Leyland leopard, gear selector #1. restoration (air test). 

Thanks for your comment Robert, I appreciate it,. I also thought the same, growing up with these buses at the time, I was more interested in watching the driver changing gears than running a muck, well most of the time,,🤣. I remember paying more attention to how they operated , because I used to change the gears in my dad's 4wd when I was very young, and understood that you had to push the clutch in to engage, then to see the bus never had one!! So I asked the driver about it and he explained it, and have shown great interest ever since. I said to myself one day I'll have one of these and sure enough 🤣 , it's taken me years to find and hunt down parts !! now I'm the only one far as I know who restores them. Great memories,👍

@@rongeremy6970 Thanks Ron - very similar experience for me as a young lad too! We often travelled to London on United Bristol RELH's - always hoping to get a front seat so I could watch the driver changing gear - albeit on an SCG different selector. Most of them were real professionals - so smooth that the change was imperceptible, all the way to that little 'click' into fifth! Of course I loved the blip of throttle as they came down the gears decelerating on the service station slip road. In my mind coaches with semi-auto transmission were 'proper' heavy- duty machines compared to the manual Bedford's I went to school on. I told myself then that when I passed my test those drivers would be my role model - smooth and quick but always with passenger comfort in mind. Just beautiful what you do with the selectors, do you sell your 'works of art'? I nearly bought a selector from a Tyne and Wear Atlantean a few years ago, but of course they were attached to the steering column so weren't 'stand alone' as yours.

@@robertp.wainman4094 hahaha yes either the 1st seat behind or the long bench seat across 😁, sometimes when the driver was out of the bus I would have a go changing the gears , but I think he knew because of the quick release valve whistle would give it away 🤣 they were the best days growing up, we are lucky to have the experience and great memories of these types of buses. I've seen some great videos on RU-vid showing the skills in driving/ shifting, good timing from the driver/s. They can be very smooth. On swimming days at school we would catch an Atlantean to the pool that was fun, same type of shifter, but just before they started to phase them out we had the electric / air shift, and to me that wasn't very exciting,,. haha when you were a kid we loved all the exciting air noises and stuff, nd the squeaky brakes, not this silent electronic stuff 😁. I hope I get to drive one before I pass. Yes I do sell them, complete overhaul inside and out with the new gasket kits fitted . Because they have new gaskets fitted, I would rather sell them to someone who has a bus that has these, to me it would be a waste of the parts, just for someone to put in the corner as a door stop type thing, don't get me wrong it would be great but the bus community will appreciate it and I also know how hard it was to find the very last of gaskets . Cheers.

No ,the Self Changing Gears Electro Cyclic gear change mounted on the steering column ,is far better and more direct,. With the long joy stick of mark one PDR Atlanteans, one ,can change gear with a finger tip .

@@basiltaylor8910 yes that's correct, they were very responsive, just a little click here and there, quite smooth, when I was a kid, we mostly travelled in the mrk 1, and 2 leopards, and sometimes the Atlanteans , I always thought the pneumatic selectors were better, obviously all the air release sounds, , , a tad slower in selecting but great to watch back then, growing up.

capitolunited thank you very much, a lot of work goes into it. the last time I went for a drive in one was the late 80s early 90s for me, yep great memories also, would love to see more of them on the road. Thanks for your comment.

Excellent restoration but I still miss the little bit of steam that escaped when the shifting was done

Alex Porzecanski cheers, for the comment,, I'm hoping to finish off another resto soon I'm itching to complete, , I never got that close underneath to see them in action, I was going to school back then , a long time now haha..

Alex Porzecanski thanks very much for the feedback,, I appreciate it,, not sure you've seen the atlantean gear resto vid , I have the shifter in parts if you haven't seen what they look like in pieces,. And others. The valve on the manifold is normally closed for correct use ,to test for any air leaks after changing the gaskets and O rings. Normally you don't hear anything when you engage the gear only after you disengage should hear a tight sounding quick hiss , you will see that demonstration in my next video when I can get time to complete ,,, cheers.

Haha you're welcome , fantastic to hear,, happy that I've refreshed your memory , thank you for your comment

Cheers bud!! I'm not that lucky, I've never driven one, that would be awesome,,, haha yes they never came from the factory like this , ,. I have the last few gasket kits for these, I really enjoy giving them a new life ! Ready to go back in circulation for many many years to come.. all the pistons and the inner manifold also gets a lite hone and polish as well, so there's a fair bit of work that goes into it,.. thanks very much for your feedback, 👍👍

Haha cheers for your comment , yes the end result is rewarding, what it looked like before I restored it was terrible , I'm thinking of getting the paint matched to the correct colour , which is royal blue, soon I'm hoping..

James French cheers James,, thanks very much for the comment.. yeah we don't see them around anymore, at all . I'm lucky to see an old leyland every couple or , few years I think,, it's a shame really.. But that's the way it is.. thanks for dropping in..

Alex Porzecanski I'm guessing maybe that would have been because of the air, getting heated through the system with moisture exiting the cylinder O ring seals just under the stick ,if not maintained regularly they did leak while shifting the gear lever. I remember on the leopard we had for school it had the rubber boot to stop the coins getting jamed in the cylinders ,so I never seen that before. Having a close look at the valves I can see how that can happen,,,. They did have a lot of moisture that traveled through to the gearbox if not maintained the pistons would Jam up and rust , so dumping the air did help to prevent failure,. I've been looking for a shifter off the royal tiger world master so far no luck, very hard to find parts so unable to make them yet , thanks for your comment 👍

Thank you very much. !!

Cheers bud,,, appreciate your feedback.. the inside of the manifold also gets polished as well and a light hone, along with the positions, so not just an external polish being done 👍. A fair bit of time goes into them, I also wash it with a soap that puts a Glazed wax coating over the inside of it , that helps protect the alloy ,maintains brightness and makes shifting alot smoother,, a little trick I came up with... I find even though you don't see the inside parts I still enjoy making them look brand new, it's even more rewarding knowing that it has new gaskets fitted so not just a shiny paperweight 😅 👍 thanks glad you enjoyed.

Hi there, I test them at around 60-80 psi , if there's no air leaks I'll go to 100psi to make sure that there is no leaking and i torque the tension rods to make sure it is tightened perfectly.

Unfortunately I have never had the chance of driving one !! Would be a great experience . Not like today's buses. I've sat in the seat of one that's about it haha. Do you know if the gaskets and valves are the same, I know that they are the larger type shifter . , I thought the valves might be bigger as well. I've never restored those types before, . I do have 2 brand new shifters up for sale if you know anyone who is looking.. thanks for your comment...

Hi,, pretty basic really, the gear selector has a sender line to receive air from a tank placed I think from memory at the front of the bus, that air has to be a certain pressure, passing through the pistons in the gear unit for each selected gear. The air will continue through down the airlines to the gearbox, each having a piston for each gear in the box, pushing down on brake bands, that would grip around the selected ratio drive. Like a manual gearbox with different size shafts, and sprockets, instead of having teeth, it's like an old brake drum with the brake shoes on the inside , with these,, think of having the shoes on the outside of the drum, and the shoes are bands that tighten up around the drum when pushed in . Some of them had a quick release valve on them to shorten the delay between gear changes, and the rear mounted setups have a slightly longer release time because once the gear has been disengaged all that built up air in the line has to escape back through to the exhaust port in the bottom of the gear shifter. Hope that made sense, thanks for your question.

thanks for the comment and yes mate it was a kookaburra every time I went to do the video they kept getting louder so I did it anyway haha, they do bring back good memories, of going to school I last seen one in the early 90s great piece of history I think,,someone has to keep them going,also restoring one out of a atlantean not sure if you have seen that one,,thanks for watching 👍

,, yes an accidental reverse wouldn't be good at all ,, I think why they chose air was the technology , at the time back then was simple and it was easy to maintain, there might be other reasons why, by having a direct air system / gearbox it saved on having linkages and any other issues of moving parts, like a normal gearbox., it was very easy to use. I hope that was helpful enough, for you, thanks for dropping by.

Alex Porzecanski sure,, those are the airlines that would go to the gearbox. One for each gear and one to supply the unit with air from the air tank. In this case I've filled my air compressor to 75psi with the valve on the tank almost closed to allow the air to trickle through to the shifter, so when engaged it dumps all air pressure that is built up in the airline out of the manifold ,that's why I pause after gear change , so it can build up again, that you see down below, also with the valve on the manifold is slightly closed as well to force the air out to create that. Shh sound. , On the manifold there is one-way valves to stop the air going back in to the gear shifter, it's basically acting like the gearbox but there is no pistons that would normally be pushed in for the break bands , I hope that made sense haha, thanks for asking,,

Hi there,, im restoring a shifter out of a atlantean not sure if you have seen that vid on that one ,and in the process of getting parts made for these ,,castings ,some moulds for rubber boots, shims , and few other things. very hard to find so hopefully making these parts for collectors and other people who have these types of buses will still be able to find ..just takes time and money. also waiting for access to a 3D printer to get parts scanned ...yes it does bring back good memories from the 80s early 90s great times..

@@rongeremy6970 We had Leyland Olympic buses with these kinda gearboxes in Jamaica . Some were 4 & some were 5 speed . Those buses had quick acceleration . There's still a few left there but used as houses.

Yeah nice,, 👍 they are slowly disappearing, along with the memories, as you said, whatever is left are been used for housing out on properties rusting away. With the housing crisis going on they would make good little houses, would be great to see them again driving around, but very hard to come by these days. I'm about to restore a 5 speed type soon, but have a few priorities preventing me to carry on unfortunately , cheers for you comment

Much appreciated Tony !!! Thank you for reaching out, nd sorry for the delay in reply, haha " RU-vid"! Sometimes I don't get my notifications come through,👍

Hi,, yeah they are, basically the same just different colour and part numbers I guess,,. the Atlanteans use mortlake brown in the cab and the leopards are royal blue,. The blue I used for this one isn't the correct colour, so eventually I'll repaint it, cheers !!

@@brianmelrose-fp8fu its basically a pause to allow the air to build back up to the pressure selected, the sender airline is restricted by the regulator , to allow a trickle of air to fill up, it was only to demonstrate the the hiss of air when changing. some of the old drivers would do this also to allow for the gearbox/brake bands to release properly , you can't flat change these boxes because you will damage them by selecting 2 gears at once in full operation. you won't damage the selector, just the gearbox.

@@rongeremy6970 There should be a constant 75 psi at the selector at all times, the air supply does not require to "build up".The restrictors in the the gearbox do the job of applying pressure and releasing pressure at the appropriate speed. quick release "clack" valves fitted on top of the gearbox to release air pressure at the gearbox rather than all the way back to the selector. This cures 2 gear lock up. T Yes a pause is req between gears but this can be as little as .5 of a second, same as an automatic. Lapse time between 3rd and 4th on a 4 speed is almost straght through as there is no band to worry about.

@@brianmelrose-fp8fu yes that is all correct 👍 and to guarantee the gasket won't fail, it's always pressure tested 2 to 3 times over 75 to make sure there is no air leakage, or any chance of failure I could torque it up to 75psi and the gasket could fail and blow out at 79 or any higher than,,, . When I'm installing the last of the new gasket kits and passing these on and being that these are the last of the new gaskets left that I know of in the world, I have to double, triple check that they will never fail, for any reason like a sudden high pressure dumped through the system by accident, if its tensioned correct it creates a perfect seal, so no need to overtighten, . Regarding about the pressure , this was just for a demonstration purposes only to create the tshhh sound . I was referring to the air building up in the 10mtr airline I used from the compressor from memory, not actually on the bus, so what I did was closed the ball valve on the compressor just so it was a trickle, so on a slow gear change I timed it to slowly build up in the ten MTR length then once engaged, the air will be dumped out all of a sudden then it will drop in pressure to the trickle of air, as you can hear in the video, the quicker i selected a gear , it wouldn't have that THHSSHH sudden drop sound like when first engaged at the start of the vid. If I had the valve on the compressor open full it would just rush out without giving that sound effect I was looking for. I used the ball valve instead of the regulator on the tank because it was broken and stuck on full pressure, ,

Hi,, yes it's a direct air shifter for the semi auto gearbox type, cheers ..

Ron Geremy looks very similar to the semi auto gearboxes we have here in Perth

@@RCoon72 hi there, if you know of anyone who is looking for one I have 2 for sale just so you know, cheers

Sí, tiene razón... el sonido normalmente se escucha después de descontectarse. En esta demonstración, he abierto la valvula en el colector para crear el sonido shhhhh.

That's right,, as mentioned in the description,

Hi,,, I'd be happy to help,,!! If I can.. also thank you for your comment!!. Feel free to ask ..