Commer time! And a couple of Yankee Clippers thrown in too on Biglorryblog!

i,d say that the yankee clipper is my old mate steve coles'in his 1979 peterbilt 359.didn't those commer's have some kind of rootes supercharged engine?i am more used to seeing mansel davies' colours on volvo,s,they are a daily sight on the m4 in south wales.

Commer Maxiload with the TS3 engine,spent many a happy hour in one as a child.

I remember the days when there were only British truck manufacturers. I remember going to take delivery of ‘Its Got A Funnel MK 1’ built by Eric ‘it needs a funnel’ Shoemaker, founder of bespoke truck specialists It Needs A Funnel.
The press got involved and we planned to take it down to Weymouth docks to take a location picture of his concept vehicle It Needs A Funnel MK 1.
Wisely Old Shoemaker built his factory, well, garage, well it were only a bench, well tool box I suppose, on top of a hill so when he sold his trucks he could do it ‘bought as seen’.
The new owners would, in theory, get a good run up down over Ham Hill onto the lanes around Stoke-sub-Hamdon without starting the boiler. Old Shoemaker would have the piece of mind knowing they’d never return by the time they stopped the truck, it weighed best part of two gross, the best part of 50 miles away.
Well, once he got the wheels, the body and the funnel attached to the truck, well skip really, well dustbin would be more accurate, no skip, no dustbin…yes dustbin, we turned it in the direction of Dorset, and in particular Weymouth, as that was were the docks were and he gave it a push and off it went.
Well, as you can imagine, once the 22 cubic tonne vehicle, complete with two full baffleless 500 gallon water tanks, got going there were no stopping it. Old Shoemaker overlooked the fact that someone had to steer it and try to stop it when Weymouth homed into view.
He chased it for a couple of miles but she were gone. We caught the number 22 bus out of Yeovil and set off, stopping at Maiden Newton and then Dorchester to change drivers, for Weymouth in hot pursuit.
By the time we arrived in Weymouth all we found was two demolished houses, a bent sign post and bystanders looking in the water at the docks. Shoemaker asked what happened and a local answered that a bloody great big thing, with a funnel, came out of nowhere and went straight into the docks, injuring a couple of houses and a signpost en route. The local constabulary, the bystander added, had been called.
Wisely Old Shoemaker and I quickly caught the same bus, which stopped at Dorchester to change driver and Maiden Newton, back to Yeovil. He moved into trying to build automated vacuums, with funnels. I ended up buying a Volvo F88 – best decision I ever made.

Yes, Andrew, those Commers did have some kind of Rootes supercharged engine. It was the famous Commer TS3 (Tilling Stevens 3 cylinder) a horizontally opposed, 3 cylinder, 6 piston, 2-stroke supercharged diesel, one of the three best-sounding diesel engines ever made. The other two were the Foden 2-stroke and the various GM/Detroit 2-strokes. In NZ, and maybe in other countries, it was affectionately known as the "Commer Knocker", and this name was also used for the entire truck as well as for the engine itself.

And on the right of the picture is an ERF LV 8-legger!

I read A Wurzel's post with interest and am a little surprised that, if the 'Vehicle' steered as badly as he maintains, it went round the Ridgeway Corner to Upwey, I would have thought it was more likely to go straight on, down the lane to Bincombe, and never be seen again.
However it seems to have arrived in Weymouth where the most direct route to the docks would be along the Esplanade, here the congestion caused by the Jubilee Clock roundabout and its associated 'subway to nowhere', means that except for wheelbarrows and the odd bicycle, no wheeled vehicle has exceeded 2.5 m.p.h., on this road, in living memory.
Anyway many thanks for a very amusing posting.

Hi Toby,

I was actually quoting Andrew there. However, just to get things correct, the TS3 was a Rootes diesel engine with a Roots-type blower.

That is, it was an engine designed by the Rootes Group (who owned Commer) engineers, and fitted with a Roots-type scavenge blower, that is a blower of the type designed by the Roots brothers about 150 years ago.

There is no connection between the Rootes brothers (with an "e") who owned Commer, Hillman, etc, etc, and the Roots brothers (without an "e") who designed the scavenge blower.

I hope that Howard P, the Commer enthusiast on BLB, will agree with this basic summary; if he doesn't I'm sure he will let us know.

Cheers, Vic

sorry boys! my mistake,i don,t know how to spell roots or what engines/superchargers they use.

Yup, well explained Vic, and by the way, it is not a Maxiload, Barney. The Maxiload was the heavier version intro'd in 1964 to take advantage of the upgraded weight limits for 2 axles in Britain. The Maxiload is quite a different truck to the standard 8 tonner which this one presumably is. The Maxiload has a wide front axle, so has wider front guards to cover them (same as Bedford KM) and sits higher as the chassis is 2' deeper. Also has 10 stud wheels, air brakes, larger 215ci motor etc. You can tell this is a TS3 by the double exhaust boxes under the front of the cab and the dual headlights
My interest in Commers comes from many happy hours spent in the cabs of TS3 powered Commers and Leyland Comets driven by my my father over the hilly country of Banks Peninsula near Christchurch in New Zealand. The instant power and great economy of the TS3 was greatly appreciated in the hilly going, but the lack of engine braking of the two-stroke going down hill wasn't!!! They would always pull far more up a hill than intended or legally allowed, but had troubles stopping it going down the other side. All sorts of ingenious improvements were developed in NZ, including multiple compressors. One enterprising operator even developed water cooled brakes on his Commer to help the downhill bit, but then fielded lots of phone calls about his truck being on fire!!!
Cheers
H

Just reading some of the comments on the commer knocker and it took me back to the 1960s when I was driving one on the Sydney to adelaide run for some years. Yes it was a slow grind going down hill with no compression to hold it back and on the steep descents it was low low gear.Oh how I miss the sound of that 2-stroke motor. I remember on my third trip I was climbing up a long steep hill at night when all of a sudden a great shower of sparks shot across the road,thinking that I had blown the motor up I pulled over to the side wondering what to do next, when a semi pulled up behind me and the driver asked what the problem was and when I told him he laughed like mad and then told me that the Commer had 2 pistons in each cylinder that nearly met in the middle and after a while carbon would build up between the pistons and let go causing the sparks that had frightend the living daylights out of me.