Anyone on here got any knowledge on Bedford TK's?

[Deleted]

Because i seem to have bought one. Not picked it up yet, but will in the next month or so. Its a 80ish model one, with the 300cui petrol straight six engine. Its leaking water up front, so i'll have to adress that before i go get it. Might even have gotten a RUSTY Opel Rekord parts car from the guy's neighbour in the same go! The owner would fit in perfectly here, but he doesnt take to computers Lots of cool homemade stuff at his place.

The engine access on these seem abyssmal though, with the non-tilting cabin!









Now that i think of it, i know of another one not far from here, wich is supposed to work, and be free to pick up for anyone. Parts truck!

[retrolegends]

I used to work on these in the late '80s when I was an apprentice, your absolutely right about the engine access with the silly flaps at the rear of the cab there a bloody nightmare! Spares should be ok as the were made up to the early '90s as AWDs, Not sure about the inline 6 Petrol as the ones I worked on we're Diesel, but I would think it will be a little heavy on squirt.
Classy looking truck though, much better looking than the later TL and a nice alternative to a Ford D Series.

[turbom]

Gearboxes come out very easily as the pikies use to nick em and they were sent to africa.
Good ol work horse as the coal men allways had em

[benzine]

I have a TK, very reliable and had no issues getting the spares i needed

[tzeph6]

Hi,i used to work on these also, top waggons!,simple to work on , just nuts and bolts ,good driving position,i fitted a TL 6 cylinder turbo diesel in our local coal merchants flat bed truck very cool!!!!!!
Petrol= jucy I think.
Most of all enjoy!!.

[Mercdan68]

Wish I had the space for a lorry like that,my dad drove these from new in the early 70s for the HMSO in London, they had around 30 of these on the road back then in light blue with the government logo on, lucky fella much want here!

[duggers]

I worked at Arlingtons in Ponders End north London 79-83 it was a Bedford dealer.
The mechanics were made up when BEDFORD introduced the TL series with a tilt cab!
The six pot petrol has a heritage back to the 50's and was always reliable. As I recall Everready were buying the petrol engined ones up to the deletion from the range, can't imagine why as the economy (oxymoron) was not great. But then petrol wasn't more expensive than Unicorn poop then.

[steveg]

My dad used to drive these as well. I used to sleep on the shelf behind the seats we he took me with him on a job and I used to be tail lift operator !
I did work experience at a dealers while at school and a 4x4 one was in having a new engine after throwing a rod out of the side. I remember crapping myself when it first started up as I though all the fuel spraying everywhere was petrol, it was diesel fortunately the mechanic hadn't tightened a pipe union enough.

How do you work on it ? Did they have removable covers inside to gain access or do you have to wedge yourself in behind the wheel ?

[igor]

I had one for a few years back in the early '90s. It was a '74 with a GVM of around 6.5 ton but I always taxed it on a 5 ton sticker. It ran the 214 cubic inch petrol six and had 16" wheels. Was a good town truck but hopeless on the highway due to the super low differential gearing. Always started off in second gear on the flat even fully loaded unless it was carrying something extra heavy. Top speed on the flat was 35 mph but 30 was comfortable. Got 55 out of it down hill once with four cubic metres of green sawn timber on but it was scary and I never did it again. Was a good truck for hay making as the 16" wheels gave a nice low deck height for throwing the bales on. A previous owner had fitted a dual fuel petrol/lpg conversion kit to it and I ran it on lpg pretty much all the time due to it only getting 10 mpg on a good day and running like a bag of bottoms on super petrol but sweet on lpg. No seatbelts of course so when my eldest was born we just put a load binder strap through the back of his baby seat and around the truck's seat frame. Seemed legit. At least we never got pulled up by the cops for it. Agree with all the mechanics saying they are awkward to work on. Fortunately I never had to do anything major to mine. I'd still buy another one as a curiosity piece because I like them but as an everyday work truck it'd be too expensive to feed.

[georgeb]

Used to build horse boxes on these, as the non-tilting cab meant that the space in the Luton wasn't compromised.

Petrol was always the favourite, as back then diesel was only for roughy-toughy truckers so the pump and surroundings were usually filthy. Hence the ladies preferred the non-economy, but clean pumps, of petrol. Yes, they were thirsty but lovely, smooth and as said, reliable. A really nice easy drive to boot, and for me, way nicer than the D-Series.

Hard hat recommended when working under the access flaps though!

[dodgerover]

Aug 20, 2015 21:11:53 GMT igor said:

Got 55 out of it down hill once with four cubic metres of green sawn timber on but it was scary and I never did it again.

Doh I read that as 4 cubic metres of Green, I couldn't imagine a TK being the best choice as a weed delivery vehicle

A friends wife had a petrol TK horsebox (it may have started out as a mobile library) I think it did about 14ish to the gallon

[MrSpeedy]

Aug 20, 2015 16:43:49 GMT turbom said:

Gearboxes come out very easily as the pikies use to nick em and they were sent to africa.
Good ol work horse as the coal men allways had em

Ah, the childhood memories of our coalman and his TK.

Back when they used to run with open hessian sacks just loaded on the flat back.

Our man 'Snowy' used to run a TK. Swore by it. Got nicked by the travellers. He bought another and a couple of years later that got nicked also :-(

He bought a Ford cargo after that. Never got nicked!

[galooph]

There's a chap on the mig-welding forum that's restoring a TK - www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/threads/bedford-tk.43480/