Perkins/Cummins/Gardner Comparison

He did not want to offend anyone.  Just click on "Watch on Youtube" in the box.

 

A bloke I met that had a fishing boat in Apollo Bay reckoned his 8 cyl Gardener had outlasted TWO Cummins in his mates similar boat.. and still going strong, apparently. Nice things, Gardeners, just a work of art I think!

Nothing will ever match a Gardner for a displacement boat engine. Absolutely reliable and I think they make fuel. Here are two of my Gardner powered boats.

5LW powered 1915 Pearling Lugger "Kelsia"  I bought in Thursday Island and took to New Guinea in 1971 as a dive boat

  

4Lw powered coastal trading boat "Katibi" also in PNG I bought from Kar Kar Island (big volcano) Plantation in 1979 set up for diving. Was built in Nowra in 1939 and taken to New Guinea as an Army Small Ships Squadron vessel in 1942..

 


 
 

The 4 LW Gardner in my old dragline at the yard used to use 40 l of diesel a month...........the Hyundai 6 ton excavator I bought uses 40 l in less than a day ......motor is a Yanmar which are supposed to be crash hot.............I know one thing ,if I have any computer trouble ,it will be ripped out and replaced with a Perkins 4/236

The catch with Gardners is insane parts prices .......all my motors had the small alloy thermostat housing corroded away ....... a new part is 235 pounds nearly $500 ......for a part looke like it came off a XY Falcon, and should cost $10

John

With LW and LX Gardners in boats at say 1,200rpm the rule of thumb for fuel was half-a-pint-a-pot-an-hour. Engine speed was beautifully controlled by the correct prop pitch and the tacho sat within a needle width at full throttle up or down waves.

Little Gardner 4 works around the clock in the ferry boat "Sun" on the Hawkesbury, back and forth over to Dangar Island.

 

Bloody expensive ride that doesn't except Opal card. $12 each way, spose that has to help the upkeep on the Gardner.

 

 

In the basic old setups in early boats many Gardners were direct salt-water cooled. They have double-skin alloy sumps that sometimes corroded through. Never seemed a problem with closed circuit hull cooling - no fancy heat exchangers just a length of pipe running under the hull and back into the engine but containing fresh water.

"Kelsia" my 1915 pearling lugger did not have a starter. It is a seriously big engine to start by yourself to get wound up and drop a valve lifter lever with one hand while trying to keep it spinning past a compression stroke with the other. All controls were in the engine room - throttle and gears. It was bloody exciting coming into a restricted space dock. The bloke below could not see out so the skipper had to keep yelling "more power, less power, reverse, reverse, REVERSE, REVERSE!"

Photo of me at the helm and Terry Hayes, another Army pilot, pumping away on our trip across the Gulf of Papua from TI to Port Morseby in 1971. No GPS just a compass heading for 3 days. No radio of course. Only had to pump out about 50 litres an hour to keep the "Kelsia" afloat. The old Gardner never missed a beat.

 


Steering was by tiller but the handle was only a foot off the deck so they had a rope pulley system. This actually made it easier to hold a compass heading particularly at night. I still have that beaut big compass in my lounge room.

 

The only vehicle powered by a Gardner that I have owned is the Foden fuel tanker I bought in Darwin. What a pain in the arse! 28mph I could live with but the governor shutting off power at 29mph meant you could not get a run up to cross a driveway let alone an oncoming rise in the road.

Swapped it for the 1965 Kenworth 6-71 powered. Loved the truck but the co-driver refused to sit in it after our first run from Brisbane to the Macksville Rusty Iron Rally. I did the whole trip squatting like a jockey as the suspension seat shot up and down but she had a fixed seat. No wonder the 10,000 rivets in the body were just flying in loose formation. Swapped that for my Volvo F-86 eight wheeler - best move I ever made.

The Dodge weapon carrier is just one of many.