Guy Trucks

Going back more years that I can remember, or want to admit to, I recalled a single drive GUY prime mover used to work on the coal out the back of Camden, Burrogarang Valley when it was in full song. What I do remember about it was that it was a slim line day cab and had a 4/71 screamer (G.M.) in it. Used to pull a bogie steel tipper, bloke by the name of Noel owned it but think he mostly had drivers in his trucks.
What was the story with them (GUY??), would they have been bought in individually, never hear much about them. Who sold/serviced them? Have heard of the odd one or two other than this one, but not of anyone who had a fleet of the marque. I thought it a bit unusual running a 4/71 for a start, wouldn't know what the story is there, would have thought being an old English make of long standing that it would have had a pommy motor. Could always have been a retrofit, of course.
Speaking to a bloke who worked out of there (Burragorang) for many years, reckoned that any of those lightly powered trucks weren't usually sent down to Valley 3 or Brimstone simply because they were too underpowered to pull out of there even legally loaded. Don't know about that, but noticed that the contractors who ran the bigger horsepower, usually bogie drive and when triaxle trailers started coming into wide use, were often the ones sent to the steeper pits.
ALSO, question I have been meaning to ask. Both Rockwell and Eaton, tinkered around with dual range (two speed) BOGIE drive diff setups years ago .Seemed to have only a brief run as far as popularity was concerned. Had problems synchronising the both crownwheel/pinions changing at exactly the same time? I often wondered just why you would need another complicated addition to a driveline? OK, would have been some severe applications where off road gearing was desirable, the most popular multi speed transmission available at the time was possibly the deep reduction 15 speed Road Ranger. Some blokes simply put something like a 4 speed Spicer auxilliary behind a 10, or 15 speed to give them the required extra gears for off road (20 speed Spicers and 18 speed R/Rangers and higher horsepower probably negated the need for an auxilliary, except possibly in most extreme cases. Every now and then you may see a truck for sale with these dual range diffs, but never seemed to have been persevered with.
Would it have had anything to do with blokes trying to split the diff gearing like they could get away with in the old style two speed single drives? I would imagine that when heavily laden, if you are a competent driver, you should be able to just take off from a stop, achieve cruising speed with just the transmission alone. Don't think I would like to be trying to split every gear with the Hi/Lo diffs, my way of thinking you would be loading them up too much.
I may have it all wrong, never actually drove a dual range bogie drive diff. Maybe they were more like those versions of the 20 speed Spicers that had the OFF ROAD/ON ROAD ratios in the box itself. 10 speeds for Highway running, 10 speeds for off road. Although you had an "overlap" of ratios, it was advisable to actually bring the vehicle to a stop, then shift the range change before proceeding. Bit like those old style transfer cases used to change with those old Clark and Fuller boxes.
Probably blokes on this forum who either drove them or had one in his stable??
Thanks, Dave_64

Hello Dave 64,
Just had a look at truck photos Guy Motors, they are mostly 5 ton trucks with one classy looking tandem drive one.
Wesfarmers were the agents in WA so there were a few of the Otter model around, our local Shire had some short wheelbase tippers.
The Otter came with a 4LK Gardner, 3.8 litre 57 HP@ 2100 rpm. Different bore and stroke to the rest of the Gardner range. Early models were on 8.25x20 tyres, four speed gearbox, single speed diff, ours is on 900's and Timken two speed rear end, can manage most places empty without changing down.
David.

The truck you are talking about must have been a heavier model, ours has broken drive axles.
The company also made bus chassis.

Here is the standard Wiki "full" story.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Motors

Thanks, Men.
Yes, did look up that same Wikipedia write up before posting, was more interested in the few that (if) ever came to Oz
I had only ever seen the one version, a single drive p/m, which would have been a bit bigger than Wouldyou's , but wouldn't have had that "European" height of front of the samples that Lang put up. Trying to compare them with something similar in the same era, maybe a "Seddon"? There was one of the Councils in the Sydney metro area who had a few of them (Seddons) rigid bodied tippers.
Maybe they (Guy) were bought in by some private individual? Like a lot of stuff bought in from the States a few years ago?
About all I know of it was that there were certain incentives for bringing in trucks from Commonwealth countries and at one time there were also tariff restrictions, another complicated topic.
Dave_64

Wesfarmers being the agents explains the large fleet of Guy buses in Perth during the 50s and 60s, When I first went there in 1971, there were still lots of them running around.



These had 5LWs or 6LWs, with preselector transmission

Just out of curiosity, see where Gardiner would have been one of the very few manufacturers who persevered with the 5 cylinder over such a long period of time. In some ways a five cylinder is a bit of an oddity (although both Land Rover and Volvo both used petrol versions). I follow where Gardiner could utilise a lot of parts, heads being the most evident, cast in both 2 and 3 'pots' and only the actual block castings would vary in capacity, hence the "2+3=5 cylinder).
Obviously there had to be a 'niche' for a 5 cylinder, otherwise they would not have carried them on their inventory for so long.
I thought they may have been originally made for marine use, sort of mid way between a 4 or a 6 cylinder as far as output was concerned, but then I see they were actually quite popular as primarily a bus engine, but it wasn't all that unusual to spec up a truck with one.
In todays age, the norm seems to be to continue on with the "standard" of the 6 cylinder design, just alter the actual physical size of the engine. Reading of the popularity years ago of the 'straight eight's', and I suppose you would include the 8LX Gardiners with them, they all seemed to be a reasonably low revving engine, maybe something to do with vibration/balance issues?? If you take the line that the more cylinders you have, the better the internal harmonics of the engine, but would you have to counter that with the longer the crankshaft, the more chance you have of torsional twisting ?? Maybe that's why 'V' motors became, and still are so popular, plus actual physical space required in a chassis??
That idea gets thrown out the window with large marine engines, space (or weight) is NOT an issue, and of course, the extremely slow revolutions of the engine itself.
Wonder if I'm on the right track?
Dave_64

Dave,

AUDI won the World Rally Championship with a 5 cylinder engine in the Quattro.

Changed Rallying for ever plus road cars.

Honda also had a V5 used in MotoGP.

And VW had a V5 power Golf.

Most Gardner (not spelt with an i or e after d) engine series, including the LW (light weight) were modular from 1 to 8 cylinders. The 5 was sustained by bus operators of the time who were so mean that they installed the lowest possible power that they could get away with to save both capital and running costs. Obviously running time was not important. The other issue was that in converting from a petrol motor the 5 would fit whereas the 6 was too long.

Scania and Volvo currently offer 5 cylinder engines for their buses.

They're not trucks, But the; Mazda BT50 & the Ford Ranger have the Same 5 Cylinder Diesel engine..