Mario Galea's L12 powered AEC Mammoth Major is seen climbing a long drag with a full load in May 2011. This lorry was new in the UK as HRL262L, and still has the original tipper body fitted with the sides cut down slightly.
It’s great to see old British classics like this still running about. The Mediterranean climate in Malta preserves them. This old girl was struggling to carry her heavy load up that hill
Yes great video, did my apprenticeship on AECs in Bristol, the tilt cab Mammoth Major would have the AV 760 dry liner engine of 240hp, non turbo, which was quite something in the day.
a brilliant video in my opinion i should say it was overloaded and the engine was on overtime the way it was pulling up that hill a big thumbs up from me max
If the info above is correct, then this AEC would have been re-engined at some point. The original would likely have been an AEC AV760 in/around 1970 for the original UK 'H' registration. The Leyland L12 was the naturally aspirated version of the TL12, developed in the mid1970s from the AV 760 AEC engine. Apparently this, and along with the LT11, were hasty developments due to the failure of the AEC V8s and the Leyland fixed head 500 series.
Hard to beat AEC trucks the 760 engine was a great engine for sure in fact the whole out fit was a great design and simpe to work on THE Mandator was a great tractor unit same engine and same components as the AEC Mammoth major seen here on a very tough hill climb with a very heavy load on board and not a sign of smoke from an engine that had worked hard in england long before she left for another country great british design what a pity it ended the way it did and so much of thier ideas went into european trucks and chassis and ndeed back ends copied from English engineering companys like British leyland and AC
Aye, Leyland fu##ed AEC, Albion, Guy and Scammell and then themselves. Got to move and keep up with the times and develop. It's what the customer wants, not the management who does not listen and watch what's happening in the demand for modern, powerful and comfortable machinery.
@@billalbion Absolutely right,Leyland made a right balls up of these other truck manufacturers, they should have been left to do their own thing instead of being under Leyland’s thumb and management. They ruined the British truck and Bus industry singlehandedly by interfering with these other smaller vehicle builders, Albion and Scammel were great vehicles until Leyland took them over and then it all went pear shaped. As someone has already said Leyland didn’t listen to the customers needs and blundered on making one mistake after another especially with that 500 fixed head piece of shit,this is what finished Leyland,this engine must have cost millions in warranty claims, they should have fitted R/R engines which weren’t the best engine in the world but were a hell of a lot better than what Leyland were producing at the time. I drove a Constructor 8wheeled tipper fitted with a Rolls Royce Eagle 280 engine which was a great puller but the suspension was dire,it was a nightmare to drive on rough surfaces and caused me spinal injuries which I still have after all these years.
It does look like millehia been up that hill many times over the years on the old buses before arriva and then latest bus company happy days cant wait to go back next year
I have watched this video many times, then it came to me: no exhaust smoke despite that work. How did they do it about 45 years ago? Does anyone know which engine was used here?
Mario Galea Tal-Bidnija. If you click on this link you can see the actual truck on his advert! www.yellow.com.mt/galea-mario-tal-bidnija/excavating-contractors/
It looks as though it is loaded more over the back wheels. Also you can see the body is not touching the chassis near the ram which means it has bent when tipping over the years. This makes it look to be carrying more than it actually is.
There's a lot of comments on here about the great British truck industry, I worked on these great British trucks in the sixties and AEC in particular along with ERF,Foden,Leyland and Seddon. The AECs were our worst nightmares with all the head gasket failures and low oil pressure problems not to mention the constant injector pipe troubles. These engines the AV590 and AV690 were absolute shit, the rest of the truck was brilliant, the brakes on AEC were second to none where as the ERF tractor units were rubbish. Every British manufacturer had their own particular faults which they never seem to overcome, then came along Scania Vabis and Volvo who set a whole new standard in truck manufacturing and reliability and that was the end of our Great British truck makers.
David Ellis the 760, as heard in this truck was a bored out 690 and had better cooling properties and general reliability as a result in truck use. It was a respected power plant and went on to become the TL12 used into the 1980s by Leyland. The 690 was good in bus use but prone to overheating in much more demanding truck applications. The 760 coped much better and had quite abit more power and torque as well.
@@jamesfrench7299 actually the 760 was a bigger version of the 691, not the 690. The 590/690 were wet liner engines whereas the 691/760 was a wet liner type. Quite different.
@@jamesfrench7299 The 590/690 engines were wet liners,I know because I’ve changed hundreds of them,I used to put 690 liners and pistons in 590s and convert them to 690s. The only difference between the two engines was the bore size and fuel pump settings which I got up rated to suit the 690,at the same time I would put 6speed gearbox’s in them instead of the five speed units that were originally fitted which made them a different truck altogether raising the top speed from 37mph to nearer 50mph,I did this so the engine wasn’t running at Max RPM all the time,it also made a big difference to the number of injector pipes we used because the drivers were not continuously riding the mechanical governor which was fitted to the fuel pumps on the MK 5 Mandaters. The later engines like the 505 were fitted with Rotary Pumps which made for smoother running at top end and cured the injection pipe problem.
