Extra 1/2 gear in coach

Busman, a 6 speed Spicer is perfect in one of those things.
As Greenie says, spin it out to 2100 then up a gear, lovely to drive once you get used to that funny pattern in the middle of the box.
If you are still gungho on more gears, be cheaper putting a Roadranger in it than changing the diff.
Go back and see Cam at CPF and he'll look after you.
As for needing a clutch..........
I remember Border Coaches had a few Tourmasters with 6V92TA's that were pretty well geared up, you could let the maxi's off on the flat, and at idle just smack them into 1st without a clutch, the coach would lurch a bit, but you were away.
Personally I'd stick with the spicer.
The Silver Eagles and MC8's only had 4 speed spicers in them and they went pretty well.

Cam, you ever have a go at the Volvo high deck that had a 9 speed RR stuck in it, used to turn up at West End every now and then ?


regards greenie [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]

Didn't have the pleasure Greenie.
Was it one of the GM repowered ones?
9 gears in a coach? you'd be skip shifting it a bit?
Even my Louie with the 903 and 15 speed with a trailer on and one truck on the back so only around 20 tonnes you end up skip shifting it otherwise the motor doesn't seem to get into it's torque range.

Can always power assist a clutch to relieve the leg strain

Yeh, it had a GM in it, used to be funny watching somebody who didn't have a clue about skipping a few cogs, then they would get lost, stop, then start to crunch their way thru it all again.

Kieth from Kieths Coaches borrowed it from West End and had it down at Movie World with a load of inbound gooks, talk about complain about having to use every gear. Soon showed him how to do it the easy way, left him sitting there scratching his head for a while, till he nutted it out for himself.


regards greenie [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]

The biggest waste of time with this RR set-up was the linkages were never kept adjusted up firm, so they were always sloppy when trying to find a cog, use to hit the clutch the first time and then just go lookin' for that wayward cog, just slip it in without the second hit of the pedal. A bit of a grizzle every now and then, but mostly just a click, and away you go again.

regards greenie [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]

Dad told me the early Denning's built on Bedford chassis that had been converted to rear engine, they used timber for the guides for the gear linkage to run in, when it rained it all got a bit tighter.

I used to drive for Coral Coaches in Cairns for a little while. They had a name on all there Coaches. The one I drove a bit was an old Denning 40 footer, 8V71 and a 6 speed spicer, the linkages were "average", it was fine going up through the gears, but when you went down them, that gear in the middle was always tricky to find, I finally saw the light and gave up on finding it and used to just skip it. One of the runs we used to do was taking all the kids from Mossman high down to Cairns on a Wednesday for sports, after one kid going, "there all in a box", "if ya can't find em grind em", etc etc was when I came to the conclusion it wasn't worth the trouble, LOL. Funny enough, this coach was called "The Lady Mossman", well it had done a few million k's, everything was a bit loose, and the drivers reckoned there weren't too many ladies in Mossman anyway, so it was known as the $lut. Before they did the front kingpins in it, the whole coach shook severely at 50 km/h and then drove out of it a bit over 60, used to put a few passengers at ease for their first visit to the tropics.

The Silver Eagles and MC8's only had 4 speed spicers in them and they went pretty well.

I used to drive GMC 4107s with a 4 speed box, no way you ever needed more cogs. Took a bit of getting used to, but then a dream to drive. I had to train up new drivers on them, these guys who boasted about their Spicer and RR prowess quickly came unstuck on their first attempts. They had a wet clutch, so would slip a bit on steep starts until the revs built up.

The ratio's were pretty evenly spaced for 1st, 2nd and 3rd, then you used to have to spin the motor out to 2100 then let it drop back to about 1200 revs to get it into 4th from 3rd from memory.

It was fine until I had it tuned by CPF, then the ton more guts came with more fuel used and more heat generated.

Busman, did they put bigger injectors in? Do you know if your engine is a "fuel squeezer" model?