Leyland Olympian A809THW First Devon and Cornwall

[smiffy1071]

I've driven this (8609) in service when it was at at Badgerline in Bristol.

The vibrating brakes are a feature of many leyland buses, nationals also do it. Nice to hear the throttle dipper actually works between gears...

[AvStarUK]

What was it like to drive? It's a bit of a heap to ride nowadays, especially upstairs.

[smiffy1071]

Although they were very slow (about 45mph), I prefered them to the volvo B10M double deckers we also had. You do know this bus is a convertible? the roof can be removed....

[AvStarUK]

Yes, that's probably why the upstairs is fairly grim and leaky.

Are they slow compared to other Olympians? They do seem it.

[smiffy1071]

By the time I was a driver, most of the olympian fleet had city back axles, however Bristol Countrybus = Badgerline had some which had coach ratio back axles. So if you had an engine that wasn't knackered, it would cruise at 65mph

[jaggass]

i wonder why brakes always vibrate in reverse

[mondyboy81]

Its because the brake drums rotate going forwards a lot more often than going backwards, so when the brakes are pressed and the shoes rub against the drum, the linings in the drums wear out in that direction of drum rotation.

When you reverse and brake, you are then going against the natural path of wear on the drum and so the brake shoe vibrates and scrapes over the uneven drum lining. The more worn the drum, the worse it will be. Modern stuff has disc braking which which wears better.

[jaggass]

the only difference i can tell between ecw and ror is the front windscreen

[craigybus1]

Shame the gearbox is the fully auto version of the Hydracyclic. Much prefer the semi auto. I used to drive Roe Olys in Leeds, and always drove them using the hold gear

[smiffy1071]

All olympians that were new to Bristol Omnibus were fully automatic with no exeptions. Until very recently, we still had the full diagnostic equipment to set up the throttle dipper, and gearchange points.