Thornycroft Diesels. ?

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oldgit

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There is a Suncruiser 35 fitted with a pair of these in France.
Boat is supposed to be early 1990s,thought those engines went out of production shortly after Noah built the Ark ???
 
You could be lucky and find that these are Cummins B-series engines marinised by Thornycroft. I had same in an early 90s Aquastar and Latestarter kindly gave me chapter and verse on the background to why they were badged as Thornycroft despite being Darlington's finest.
 
benjenbav said:
You could be lucky and find that these are Cummins B-series engines marinised by Thornycroft. I had same in an early 90s Aquastar and Latestarter kindly gave me chapter and verse on the background to why they were badged as Thornycroft despite being Darlington's finest.
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Any idea of capacity or HP......250 HP ???
 
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Lovely engines - my 1990 Thornycroft T358 are Cummins 6BT5.9M (6 cylinder B series, turbo, 5.9 lt, Marinsed).

According to Latestarter, who is the forum authority on these engines, the Thornycroft marinisation parts are of superior quality.

Several million Dodge pickups and even more millions of corporation buses can't be wrong.
 
As a few posters here are coercing me to write a book on post War marine diesel engines, history of Thornycroft will certainly be in it.

Thornycroft became independent of British Leyland long after Donald Stokes, more as a result of the Michael Edwards plan. Thornycroft were a part of Beans Engineering (another iconic British automotive name) which was a management buy out.

Cummins originally planned to licence production of the B Series to Leyland Trucks at their Bathgate plant to replace their own 4/98 and 6/98 engines which although very decent engines required further investment.

Thornycroft once a marine engine manufacturer marinised engines from across BL all BMC diesels, Land Rover, Leyland as well as Ford and Hino base engines.

Turmoil at Bathgate ended Leyland plans to build the B Series and Cummins Darlington was totally re-equipped to switch from the Small Vee engines to B&C production.

Whilst Cummins had its hands full Thornycroft who already had a successful marine distribution network took on tailoring and final upfit of the base B Series marine engine. Thornycroft used marinising components from E..J Bowman and Jabsco and in my book were superior to equivalent engines being produced out of U.S at that time.

Thornycroft B Series marinisations sold very well however financial weakness at Beans Engineering led Thornycroft to occasionally cut corners, and they often fell foul of Cummins quality standards, occasionally an engine would be run short of coolant on dyno test and failed. Rebuilt engine would be sold as new, except customers sometimes found out and complained to Cummins who immediately supplied brand new replacement engine.

Situation could not continue and eventually Beans Engineering wobbled into oblivion.
 
Latestarter1 said:
As a few posters here are coercing me to write a book on post War marine diesel engines, history of Thornycroft will certainly be in it.
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If the proposed tome was post war it would miss much of the good work of Harry Ricardo, possibly the only man to design and build his own diesel engines for his own boat, a boat which survives.
 
Donald Stokes as I recall from a very long time ago killed off a company called Ajax who marinised standard triumph atlas van engines (Aires)? and also the Albion truck engines which were fitted in the Clyde Puffers thornycroft got the standard engines and I believe the Albions went to DAF?
It used to be simple newage were Morris (BMC) Parsons were Ford and Thornycroft were AEC but Gardner was King
 
scottie said:
Donald Stokes as I recall from a very long time ago killed off a company called Ajax who marinised standard triumph atlas van engines (Aires)? and also the Albion truck engines which were fitted in the Clyde Puffers thornycroft got the standard engines and I believe the Albions went to DAF?
It used to be simple newage were Morris (BMC) Parsons were Ford and Thornycroft were AEC but Gardner was King
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Scottie,

Nobody killed of Ajax, Bamford Marine Engineers, they are still alive and well manufacturing security shutters I think, no longer marinising engines.

Ajax name came about as it was the name of the owners boat.

Quite true that Albion engines were marinised by Ajax, as were Leyland O400, O600's and AEC 760's, never aware that Ajax ever marinised the Standard Triumph diesel (Fergie engine). Ajax were the only mariniser of AEC engines.

Albion were a withered arm of Leyland designed some real nice innovative diesel engines including the Leyland OO900 15 liter engine which Leyland made them redesign into a dry liner motor completely screwing up what could have become a World beater. Albion plant was sacrificed to the new Leyland super factory in Bathgate which ended in tears long before Leyland Trucks was given to DAF.

People forget that Britain was the Worlds largest diesel engine manufacturer until the 1970's, Gardner were a bit part player in the big picture, arrogance and technical ineptitude of MD directly led to their demise.

Thornycroft were at one time a major marine diesel engine manufacturer with plant in Reading, began marinising automotive the sweet Leyland O370 and O400 before turning their hands to all manner of other manufacturers engines. Nasty Standard Triumph diesel not on my list of Thornycroft products however not definitive, also surprised any found their way to Scotland as they don't like starting in winter ambients.

Many years ago MBY produced a pull out supplement of marine diesel engine manufacturers, ran to several pages most of them British.
 
OG, I am sure that you already know this but Suncruisers were often sold as bare hulls to be fitted out by anyone who fancied it. Therefore I imagine they could have ended up with anything in them. It wouldn't be beyond the imagination that one of these hulls were fitted with a pair of old plodders someone had lying around. Probably best to find out for sure what they are.
 
Latestarter1 said:
Scottie,

Ajax name came about as it was the name of the owners boat.

Quite true that Albion engines were marinised by Ajax, as were Leyland O400, O600's and AEC 760's, never aware that Ajax ever marinised the Standard Triumph diesel (Fergie engine). Ajax were the only mariniser of AEC engines.


People forget that Britain was the Worlds largest diesel engine manufacturer until the 1970's, Gardner were a bit part player in the big picture, arrogance and technical ineptitude of MD directly led to their demise.

Many years ago MBY produced a pull out supplement of marine diesel engine manufacturers, ran to several pages most of them British.
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Think Scottie was right about Ajax selling an engine by the name of Aries which was a a marine version of the Standard engine as it is listed in my 1960 Motorboat and Yachting manual.

Aries. 40-50 HP 3000 RPM Indirect Injection, 3.32" bore x 4" stroke weight 750lbs and selling price of £299-10 shillings

As Latestarter said, the UK was awash with marine engine manufacturers.

AEC, Ailsa Craig, Ajax, BMC, Brit, David Brown, Coventry Diesel, Coventry Victor, Crossley, Dorman, Enfield, Foden, Gardner, Gleniffer, Kelvin Diesel, Lister, Lister Blackstone, Meadows, Mirrlees, National, Parsons Pelapone, Perkins, Petter, Plenty-Bolnes, R.J.C. Roots Lister, R.N. Rolls Royce, Ruston, Sirron, Stuart, Thornycroft, Turner, Widdop.

Not many about these days :(

Incidentally among the petrol engines listed in my MBY manual was the engine my Dad bought in 1960, that being a BMC Vedette which was a seagoing version of the Morris Minor and sold for £185
 
Sorry about no mention of Paxman but think mby list was based on engines under 300 HP in production at 1960 and it may be that Paxman was into bigger engines at that time.
 
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