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New to me Leyland Martian


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Well I thought it about time I got some pics up here of my Leyland Martian. I bought it engineless and am slowly working through what it needs before I get it in a load of pieces. Reg is RSJ734 Army reg is 48BM38, anyone recognise it ?

Cheers Chris.

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Edited by CRSCRS
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looking at pictures does look in very good condition. i have had three of them over the years and the first one 40 years ago was much worse state than this. Word of advice when restoring go for getting up and running curing big faults before concentrating on period switches history dash board decals paint codes and other minor details. i have noticed a lot restoration come to a complete halt because the list becomes to big. Have you sourced an engine for it ?? till its up and running you dont know if its got frost damage to base of crane and it still slews etc

Edited by cosrec
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B card found too, not sure how to get this on as a picture

Cheers Chris

 

 

Hi Chris,

From the record card this Martian may have had a charmed life. It appears that it was in storage for 4 years before being issued in Jan. 1962

It later spent 14 years at the Royal Armoured Corps Centre Workshops at Bovington before being passed to the RARDE research establishment at Chertsey. This would seem about the time that Leylands were withdrawn when the Foden recovery entered service. It was finally passed over to the Procurement Executive, but no date of final disposal on that card.

 

regards, Richard

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looking at pictures does look in very good condition. i have had three of them over the years and the first one 40 years ago was much worse state than this. Word of advice when restoring go for getting up and running curing big faults before concentrating on period switches history dash board decals paint codes and other minor details. i have noticed a lot restoration come to a complete halt because the list becomes to big. Have you sourced an engine for it ?? till its up and running you dont know if its got frost damage to base of crane and it still slews etc

 

Evening Cosrec, thanks for the reply and heads up on the crane - as for engine we have souced a Cummins 8.3 to get it up and running, just need a flywheel to suit then we are away !

 

Hi Chris,

From the record card this Martian may have had a charmed life. It appears that it was in storage for 4 years before being issued in Jan. 1962

It later spent 14 years at the Royal Armoured Corps Centre Workshops at Bovington before being passed to the RARDE research establishment at Chertsey. This would seem about the time that Leylands were withdrawn when the Foden recovery entered service. It was finally passed over to the Procurement Executive, but no date of final disposal on that card.

 

regards, Richard

 

Thanks Richard.

 

Nice to see it running again, good luck.

 

Cheers Nick !

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Hi Chris,

From the record card this Martian may have had a charmed life. It appears that it was in storage for 4 years before being issued in Jan. 1962

regards, Richard

 

Agreed but the BM reg suggests 53/54, I believe a number of chassis cabs were put into storage pending a decision on what variant to build but would they have been registered?

 

Is that the one from Dave Crouch?

Edited by radiomike7
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Evening Cosrec, thanks for the reply and heads up on the crane - as for engine we have souced a Cummins 8.3 to get it up and running, just need a flywheel to suit then we are away !

 

 

 

Thanks Richard.

 

 

 

Cheers Nick !

 

Hi Nick , I have seen some interesting engine conversions in Martians in my time , Leyland TL11 and 12's , 10 litre Volvo , V8 Perkins , and a Scania 11 litre 280 , just make sure your proposed Cummins horsepower and torque curve have a similar match to the old B80 and Martian gearbox , in my opinion whilst the Cummins 8.3 may produce enough horsepower , the weight of the Martian and its gear ratio's may disappoint you with a small Cummins working hard upfront.

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Agreed but the BM reg suggests 53/54, I believe a number of chassis cabs were put into storage pending a decision on what variant to build but would they have been registered?

 

Is that the one from Dave Crouch?

 

Hi Mike yes that's the one !

 

this looks to be in good nick , good luck on the restoration . if you go on facebook there is a group on there for landrovers with cummings engines you might find a flywheel on there . deffo wurth a look . sorry cant spell very well.

 

Cheers Doug have put a wanted up there too

 

Hi Nick , I have seen some interesting engine conversions in Martians in my time , Leyland TL11 and 12's , 10 litre Volvo , V8 Perkins , and a Scania 11 litre 280 , just make sure your proposed Cummins horsepower and torque curve have a similar match to the old B80 and Martian gearbox , in my opinion whilst the Cummins 8.3 may produce enough horsepower , the weight of the Martian and its gear ratio's may disappoint you with a small Cummins working hard upfront.

 

Thanks John, I have looked at various engines and didn't want to alter anything too drastically or do anything that cannot be put back to original. 5.9 Cummins deemed too small, Perkins V8 would interfere with steering box assembly and some others I looked into were just too big physically.

Hopefully it will do what we want it to do,

cheers Chris

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Don't even think about a B80. The first 25 Martians had them and were hopelessly underpowered. All production Martians were built with B81s and the pre-production ones re-engined but even with the resulting 220hp (gross) at 3750RPM, they are working very hard most of the time. As most modern diesels of 200 + HP don't rev that quickly diesel conversions can finnish up making an already slow vehicle into a real pain. I must admit though that a late-ish Detroit 6-71 would sound amazing and can be built up with the supercharger on either side and turning either way, so it should be possible to make it fit. They also run quite fast. With an open exaust you can be heard a couple of miles away too !

 

I think that advert in the post above is from the USA given the location, despite the £100,000 figure (for what?).

 

David

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I fitted a Volvo f12 engine in the Martian that I owned years ago it worked very well not the fastest thing on the planet though!! And from what I remember it fitted in and missed the steering box and most other parts!

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A Detroit might sound amazing but I can't help feeling would be completely the wrong engine in a Martian. It seems to me the issue with the B81 is not the power per se - after all, most contemporary large truck diesels were around that power output - but the comparative lack of torque. I'd have thought the Detroit would suffer a similar issue in that although more torque is there, my experience is that it's in a fairly narrow band and you have to rev the thing to keep it pulling.

 

With a vehicle like a Martian I'd have thought you'd want something with a wide, high torque curve which will pull well from very low revs. That might give you a gearing problem given that sort of engine tends to be fairly low maximum governed speed but there are other ways around that - a gearbox with a very long overdriven top gear(s), for example.

 

If the Cummins is a C series IIRC they're around 190 - 280 bhp, 600 - 800+ lb ft torque and about a 2500 - 2700 rpm governed speed depending on spec - that doesn't seem too shabby to me and certainly better than 220 bhp and 335 lb ft for a B81 though the peak rpm is low.

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Thanks for the replies so far,

 

 

 

 

 

A Detroit might sound amazing but I can't help feeling would be completely the wrong engine in a Martian. It seems to me the issue with the B81 is not the power per se - after all, most contemporary large truck diesels were around that power output - but the comparative lack of torque. I'd have thought the Detroit would suffer a similar issue in that although more torque is there, my experience is that it's in a fairly narrow band and you have to rev the thing to keep it pulling.

 

With a vehicle like a Martian I'd have thought you'd want something with a wide, high torque curve which will pull well from very low revs. That might give you a gearing problem given that sort of engine tends to be fairly low maximum governed speed but there are other ways around that - a gearbox with a very long overdriven top gear(s), for example.

 

If the Cummins is a C series IIRC they're around 190 - 280 bhp, 600 - 800+ lb ft torque and about a 2500 - 2700 rpm governed speed depending on spec - that doesn't seem too shabby to me and certainly better than 220 bhp and 335 lb ft for a B81 though the peak rpm is low.

 

Cheers Sean, yes the Cummins C series I have lined up is 250 hp and a bit over 600 ftlb of torque, might not be the fastest but at least it will be getting used and take to shows etc

Cheers.

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  • 5 months later...

good luck with the build,  she will be very perky with that engine.

i have read all sorts of horror stories about their unreliability, they were said to be the worst vehicle the army ever bought...not sure about that but I read about transfer boxes breaking and all sorts of gearbox issues...

i hope it goes well once built but i suspect you wont get much more than 25-30 mph out of her...mind you that might be the best anyway, they are stable enough at low speeds but at higher speeds she would likely be very scary...

I have always loved these vehicles...

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On ‎14‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 4:52 PM, paulob1 said:

good luck with the build,  she will be very perky with that engine.

i have read all sorts of horror stories about their unreliability, they were said to be the worst vehicle the army ever bought...not sure about that but I read about transfer boxes breaking and all sorts of gearbox issues...

i hope it goes well once built but i suspect you wont get much more than 25-30 mph out of her...mind you that might be the best anyway, they are stable enough at low speeds but at higher speeds she would likely be very scary...

I have always loved these vehicles...

Cheers Paul !

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  • 1 month later...

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