Anyone have any more photos, or better, a brochure for this Barford Rocket Mixer. Made by Barfords of Belton. This is from 1972,even though the truck is a 1965 reg. but i can't remember where the photo came from. I have another photo of one on a Leyland Super Comet, from a Leyland brochure, but need to extract it from a PDF.
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Looking at some other maker's photos, the donkey engines look like Fordson skid units, as the rad cowl is the same as the tractors. I don't know whose engine they used on the Barfords, but the cowls had the Invicta Horse badge on them. there's a better photo in the next post.
These 2 photos are taken from a Leyland Super Comet 20, 3 axled Concrete Mixer chassis brochure. It has the Barford Rocket Mixer on the back. The invicta badge is clearly visible on the rad cowl. The truck has a 6.65 litre 6 cylinder engine rated at 138 BHP, driving through a 9 speed splitter gearbox. Would that be a Fuller? Unfortunately there are no details of the donkey engine. Thanks to Leyland truck archive for the brochure.
The Super Comet 20 was fitted with a choice of three different Albion gearboxes; I have just looked this up from an old workshop manual that I have in my possession, the gearboxes were the GB.241, GB.247 and the GB.248
The first one was a five speed box with an optional sixth speed overdrive, the second one the GB.247 only differed in that it was fitted with an additional crawler gear (an extra low gear for 1st and reverse gears) that was intended for fitting to off-road use vehicles such as tippers and concrete mixers, the last box the GB.248 was a nine speed splitter box with the option of being a ten speed splitter.
Having heard these trucks on the road in times past I knew they did not have a Fuller box fitted because they tend to 'scream' in low range especially just before the driver changes up to the higher range of gears.
Thanks for the info Jeremy. I am not a road truck man, I was in the off highway sector. We used a Fuller Splitter Gearbox in the Aveling Barford 25/28 Ton " Centaur" behind a Cummins NT855 C310 engine as i recall. We had to blank off the crawler gear as it tended to destroy propshafts. The rated payload was rarely adhered to, and the gross weight could be as much as 46 tons. The Fuller had a limited production life, as most operators preferred the Allison Powershift option with incorporated Retarder. I can understand that, as if you were in a Quarry with relatively short haul roads, you'd be changing gear the whole time.