Old Atkinson Identification

Much better idea by the Gardner serial number .....all the L2/LW/LX/LXB serial numbers are in sequence.......for instance...69846....Sept 1946/.105962..1955/112695...March 1957/......123075....1960/147612....1964/......156278....1967.

The diffs will be Kirkstalls......the Kirkstall Forge was in business for 800 years ,until it was bought by yanks and closed down about 15 years ago.....its now houses.

Thanks all those who replied with the info and suggestions for the i.d. I will get some pics in a day or so.
Owner will be stoked if we can get closer to year and model.
Dave.

Bobby Addison had a very nice mid 50s Atkinson......wood framed sheet steel cab .........then one day ,I went round to the sawmill,the cab was on the ground..........one of the Gardners running the mill had seized,so the truck motor was a replacement.............I tried to buy the cab and the rest from him,but he used to talk endlessly about anything and everything,and was impossible to deal with.........and he wanted too much for everything.

If it has the two piece curved screen and timber frame I think that would put it as very late 1950's or early '60's. I think the curved 2 piece screen came in in 1959 and if it is a 6LX Gardner I think they also came in about that time. I think the 4 piece screen came in around 1962. I think by then they had moved to a steel framed cab.

The LX has a one piece cylinder block,the LW is two separate 3 cyl blocks........the motors were made together .....supposedly the last Gardner made was a 2LW in 2002...........before recent developments a new 2or 3 LW Gardner would sell for something like 20,000 pounds......in fact people have cut the sixes in half to make 3 s.

John

They were a great motor. They came in every combination of 1 through 6 cylinders. I had a 1 cylinder 1L3 stationary engine, a 4 cylinder LW in my second boat in PNG and a 5 cylinder LW in my 1913 Pearling Lugger. All the commercial marine engines were limited to 1,200rpm mainly by the prop specifications. 1/2 a pint an hour a cylinder - I doubt many modern engines can match that. I did some skippering of a bass fishing mother ship in PNG and it had an 8L3 about 5 feet high but almost identical in design to the smaller LW and LX engines.

I was highly unimpressed by my only vehicle Gardner experience with the 1956 Foden fuel tanker I bought in Darwin. Geared to 28 mph flat out but the damn thing was governed so you could not get a run up on a hill. As you reached 28 mph the engine shut down like you took your foot off the accelerator. Angel gear must have been standard driving practice as without doing that it was almost undrivable for highway operations.

I would be interested to know how the Atkinson Gardiner system worked, anything would be better than the Foden.

I remember an Albion that pulled a trailer with 4 LW.......maybe 80 hp.....that would be slow....the speed limit for trucks over 2 ton in England was 30mph....no use gearing the trucks any faster.

the 6LW was 120 hp, 6LX 150hp and 6LXB 180hp. and the 8LXB 240hp
I think the cabs stayed 2 screen and wood framed for the home market while exports went 4 screen so there was more hope that they wouldn't shake out. Both came out the same mould - only difference was the twin screens cabs had the dividing piece cut out.

mammoth wrote:

the 6LW was 120 hp, 6LX 150hp and 6LXB 180hp. and the 8LXB 240hp
I think the cabs stayed 2 screen and wood framed for the home market while exports went 4 screen so there was more hope that they wouldn't shake out. Both came out the same mould - only difference was the twin screens cabs had the dividing piece cut out.

That's my understanding too, Mammoth.