Thanks, Herbert. I suspect that many of the Leyland bus chassis that came to Australia and New Zealand, the more so with the larger orders for city fleets, were non-standard in one way or another. The Brisbane and Perth Panthers had an 18’0’” wheelbase, which although probably the modal number acros...

I was surprised to find that I could still log in here after a rather long absence. Anyway, as I am here, I may as well add some more to this old thread. Re the Leyland Royal Tiger OPSU1 fitted with the AEC air-operated preselector gearbox, the conventional wisdom, as it were, is that the only batch...

Some more information on the Leyland Royal Tiger air-assisted synchromesh gear box may be found in the Commercial Motor magazine archives, at: http://archive.commercialmotor.com/. This article on British transmissions generally includes a description of the Clayton Dewandre unit used by Leyland: htt...

Thanks for that. It was dumb luck really; I was sitting in the hotel room here in Singapore killing a bit of time looking at some sites that I don’t often visit these days including this one, and there was the Leyland O.600, O.680 question. Interesting too is the relative deployment of the O.600 and...

As something of a postscript to this old thread, intermittently I have looked for information on the gearbox air assistance unit used on the Leyland Royal Tiger with the original Leyland 4-speed synchromesh gearbox (synchromesh 2, 3 and 4; sliding mesh 1st). Whilst I have found nothing definitive, c...

As far as I know the Leyland O.600 engine was developed immediately after World War II. It wasn’t ready in time for the initial post-WWII models such as the OPS1 family, but was the powerplant for the OPS2 family from circa 1947. The horizontal version came out circa 1948. The O.680 arrived in the e...

http://www.buslistsontheweb.co.uk/ has: NQV.188 AEC Re 2HMU2RA3425 AH B43D 4/1963 Brisbane City Council,Queensland,Australia 8 NQW.613 AEC Re 3HMU2RA3872 AH B43D 4/1963 Brisbane City Council,Queensland,Australia 9 But they are U2RA, not U5RA. Whatever they are I think they had bodies like 241... . ...

Guy seemed to be the biggest user of Meadows engines for automotive purposes, but Meadows engines were not consistently offered. Perhaps there was just not enough customer “pull”. Or perhaps customers bought Guys rather than Leylands or AECs because they wanted Gardner engines. It is easu to suppose...

Regarding the radio fitted to the Holden FB, 1960 would have been early, but not improbable for an all-transistor design. Hybrid types, with 12 volt HT valves in the signal stages, and a single transistor audio output stage had arrived circa 1957, and it seems were replaced by all-transistor types f...

well,what sort of transmissions do they have? 4-speed Pneumocyclic with electric control, close-coupled and in-unit with the angle-drive. The centrifugal clutch is the only option listed in the Leyland literature, but given how troublesome this was, it is likely that the fluid coupling was at least...

The Lion PSR1 was rather an odd model in the Leyland range. It was as if Leyland designed and built it because it could, and then went looking for a market. Its configuration, with vertical rear transverse engine and angle drive, suggested the North American market, but it was most unlikely that Ley...

SB Original 17’2” wb chassis with 300 gasoline engine, 1950 SBG 300 gasoline engine, renamed after introduction of SBO diesel SBO Perkins R6 diesel engine, from 1953 SBG, SBO same designations applied after change to 18’0” wb and flat frame from 1955 SB3 300 gasoline engine, SBG renamed from 1957 SB...

The original SB (17’2” wheelbase) had a somewhat complex chassis “shaped” for bus and coach applications. In 1955 Bedford changed to using an essentially straight, flat straight frame, and extended the wheelbase to 18’0”. But unusually for Bedford, the designations, SBG (gasoline) and SBO (diesel), ...

As I recall Bedford Australia did fit the Chevrolet 250 and 292 engines to some TJ and TK truck models during the 1970s, in place of the Bedford 214 and 300 gasoline engines. I am not sure, though, if this practice extended to the bus chassis such as the SB3, VAM3 and VAS3. But even if not, then bas...

I may be wrong but I thought Leyland had a seven speed manual box (with splitter) in some of the Ergo cabined vehicles. Yes, that’s right, although what Leyland frequently described as a 7-speed gearbox was in fact an 11-speed model. The 7-speed arrived as an option on the LAD-cabbed PowerPlus heav...

Leyland did fit the Pneumocyclic gearbox to some of its Ergo-cabbed truck models from 1966 through to about 1971. Initially the Beaver was offered with a 5-speed Pneumocyclic in combination with a 2-speed axle. In 1967-68 this was superseded by a 10-speed Pneumocyclic, basically the 5-speed unit wit...

It might be a Comet 13CJS. The Ergo-cabbed Comet series started with the 16-(long) ton gvw Super Comet 16SCT in 1965, about a year after the Ergo-cabbed heavy-duty models were introduced. It was nominally a replacement for the previous LAD-cabbed Super Comet 16SC and 14SC models. The 13-ton gvw Come...

Beclawat was Bec kett, La ycock & Wat kinson Ltd. It was also a major suppplier of railway windows and other equipment, such as ventilators and sliding doors, and was a regular advertiser in the 1950s issues of the trade magazine 'Diesel Railway Traction', and probably in similar publications. S...

An item briefly noted earlier in this thread was that the Sydney Worldmasters must have been “special” models insofar as they had a non-standard, 17’6” wheelbase, but that this seems to have escaped mention in the literature, although the non-standard nature of the Leopard fleet is well-recorded. Re...

Has anybody got any photos or pictures of hobarts or launceston trolleybuses as what to at the types trolley that use to run in these two citys as I know there two types leylands trolleys and two types of buts trolleys in fact these must of been the only but trolleys to run in australia I think tha...

Having said that,I'm fairly sure that the remains of the air assisted gear change are extant.I'll have to try and photograph this feature one day. Thanks Dave; that would be useful. As best I can determine, the air-assistance unit was bolted on to the back of the selector housing, which was on the ...

However you've hit me with a "new" one in the Mk8!!!!! Oops - transcription error on my part - it should have been Mark 11. Additionally, the "Bus & Coach" magazine listing for November 1964 shows the Mark 17 and Mark 19 as still available, whilst the listing for October 196...

I think that Seddon was more successful with its late 1960s and onwards bus chassis designs than its 1950s designs, but the latter is a subject on which little information is available. As to chronology, perhaps the BCVI (British Commercial Vehicle Industry) book model listings for several years wil...

Anyway, I’ll comment further once I am able to see the follow-up to the preliminary information. That's what I said back in March re information that was then coming my way re the optional air pressure systems on the CD650 and Freeline, so this post is somewhat past due. The information for the CD6...

Firstly, thanks for the feedback and kind words from system improver, wes and jac. This thread has certainly meandered at lot, and has covered several related but distinct topics. So probably it could do with being rewritten in several chapters for clarity, and to connect the diverse information tha...