paulob1

that is a bugger, is the engine still in, at least you can get to the rear ones, still a bit fiddly but easier than the front ones with everything in... why is the drive line so bad, has the old girl been heavily abused and neglected, no oil in the system etc...on my off road stolly I greased up one of the hubs instead of oil, blocking the oil pipe because the seals had gone, since she is only ever run on the off road routes at relatively slow speeds circa less than 10 mph I felt she could survive like that and has... inner tracta joint damage is bad news for the bevel box etc...but maybe you just need a bigger tug on it that expected...

will give them a go, not sure its worth a trip yet john, let me have a look...could be a bit of all of it, but the smoking, blue smoke smacks of a tired engine, she has not even done 100,000 if i believe the clock, but that may have been heavy army use and abuse..although in my experience these days, tells me in those days they didnt actually abuse them that much.. although a second opinion would always be useful..

yes but when the air pipe reduces air flow it burns black, I have seen that before too, will give it a clean and check but we service these things regularly and cannot think this has been missed...she is just gutless, maybe its my son who drives it mostly as he is used to the Daf DROPS easy to drive with limited need for forward planning..

hmm not sure, I have one with a 320 bhp (guestimate engine, slightly bigger turbo and cylinder head) that runs okay and to be honest it isnt that much more powerful but this old girls smokes a lot and just seems a bit gutless...with or without a load..exactly as you say its the same loaded or not...too gutless for its own good...will get the old foden out and see if I can do a comparison...

okay so options seem to be, fit turbo to 265 bhp, thats an extra 45 bhp, about 25% more power... fit a bigger engine, maybe a 305 or a 350 from the daf Drops, wonder what its top speed would be with the auto box.

guys does anyone know if this can be done easily, the 220 in the foden really struggles at anything other than gentle inclines and small loads...technically she can haul a full 17 and a half tons, but she struggles with 7 tons...

you need a smaller gun Maverick... we took the Zil 131 radio truck converted to a camper, lovely to have a bed instead of a air cushion, and cosy warm...rocks a bit though, more than expected... MTLB shown in the picture above Kraz 255b FUG, ex german Police Force, still original in all details... Ferret in sand colour Daf DROPS Foden GS with beaver tail bed Green Goddess and a very large camper van american style, we have to paint that green or camo it up next year...we were thinking of going camo green anyway, she will look cool no shows were the Ural 375 brake problems... but as i said previously a great show, need more punters forgot to say no breakdowns, except my wife had a key fall apart on her in the vectra and she could not start for a few minutes, and the Zil starter has gone, common on the zils, she was getting tired, I need some replacement repair kits...so all in all agreat show with no break downs...

my three stollys too, bet they could do with all their hubs refreshed...

CET not coming, too wide for the foden....

cool I love these engines...

we straight barred a ural 375 25 miles. the Ural luckily had the engine running and a driver, plus me in the Daf DROPs pulling. We never went above 30 MPH even on the dual carriageway and i was not feeling safe at any stage...it was for an emergency only. but in my eyes better than a rope...but not as useful as an A frame...i didnt have the a frame with me...

unmanned better....then no danger whatsoever...

bow lines have always done me good for such needs...but then I have generally used the correct tow rope and bow lines and such not really needed..but this is a good idea, although of course i should say you should not tow a vehicle with the towing eye for any thing other than a few yards and that rope is not strong enough....

John yes this is interesting what do you have...

it certainly doesn't seem to keep it away from the driver...infra red heat signature???

its the chimney exhaust that makes me laugh, would love to know the why for that design...

CET arrived http://s737.photobucket.com/user/2strokes/media/IMG_3276.jpg.html http://s737.photobucket.com/user/2strokes/media/IMG_3282.jpg.html http://s737.photobucket.com/user/2strokes/media/IMG_3281.mp4.html

on our sary you cant change it very easily at all from reverse to forward but you are right very smartly and very quickly but I find if your moving it into or out of gear it helps too..son has it sorted the best...

it is a bit of a balancing act, but I find that if you engage neutral press pedal and engage a gear, press pedal, and at the same time forward or reverse and it works without crunching...you get a neat snicking sound as she engages drive..

Okay I weighbridge my trucks. DAF drops with all tools chains and strops, one driver and a lightweight rack, three quarters full tank 14450kg's. Foden GS 12225kgs, with heavy duty hydraulic winch...I would think the winch is around an additional 750 kgs so my other foden GS should weight in at about 11500... so DAF can carry no more than 15 tons, my Foden with winch just over 17 tons...and Foden with no winch just over 18 tons...

I would change the brake hydraulic pipes if they are till original...they will fail on you soon and losing the brakes is scary, even if it is a dual system...it seems to lose all its brakes once one of the hoses goes.. are the air lines still good, if you can change them too it is a good idea...anything to do with the brakes seems important to me to change if they are in anyway suspect...

Ron that sounds entirely plausible...... Richard, I never said they built the side valve configuration to improve performance, I understand that over head cams were considered but that they would make the engine too noisy, this was when it was being considered for a car engine not in its development into the military engine...but I am struggling with my memory on this...need to read up on it again to refresh my memory...

the B series engines are half side valve, as I mentioned there is a very specific reason but damned if I can remember...the two things that spring to mind, and they are guesses on my part so may be totally wild, are:- 1. that the b series engines were meant to run without the water pump working, ie boiling water...so in order to keep combustion chamber temperatures to a minimum they had them firing at TDC chasing the pistons down the bore..as was said earlier... the explosion, when you ignite petrol takes a few moments to reach full capacity...hence why we have the engine firing before the piston is at the top so when the piston does reach TDC full power is acting on the piston as it goes down, the vacuum advance allows for the higher rotation speeds and the higher piston speeds, so that this keeps happening....ensuring that the engine achieves max power as the revs go up. the B series made big power for those days, a 40's designed normally aspirated engine producing over 200 bhp at 3750 rpm was unheard of and with tests, they got the B81 close to 300 bhp and still relatively reliable, if not fuel economic...and remember this is still a part side valve engine... 2. the combustion chamber shape, wide range of fuel qualities and the fact that it was designed to run at full power and full revs for over 200 hrs or more meant that pre ignition could occur at high engine temperatures, so better to run them firing at tdc. I sort of remember reading about harmonic balances too, at something like 3300 rpm they were all in conflict or in balance, cant remember but perhaps with too much advance it induced additional in balances . As I say guesses but I do have a book on the subject and will give it a read to see if I can find out the real reason...

there is a very specific reason why they went for 0 degrees its the same on the B81, some one once explained why it was but I also cannot see why a 15 degrees before tdc would not be better...combined with a Jolly engineering electronic ignition i would not be surprised if you could get 10 mpg out of them...worth a try... I am wondering if it has something to do with the side valve arrangement...will try to find out... I have the jolly gear in two of my b81's and they run very very sweet compared to the points in the saracen and ferret, although I have to say the ferret engine is superb...

thats my kind of place....