Aveling Barford Motor Roller - identify gearbox?

[martyn williams]

If you see a second hand one,I would grab it and make one good one out of two.But I would renew the bearings anyway.
Martyn

[Jeremy Rowland]

From a quick glance at your photo it looks like reverse and first gear cogs are both knackered, let alone the water damage to the bearings.
I have re-built quite a few of the Fuller RTO9509A truck gearboxes years ago when I worked on the spanners and when they used to jump out of gear it was because of the rounded teeth on the gear edges that were not permitting full gear engagement.
This looks to be a fairly simple box to strip and rebuild.
Should you be lucky enough to get a second hand box thats okay then your well away, however if you get a used box thats knackered there's still every chance that you can make a good un from the two bad uns.
Like Martyn says you will need to replace any bearings

Jeremy

[Fowler VF]

Hi Mike

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I see that you have progressed pretty well already. I can't be of much help to you as the earlier DX rollers have an even simpler crash box and use a pair of cone clutches to select forward and reverse, my box looks nothing like yours which is much more recognisable as a truck type box. My DX has its roots very close to steam rollers and the box is an evolution of that.

For what its worth I would have thought a little bit more checking out of your box is worthwhile, another one could be just as bad and most likely will have worn on the same gears and same places. These sorts of gears do get fairly rounded off and I would be paying attention to the selectors, detent mechanisms and bearings to try to get it to hold in.

Nick

[thesmiths88]

Cheers guys and thanks to you all for the input.

I'm getting (hopefully) a price on replacing the worn gears & bearings. I've just been offered a used & unknown gearbox for £165 which I have politely declined at this stage (have I done the right thing? I thought this was a bit too much). I've still got my eye on another one, and feelers out to see if there are any more around.

I definitely need one that doesn't ping out of gear - the thought of descending a steep hill in an 8-ton machine that could jump out of gear gives me palpitations!

PS - Nick - the Aveling '100 years ....' book describes mine as a 'bastardised DX' and looking at the two side-by-side I think we share a lot of parts in common.

[thesmiths88]

Update on this, and some good news.

I had a bit of a result and won a replacement gearbox for the roller (it's actually from a Ford ET6 Thames truck from the 1940's) from eBay for a princely £25. On getting it home and stripping it, it proved to be in fine mechanical condition, so I just did a 'best of' compilation from the the original roller gearbox and the new gearbox.

Although the core of the gearbox is the same, the ancillaries for mounting, clutch actuation and selection are different, so all these had to come off the old gearbox. I gave it a lick of paint before it went back on.

Interestingly the Aveling gear gate only allows selction of three forward speeds, but on dismantling the gearbox I found a fourth gear in there. Perhaps it would have been frighteningly quick in 4th! I've been up and down the gears on the driveway (which is now very flat!) and all seems fine.

A happy conclusion, and thanks for the advice/pointers.

New gearbox, £25 bargain


Stripped, cleaned, painted & reassembled


Back in and working

[Julian]

Interestingly the Aveling gear gate only allows selction of three forward speeds, but on dismantling the gearbox I found a fourth gear in there. Perhaps it would have been frighteningly quick in 4th! I've been up and down the gears on the driveway (which is now very flat!) and all seems fine.

]

I think this was also a common ''dodge'' or procedure with tractors, shod on rubber tyres you got all the gears, shod on iron and top was blocked off. Obviously to prevent farmer's son smashing it up or launching himself into orbit