the six cylinder express coaches, MW5G and MW6G types.
@@scrumpydrinker Thank you for reply - which for some reason I've only just come across. Not many companies would have as much knowledge of Gardner's as Western National, so I think your advice not to increase the rpm on LW's should be heeded! Out of interest did you ever try the same thing with the HLX's in the RELH - or were they fast enough? A presevationist once mentioned he'd done so.....and up until then at least all was well - rather different usage from front line express service of course. I developed an interest in buses and Gardner's as a child travelling on United Automobile and West Yorkshire RE's from Yorkshire to London - when to me at the time they seemed to 'fly'! Over the years I've read of various quoted 'top speeds' for the RELH, ranging from 58mph in a Commercial Motor review in the early years of production, 62mph in another and several 'reports' of over 70mph! I guess the back axle ratio would make the difference. As a kid who'd arrive at Victoria Coach Station and spend time - much longer than my Mother would have liked, I'm sure - admiring Royal Blue's.......do you happen to know just what their top speed 'would' actually be? If only modern coaches had a livery so refined as Royal Blue!
@@robertp.wainman4094 The L X and LXB were essentially the same engine, the LX revved at 1700 rpm and the LXB to 1850, the LXB had improvements in fuelling, injectors and other minor modifications but if you needed to have an increase in engine speed the obvious solution would be just to switch to a LXB or in the case of an RE coach a HLXB. But as there was a number of rear axle ratios available the operator would choose the most appropriate ratio for the vehicle, by this time motorway working was becoming more common and operators were specifying the vehicles to suit, so there wasn’t the pressing need to increase engine revs.
@@scrumpydrinker Many thanks for your quick reply - I understand there were at least three rear axle ratios available. You must have had an interesting career with Western National!
A 6LXB in a Metrobus sounds like a Leyland 0680 but in a Titan and Olympian more like a muffled Leyland TL11.
Why do Gardners' sound, er, "tappety"? They're fantastic engines, but that sound always makes me worry for them a bit!
They are very tappy engines. I believe it's the valves operating.
Sounds like - as with Leyland - too many owners killed proper investment (in Research and Development) Rather sad really.
I think you're right. Glorified asset stripping
Euro emissions killed most engine makers accept the favoured few that had government support to design and build new engines , that's why you only see European made trucks on UK roads , government subsidies !