Turners Agricultural Involvement
Turners are perhaps best known for the “Yeoman of England” tractor {featured
above}
which utilised the 4V95 engine and was offered with a range of
“approved” implements such as ploughs (made by Adrolic), tool bar equipment
& cultivators (made by Leverton) and a cab (made by Scottish Aviation).
The V95 engines came in single, V twin and V4 sizes and were
used for all of the typical stationary engine applications such as simple belt
pulley drive for saw benches etc, as electrical generating sets and as pumping
sets.
The 4V95 engine was also offered in the crawler tractors
made by
F H Loyd of Camberwell,
Surrey.
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Loyd Crawlers
F H Loyd of Camberwell Surrey were major producers of
utility (Bren Gun) carriers during WW2. After the war they marketed a crawler
tractor with the same driveline as the carrier powered by the Ford “flat head”
V8 petrol engine.
The Turner 4V95
engine was offered as an alternative for this carrier based machine. There were
problems with track wear and brakes and the machine was considered to be too
fast for agricultural work.
An upgrade to the machine was called the “Loyd Dragon” and
offered with the Turner 4V95 or a Dorman engine as options.
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After the tractors, the V95 series four stroke diesels and
the List designed two stroke blown diesel ceased production Turners remained
involved in agriculture in many ways.
They were a major sub contract supplier
to
Ford.
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Fordson E1AN Major
After the “Yeoman of England” tractor ceased production
Turners gained major sub contract work for FORD tractor. For the Fordson E1AN
Major range of tractors they supplied: -
COMPLETE HYDRAULIC
ASSEMBLIES
TOP LINKS
BELT PULLEY ASSEMBLIES
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Ford 6X
When the 6X range of tractors were introduced Turners
supplied all of the front end timing gears including the balance weight gears
for the 4 cylinder engines.
These were shown in a typical publicity brochure for
Turners.
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Synchroniser units from the range of truck gearboxes that started
production in the early 1960’s were utilised in tractor gearboxes.
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International Harvester & Case
In 1968 Turners developed a new gearbox for the 7.5 ton Leyland Terrier vehicle in the Redline range of trucks
produced at Bathgate.
The gearbox had a number of innovations such as all the
shaft support bearings being taper roller type and for the synchroniser
assemblies the “cup” of the cone clutch was made as a separate steel
pressing. The gearbox was the
T4-200.
A five speed version of the gearbox was also done and this
developed on into the T5-250 and then the T5-290 gearbox with the main customer
being Leyland trucks, the “Roadrunner” and then the 45 series.
When the gearbox of the International harvester range of
tractors was revised to fit synchronisers the unit chosen was a version of that
from the T4-200 gearbox. The main difference being that a finer pitch spline
was used for the dog teeth in the tractor gearbox.
The turner Synchronisers tractors were introduced in 1972 on
the 454, 475, 574 and 674 models.
The use of Turner synchroniser continued through the
introduction of the Case 85 and 95 series up until 1996 when, as part of the
MX05 upgrade, the “ZF” style or “strut” type synchroniser was used.
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Leyland Synchro
When the Leyland tractors gearbox was revised to include
synchroniser units the engineers at Bathgate contacted Turners.
In the 1970’s Turners had been developing a whole new range
of truck gearboxes called the “M Series”. These were 5 and six speed units with
capacities of 350 476 and 650 lbsft torque. These had a number of innovative
features such as the primary reduction ratio being achieved using a pair of
“bull gears” located at the rear of the gearbox. This allowed the use of very
narrow face width gears and for the synchronisers to be put on the layshaft.
For a variety of reasons only the M6-476 transmission was
put in to limited production for the Bedford Military vehicle based on the tilt
cab TM range.
The synchroniser unit selected for the Leyland tractors was
taken from the M6-350 transmission.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Complete truck gearboxes were also used in a variety of
machines such as the lime spreader machines produced by
OnTop Tractors and the Clayton
Buggy
.
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Scotlon Flotation
Agricultural Lime and Fertilizer spreader designed by Mr
Gillon.
The company name was later changed to OnTop Tractors.
The early machines used a Ford industrial engine with a
Turner T5-300 Ford truck gearbox.
Have any of these early machines survived?
The driveline on the later machines was changed to be
Cummins engines with Eaton gearboxes.
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Clayton Buggy,
Lucassen Young, a John Deere dealership, developed a sprayer
machine using a JD engine.
This was coupled to the T5-290 gearbox from the Leyland
Roadrunner vehicle.
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Speed variation of the chain drive of various drainage “ditch digger” machines was also an application.
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Drainage machines
Turner truck gearboxes were used in the driveline of various
drainage or ditch digging machines to vary the speed of the digging chain.
A T5-300 box was used with the Ford engine on the small
machines made by Bruff Engineering. At the suggestion of Turners the cable
linkage from the drivers platform to the gearbox was upgraded from the standard
“ Morse” type to the linear ball bearing “Bowden-flex” type.
A T5-400 was used on the Vandenede machines fitted with the
Cummins Vale V8 engine. As the gearbox was some distance from the operator the
gearbox was fitted with an “airshift” control unit. This basically used a
simple arrangement of air cylinders to move the gear selectors within the
gearbox. It had been evaluated with reasonable functional success on coaches
including some in service with Don Everalls, the Ford dealer and travel
operator in Wolverhampton. The idea was not taken up by the vehicle
manufactures.
It was not very successful on the Vandende machines. The
unit would attempt to “force” the synchroniser to activate even when the
operating conditions were against it. In a road going vehicle the synchroniser
cone clutch works because the output of the gearbox is essentially being driven
at a constant speed by the rear wheels. When a digging chain has come to a
complete stop the synchroniser becomes simply a dog clutch. In fact the gearbox
was modified to be a simple dog engagement box rather than being synchronised.
However, it would be interesting to know if any of these airshift units have
survived even if they have been removed from the machine.
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In the ealy 1960’s a Turner
subsidiary, H&P, developed a pump to actuate a
power steering ram.
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Power Steering Kit
Done by the Turner subsidiary H&P.
Used their own design of hydraulic pump with a “Leduc”
steering ram.Various gearbox based items were supplied to
Pyrene and the rear wheel weights for Massey Fergusson were machined at Turners.
It is thought that these were offered for Fordson tractors
but the only known application was as shown on a
Chaseside loader shovel – which is based on a Ford skid unit.
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The Turner-List two stroke blown diesel engines were offered
as a repower unit for the Land Rover. After that engine ceased production the
machine tools were utilised to supply “kits of major parts” to the initial
production of the Perkins 4.99 in 1958. Once production volumes built up the
work was taken in house at Peterborough. A typical early agricultural
application of the Perkins 4.99 would be the
Claas Europa combines of 1958 and 1959 and the Claas Columbus combine of 1959. These machines were also offered
with a petrol engine or a Mercedes diesel but it is the Perkins engine option
that has the Turner interest.
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Claas Combines
The Turner-List two stroke blown diesel engines were offered
as a repower unit for the Land Rover. After that engine ceased production in
1958 the machine tools were utilised to supply “kits of major parts” to the
initial production of the Perkins 4.99 engine. Once production volumes built up
the work was taken in house at Peterborough.
A typical early agricultural application of the Perkins 4.99
would be the Claas Europa combines of 1958 and 1959 and the Claas Columbus
combine of 1959. These machines were also offered with a petrol engine or a
Mercedes diesel but it is the Perkins engine option that has the Turner
interest.
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Another major agricultural application of Turner based
products is the
“Telehandler”
shuttle gearbox. This starts with an adaptation of the T4-200 gearbox from the
Leyland Bathgate produced Terrier vehicle. When JCB stopped using tractor
backbones as the basis of their machines and introduced torque converters the
initial machines used a Warner truck gearbox. Turners replaced this with a
version of the T4-200 gearbox. As the gearbox reverse ratio was redundant it
was deleted and the space used to widen the first and second gear pairs. The
whole driveline package of torque converter, reversing unit and gearbox was put
together by Turners for JCB. Some of the early Sanderson Teleporters also used
this transmission arrangement. The unit was developed into the
“Compact Shuttle” where the four speed
gearbox is tucked under the forward & reverse shuttle unit. This was during
the period when Turners became part of the Dana Corporation with its Spicer
brands. The former Technical Director of Turners worked with JCB on the
development of their shuttle unit and many gearbox components were supplied by
Turners to them on a sub contract basis. The true Turner derived Compact
Shuttle was not marketed until 1985 and the first customer was Manitou. The Compact shuttle units have been used in a
number of agricultural and other off high way machines. The detail design of the unit has been
revised several times but the design parentage of current production units can
still be traced back to the early Turner items.
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Tele-handlers
In the 1970’s JCB stopped using tractor backbones as the
basis of their machines and introduced torque convertors in to the drive line.
The torque converter drove a Warner reversing unit couples to a Warner four
speed truck gearbox. JCB asked Turner to provide an alternative transmission.
They took the T4-200, as originally developed for the Leyland Terrier, removed
the reverse gear and used the resulting “space” to widen the first and reverse
gears. They also made up the sub assembly of converter, reversing unit and
gearbox calling this the CRT4-200.
Whilst many thousands of these units were shipped from
Wolverhampton to Rochester a small number went to Sanderson for their
tele-handler machines.
The design did progress to be made more “compact” by putting
a forward and reverse set of clutch pack, or a “shuttle unit” on top of the
four speed transmission. This was eventually marketed to Manitou for their
tele-handlers in 1985. The basic “compact shuttle” transmission has undergone a
number of design revisions. The Caterpillar back hoe loader (BHL) machines
became a major customer which resulted in them buying the Spicer European
transmission division (the former “Turners”).
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Please use the email link on the home page of the web site
if you have any questions about these various agricultural applications bearing
in mind that Turners effectively ceased to exist in 1978 and the Turner trade
marks were de-registered by the Dana Corporation in 1985.
