@@Mr_b_yorkshire_farmer Gardner's are so underrated for sound. Big Cummins cats v8s etc sound mint but Gardner's make you feel at home. That's the only way I can describe it 😂
No Atkinson I ever worked on had a paint job as glorious as this one. Spent the last year of my apprenticeship rebuilding Gardners they are like nothing else. Just wish I could have one to sit and listen to and admire.
What a lovely lorry , I worked as a fitter for Stirlands in Nottingham for 8 years in the 1970s , and it was the best job and place that I ever worked for , but the pay was dreadful £1 hour , In all the time I was there we never had to take a engine out , always overhauled in the truck so never had a crank reground , wonderful times sadly long gone .
I can remember back in the day when there were lots of these lorries on the road. This brought back memories of times gone past. What a sweet running truck, this Atkinson is.
What an exhaust note. Brings back memories of my childhood days when the big lorries went past. Your lorry looks absolutely brilliant. Cheers, thanks for that. Tony
Fabulous and sounds wonderful. Would love to drive an old girl such as this just to compare them to a modern motor even tho probably incomparable. I would imagine these have to be driven like an old car. Still would love to have a go!
Great bit of double de clutching there. It won't go in to gear otherwise. Crash box I had to learn how to do that on a Leyland Constructor easy enough when you get the hang of it.😁❤
Very nice example and looks great, many years ago I worked for a tipper haulage Co. that ran a mix of Atk and ERF with Gardner engines all great trucks, the only downer I had with Atk was those awful CD lock actuator brakes ...
Superb vehicle, a credit to the owner. These were very common in England in the 1970's but I think Gardner were unwilling to produce enough engines, so Atkinsons had to diversify. They stopped making them in 1975.
What a beautiful sounding rig! Iv never heard or even knew about these. Of course im American so that says alot 😂 great video man. Thank you for sharing this gem!
Beautiful lorry, use to see loads of these in Wood Lane lorry park in London, when I use to go with my dad in the late 60s, got to drive a Seddon Atkinson 401 after passing my class 1 in 1976 but never a proper Atkinson
Trouble is Gardner never kept up with the times,when they did start turbo charging and increasing horsepower,it was too late,smoke legislation didn't help either.
Never seen an Atkinson lorry on the road except other than Seddon Atkinson's during the IVECO era but that Gardner 180 though. Spent many a time riding on Bristol VR's/National's and Olympian's with that engine and just kept going. Felt sorry for the drivers and people in the depot who got gassed out every morning in the bus depot when one started from cold.
When i had my Foden 180 Gardner 12 speed gearbox , 20ton of tarmac on it`s back i did not think it much fun , even less when Layland`s 265 RR flew by me on a hill , wish i had found it as much fun as you mr B nice truck credit to the owner
Beautiful simply beautiful,the 180 Gardner was one of the best engines made by them, Atkinson were a great vehicle until Seddons got their hands on them,total quality until then,it’s no wonder Suttons of St. Helens had a fleet of them,the only problem was the build time due to the time it took Gardner to deliver engines,what an opportunity Gardner missed not gearing up to produce more engines,they could have been King of the Castle now in engine manufacturing had they been managed properly and gone with the times for more powerful engines instead of just sitting there until they went bust.
Thank you for your comment. And I have to say I do kind of agree with you. We have come full circle now in truck engine design. They are all low rpm high touché
Marvellous! Takes me back to the thousands of happy miles I had driving Bowker 47. This one has the lock actuators and the full set of gauges (what dear old Frank Whalley used to call a Mk. 1 1/2) and I think must be higher geared. Is it good for about 58mph? I did drive this one very briefly at Kemble c.2003, when the then owner was asking for advice on the heavy steering.
What a fantastic looking truck. Not being a trucker this might be a daft question but you often see modern trucks using air suspension systems to adjust their height to line up perfectly with a trailer but what did these old trucks do to line up if the hight wasn’t quite right.
No such thing as a daft question. If you look to the back of where you connect the tractor to the trailer you will see two small ramps. Run up ramps. You use these to push up the trailer then onto the 5 wheel table.
You want to be sure that you pick the trailer up properly, so that the rubbing plate on the trailer makes full contact with the fifth wheel plate as the pin goes into the jaws . We used to wind the legs down on an empty trailer and leave 3 or 4 inches off the floor because your springs on the tractor would be sat high ( possibly higher than another tractor that could be picking up the trailer) . When loaded heavily , we wound the legs to the floor and a couple of turns in low gear . When you pulled the tractor out , it would rise several inches on the springs. You didn’t want it dropped to low or you wouldn’t get back under it .
You remind me of my first week of my first job driving artics, when a heavily loaded trailer [probably overloaded] had been left for me to pick up, and had had no low-gear application when set down, and was sitting on very uneven ground with its front close to the ground. I couldn't get the tractor far enough underneath, and I couldn't turn the jack handle, no matter how I sweated. In the end an old hand came along, grinned, and showed me how it was done. Just with a hell of a lot more welly!@@seanhedley8028
@@Mr_b_yorkshire_farmer Thanks for the reply, it is in beautiful condition! You can learn and get used to it, you need to use a clutch twice. For transmission line installation, Kraz 255 is still in use here in Lithuania. Sometimes I have to drive.
Excellent condition for an old truck. I drove em in 70s trouble was lack of power , yes very reliable, but with D Brown box awful . No wonder the foreigners took over , Volvo magic.
It looked like a Brown’s six speed overdrive gearbox by the gear shifting position he used,could he wrong but we had them in ERFs with the 180s,run for ever and go anywhere at it’s own pace of course,it was a Gardner,I liked them with the R/R 205 BHP engine but were sometimes troublesome with water leaks.
@@truckie933 the red line is a constant supply of air. The blue line and not used in the U.K. any more and is there as an emergency. There is a position on the handbrake that supplies air down the blue line to the trailer brakes if the yellow one fails. New spring brakes do not need this as if the yellow or red fail the brakes are held on by the springs. The old system the springs in the chambers hold the brakes off.
