Bedford MJ 330 turbo rpm

[overthere]

Hello,

 

I recently purchased a 1985 Bedford MJ with a 330 turbo diesel engine. I don't have it home yet and have to drive it 800 kms to get it home.

 

I want to do some servicing to it such as filters and fluids before embarking on the drive home.

 

I don't have any service manuals for it yet and hope that I can get some info from the members here.

 

- what are the idle and top-end rpm's for the 330 turbo diesel?

 

- Also, what speed should you be getting at top-end rpm's?

 

- any additional advice on what to check or do in order to prepare the vehicle for such a drive?

 

Thanks,

Robin

[Stormin]

I sold mine on last year.

I seem to remember idle could be turned down to about 500rpm, when warmed up. There's a hand throttle knob in the middle, next to the stop cable. It's useful on cold starts and for building up air pressure.

Max rev's were around 2500rpm at a guess. Cruising speed seemed to be about 45-50mph. Max would be about 60mph down hill or with a tail wind.

 

If it's been stood a while grease the propshaft joints and watch the brakes for grabbing on the first few applications.

 

Enjoy the journey!

[Stone]

Stormin is right on the money, ours does around 4-500 rpm when nice and warm and does about 3000 rpm flat out. We got it to 56mph on the motorway (downhill, obviously) but the vibration increases a lot above 50mph - you'll have a much smoother ride if you try and avoid ragging it too much.

 

The manual says to idle at ~1000rpm for a few minutes before setting off to allow the turbo time to lubricate itself, likewise when you finish the journey give it a little time idling to allow the oil to remove heat from the turbo. Some of the cab controls were a bit non-obvious when we first started so you obviously want to make sure you know what everything does beforehand! We usually park it with wheels chocked and handbrake off since Withams warned us about the handbrake seizing on. Our service brakes were very grabby too - seatbelt on and have a couple of laps around the yard and you'll be fine

 

I have a full set of digitised service manuals (but they don't quite match up with the truck we have, so caution!). Which body type is it? Winch/no winch, crane/no crane, dropside/workshop body/Ptarmigan/tanker? They're all slightly different, but I'll see if I can sort you out

 

Stone

[turtle2107]

Hi Stone,

Have purchased a 1983 Bedford MK with a 330 turbo lump in it, its been stood up for 3 years now. But the engine started first time, of course needs a good service etc.

Would love a copy of your digitized manuals. Managed to buy a set of manuals last year, but my merc van was stolen with them in (how gutting). The only place i can find selling them want £25 each for them, which i feel is a bit overpriced. Can you help??

Thanks

Turtle

[dan]

Hi, Robin & good luck, I was wandering if you got it from withams - they usually give it a once over for you but they wouldn't let me drive out the place though.

 

I would like to thank Stone for the manuals, there great! I see on your profile your an engineer & was wandering If you could offer me any advise. I was thinking of running my MJ on vege oil but apparently the Lucas CAV fuel pumps can't hack it, though I did read on another thread that a bloke selling an MJ was running it on a 50/50 mix without any modification?? I was thinking of an electric assist pump and a 20% diesel mix or maybe just get hold of a Bosch pump (supposed to be the dogs b.... ) of another vehicle & modify the casing and fittings. As you can tell I'm not a purist - some power steering would improve her performance on & off road!

 

We can rebuild her - hopefully a bit short of 6 million dollars.