Bus Shite

[cms206]

Clutch judder was an easy fix... turn the idle screw up!

 

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[Sir Snipes]

  On 21/12/2017 at 23:24, Zelandeth said:

It shouldn't happen, but it does.

 

Just glad he (or she) was running light by the sound of it so no passengers were up there.

 

Still mind the first time I took a decker under a bridge - I knew it fit with a couple of feet clearance - still damn near pissed myself. Really doesn't look tall enough from the driver's seat...

If it’s anything like the building trade I bet H&S would be ALL OVER that.

[twosmoke300]

  On 21/12/2017 at 17:23, Hooli said:

Someone is getting an interview without biscuits.

Proper lolled at that one ! Brilliant

[busmansholiday]

Biggest problem with wheels falling off these days is that they are all the same thread. In the old days, nearside wheels were left hand and off side were 'standard' right hand thread. What this meant, apart from the humorous bits of watching a new starter trying to get the nearside wheel nuts undone, was that both sides naturally tightened themselves as they revolved. As nearside are right-hand thread, they naturally try to undo them self.

[lisbon_road]

That's interesting.  I wonder why they did that then?  Can't have saved that much money, can it?  A bit sure and a few less parts.  But not a lot.

[tooSavvy]

Anyone care to expand on 'thread/nut rotation/velocity mass = self unscrewing'

 

I understand 'walking + stress deformation' (see: stretchy cyl head bolts)...

 

NOT however 'lh/rh = bombproof' ?

 

TS

[busmansholiday]

^^^^^^ err, no, just know, from what I was told / learnt back in the 70's that's why we had left hand thread wheel nuts. Also a friend who's an ex motorway traffic cop once said that wheels never fell off as often on waggons when they had them.

[lisbon_road]

It is just that the motion of the wheel tends to either tighten or untighten the nuts depending on which side of the bus or which thread they are.  I think the issue with it is partly that you can't get it right for acceleration and braking as in inertia terms, they're opposed, and braking can be more harsh than acceleration.

 

So they might have given the idea up based on the acceleration/braking thing, normally hiding a cost saving of course.

[busmansholiday]

Putting my "what did I study at uni ?, ah, I remember now, physics" hat on, ( it was a very long time ago) and as I've woken up now and not been to the pub yet, there's some interesting stuff involving Newton's first and third laws of motion that could explain it. It's called centrifugal and centipetal forces.

 

Put simply, as the wheel nut spins on the wheel it exerts an outwards force, and as it's mountings (the studs) have a thread that force can cause the nut to move up or down the thread depending on the direction. Going forward, and looking from the outside, the offside wheel spins clockwise, so if the thread is clockwise it will tighten. The nearside wheel spins anti clockwise going forwards so if the thread is clockwise, that would result in it un-tightening. If it's a left hand thread it would tighten.

 

That's my explanation, I could be talking bollocks but I am sober at the moment.

[spike60]

As an old diesel fitter I would say the tell tale pointers on the wheel nuts are excellent if the driver can be arsed to walk round the vehicle and look at the start of the shift. Every wagon, bus or mobile plant has massive power compared to a few years ago, all that torque plus brakes that work hard must have an effect on the wheels. 

I work on the docks these days and we don't have specific problems with wheel shedding much but a few years ago our new tugs were munching through brakes at a shocking rate despite being much bigger than previously, it took us a while to realise it was the engine that was the problem. They could accelerate an 80 ton trailer way faster than the old ones and as we know what goes up must come down....

I never got the LH thread wheel nuts, -hub yes, nuts no.

[willswitchengage]

Happy Christmas from one of Britain's weirdest buses...

 

No idea why they bought these when normal B7TLs were on the road since 2000

 

[cms206]

  On 25/12/2017 at 17:08, willswitchengage said:

Happy Christmas from one of Britain's weirdest buses...

 

No idea why they bought these when normal B7TLs were on the road since 2000

 

Capacity of 95-seated passengers and a low bridge; these were built for one of Glasgow's busiest routes (66) which passed under the low railway bridge at Busby.

 

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[Cleon-Fonte]

The fact Volvo didn't make a 12m three-axle B7TL may have had something to do with it.

[busmansholiday]

East Lancs Nordic bodied B7TL, and First didn't buy them, they were leased off Volvo, sort of high capacity bus trial, which is why they ended up being sold for further service. All but one ended up at MASS, one subsequently barbequed it's-self and the remaining ones are still around

[Zelandeth]

That's one hell of a tailswing for a "normal" bus...bet that nearside corner's caught out a few rookie drivers...

[Felly Magic]

They could have offered the Polish built B10TL super Olympian for a while here, but nope, the Northcord kit they sold in the UK was an ALX500 Super Oly, had a side mounted rad by the staircase. That 7 litre lump must have been highly stressed on those Nordics, it was absolutely fecking useless in FTRs

[cms206]

  On 25/12/2017 at 18:15, Felly Magic said:

They could have offered the Polish built B10TL super Olympian for a while here, but nope, the Northcord kit they sold in the UK was an ALX500 Super Oly, had a side mounted rad by the staircase. That 7 litre lump must have been highly stressed on those Nordics, it was absolutely fecking useless in FTRs

B10TLs were still too tall in this instance.

 

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[Jim Bell]

Some auld bus shite from around Nyacassel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[tooSavvy]

'CU' reg is South Shields...

 

Back in the day before all the busses on Tyneside seem to have Manchester plates...

 

TS

[Dick Cheeseburger]

YA is Zummerzet, so that one made a bit of a journey at some point.

[mk2_craig]

YR isn't it? Which would make it ex-London.

[cms206]

It was indeed YR; they were a cancelled order IIRC, three ended up in Singapore.

 

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[quicksilver]

  On 29/12/2017 at 14:14, mk2_craig said:

YR isn't it? Which would make it ex-London.

IIRC they were cancelled order for Manchester, leased for 3 years by London Buses for the Bexleybus operation and then sold on. I think Busways snapped up most of them. A couple of others (913 and 926) used to appear at my school when owned by inMotion of Dunstable.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

  On 29/12/2017 at 14:14, mk2_craig said:

YR isn't it? Which would make it ex-London.

Ah, so it is. Said Leyland dead in 2008.

[Felly Magic]

Oh dear an ECW B51 Leopard, how not to make a coach body, ECW blamed Leyland, Leyland blamed ECW, when both should have known better

[Zelandeth]

  On 29/12/2017 at 17:31, Felly Magic said:

Oh dear an ECW B51 Leopard, how not to make a coach body, ECW blamed Leyland, Leyland blamed ECW, when both should have known better

 

I was wondering what on earth that was!

[Soap Distant]

Nobody blamed anybody. The B51 was a rebuild and update to the original ECW coach body based upon the original frame design. In fact the prototype (which still exists in preservation) was a rebuild of an existing coach. This is where it went awry. The rebuilt coach was a Bristol RE with a rear engine as the intended market was the rebuilding of RE coaches for certain NBC operators so no structural problems would become evident. However Leyland caught wind of this scheme and offered the operators Leopard and Tiger chassis at below the cost of the rebuilds. To throw a crumb to ECW Leyland used the bodybuilder to body these cut price chassis. Now,the Leopard and Tiger was mid engined and the ECW body was stresses for a rear engined design. Subsequently the rear end design of the body was just not strong enough and bodies were sent back to ECW en mass for rectification numerous times before the product was anywhere near useable.

Ah, but the previous body on the same frames as the B51 was used to body leopards too and they didn't have issues, did they?. Well, surprise surprise they did. In fact exactly the same issues as the later B51. There was a difference as on some bodies, the rear emergency door was much shorter than others and the smaller hole in the side helped the strength of the rear body no end. Unfortunately the rebuilt RE B51 was of the long emergency door variant and so the lesson learned before went unnoticed.

It's all a shame as the B51 body in rebuilt form was a great looking body that gave (eventually) little trouble. The stronger short door ECW body that the B51 body should have been based upon was good enough to be taken off its original chassis (leopard) and used to rebody an ex-midland red chassis.

[Felly Magic]

They argued about which plant would foot the bill for the warranty work, Leyland built shedloads of Leopards for stock to use up parts, but by then, Volvo had launched the B10M, and DAF's MB200 was pinching customers like Smith's Sheerings, so the Leopard was now very old hat, so they saw the B51 as a great excuse to shift them, and by then, the RE was massively outdated, no power steering, and nowhere near as powerful as rivals, many still had 6HLX's rated at just 150bhp, or Leyland 0.680s rated also at around 150bhp, so would all need their chassis massively updating, with PAS, and new engines. Imports were also starting to feature, especially the likes of Bova. ECW built the B51 on the cheap, from very low grade materials dictated by the price per unit, and thanks to GMPTE not telling them about the arse end issues, ECW were clueless that their design wasn't up to the job in hand, even windscreens fell out as the flimsy GRP frame failed, it showed up that all wasn't well in Lowestoft, even the stalwart VR was suffering from flooring woes, as water would flood in when the bus went through puddles. The B51 body was a typical case of a vehicle built down to the lowest possible price from low grade materials

[Soap Distant]

The REs due to be re-bodied were ex air sprung coaches converted to coil and to be fitted with Leyland power plus 0.680s rated at 200bhp. PAS was never an issue with the RE as the steering was sufficiently light unassisted (although the weight distribution of the chassis was never as bad as the rumours led people to believe). I have a copy of the specification sheets somewhere for the re-builds.

Leyland needed to shift chassis in the early 80s that's for sure, Volvo was starting to eat at its main core business and a good part of this was the withdrawal from the market of the AEC Reliance; many operators who bought them switched to Volvo or DAF, Leylands introduction of a Leopard with manual gearbox did nothing to appease the old AEC stalwarts . Leyland knew the B43 (Tiger) was in the wings and thought it just needed to fire fight.

GMPTE not releasing the details of modifications to the rear of the ECW bodied Leopards certainly didn't help matters with the structural problems that beset the B51 later on but ECW knew about the issues in the earlier body solved them then forgot all about it when building the B51.

Leaky floors? I've yet to find a body built at the same time as the VRs that did't leak like a sieve. MCW with it's dissolving body frames, East Lancs with, well, lots of things really as their fanatical desire to tailor build each bus individual to the whims of each operator meant that nothing was standard nor fitted together properly. Alexander was not immune with the inevitable rattles and major body weaknesses in the panoramic windowed double deck body amongst others. Put in to context, ECW was one of the better builders out there.

[Yoss]

Well that's an interesting few posts. I never knew any of that. Makes me even more pleased I own a Routemaster. Proves the point I was trying to make a couple of pages back (posts #1386 & #1391), when you lot were slating the RMs, better than I ever could. #trying not to feel too smug.

 

 

Of all the stuff you mentioned above I'm quite familiar with East Lancs stuff being Southampton born and bred. The Atlanteans were always a bit rattly even when new but it was interesting watching SCT/CityBus/First trying to keep them running. First these little angle brackets started appearing around the window pillars, riveted to the aluminium frames either side. Then, upstairs at the front, big bits of angled ally were riveted between the top of the bulkhead and the front window frame.

 

Best of all when these external tree deflectors on the front nearside upper deck became fashionable on other buses it gave CityBus an idea. They got bits of handrail from scrap buses (and you could see it was old handrail when you were sat upstairs because it had that diamond pattern in it) bent one end ninety degrees and fixed one end to the roof framework behind the fibreglass roof dome and the other end just under the front window. Hey presto what looked like a tree deflector was actually holding the roof on. The game was given away somewhat when they started fitting them to the offside as well. Of course tree deflectors weren't necessary when the buses were still council owned because the same council were responsible for cutting the trees back but that's another rant for another time.

 

Back to the downstairs of our Atlanteans and you could see the whole staircase and luggage area over the nearside front wheel moving independently of the rest of the bus. Quality. Bet it didn't take too much effort to break them up when they got to Barnsley.

 

Having said all that, I was rather fond of them.