Never drove one pity, but I understand the brakes were prone to fade, unless the vehicle was Telma equipped, as for heavy steering you not watched the Italian Job Marcel? :)
Worked on these as apprentice in 70/76 I worked for Briggs Coaches, Chesterfield. We had both Duple and Plaxton bodies. WNU 243F was one of them with the 466 power unit and 5 speed SMOT box. Laid on its side can anyone remember the problems with the front hand brake cables and how to adjust them so that all the wheels locked.
hello again , with regard to previous comments read on your site the steering was sprisingly light power stg was standard but the main advantage was a recirculating ball type stg box tyre wear was a problem but was minimised useing good year tyres whitch seemed to cure it i remember the telma retarder being fitted to the rear axle forward of the diff and all the times it was left switched on resulting in flat batteries useually whilst out on hire happy days!!
Remember driving these back in the 70's. Fantastically manouvreable. Also remember how the Telma retarder could confuse the radar speed traps used back then.
I worked for Skills Coaches in Nottingham as a mechanic in the 60's. They had 9 of these Bedfords , 7 Duple bodies and 2 Plaxton similar to the one pictured above. They were very easy to drive due to the power steering but were a nightmare to maintain due to brake lining, wheel cylinder, steering joint wear and as Alan commented the front handbrake cables were difficult to set up. We eventually cured the brake problems by fitting different linings. Other problems were wheel wobble, Skills bought a wheel balancer, excessive oil consumtion, the Leyland 400 engines didn't have bottom oil scraper rings fitted to the pistons. We rectified this at a later date and cured the problem. There was also a problem with the 5 speed overdrive gearbox which often lost 5th gear due to a broken thrust washer. Skills didn't keep them long (about 2-3 years I think) replacing them with AEC Reliance and Leyland Leopard Chassis
Dear john yes all those problems were common with the bedfords, Do you remember the bedfords that followed ie the YRQ, and YRT thay where the first attempt at mid engined vehicles from bedford and thay were a lot better and thay started to use the 500 TL11/TL12 the YRT had a lond un supported prop shaft that was prone to shearing the g/box flange bolts there where 2 of them that held the flange onto the g/box output shaft and I have spent hours tapping out these bols after looseing the drive the AEC reliance I saw later at EAST MIDLAND MOTOR SERVICES new st chesterfield and had many hours under leyland leopards cheers john
Hi Alan, Can't remember much about the YRQ & YRT as I left the Coaching industry late 60's when the VAM was current and went into HGV haulage maitenance, working on ERF, Leyland, Commer TS3, Ford D series, AEC and others, finally leaving the motor trade altogether (except for the occasional part time driving Jobs)in 1974. My most favourite chassis to work on were most definitely AEC and Bedford. It's a great pity what happened to AEC when Leyland took over. Are you still in the trade?
Added by Marcel Gommers on 15 June 2010.