[dkamath]

Originally Posted by kuttapan

Trivia :- Has anyone wondered why Tata used to have ridiculously high engine covers inside the bus in the earlier 1210/1510 models and later had sleeker, flat bed-engine covers? Answer is simple. They changed the air-filter location

Are you very sure about this? I was once told by a source who had worked earlier in Telco, that the engine was actually mounted lower, to reduce noise intruding into the cabin. Can anyone else confirm this?

[condor]

IIRC, the old air filters were the flatter, ciruclar type (as seen in older cars), compared to the cylindrical one we see now. The filter is now mounted below the windshield/dash (in many buses)

[amit V8]

Originally Posted by amit V8

AWESOME!!! the writeup is awesome. something that is so dear to us all, deserve to be here. this design should stay for another 50 years.
anyway what is a SLAVE CYLINDER??

to all,
what is a SLAVE CYLINDER?? what are it's uses??

[SirAlec]

Slave brake cylinder and yeah Gearbox is not cable operated.
Here is a fact
after prolong use/age, 1210E had a habit of lever slipping. The design is so no non-sense that you remove four bolts and the lever comes off along with the housing. and to fit the lever back after greasing/repair you had to make it to neutral. Now the question is how will you bring it to neutral, the level is removed.
The catch is you will need a simple flat head screwdriver. you pull a small lever in place with the screw driver and the GB comes to neutral position with a click.

Havn't opened 1612/13 gearbox in recent times, so don't know much. But its definitely not cable operated.

[maddy42]

@siralec and @kuttapan thanks for enlightening us about the air brake. Always wondered why the buses climbing the slope outside our house hisses. Never knew how this works.

There was this one time when my uncle had 2 buses plying in our roads. One of them met with an accident and was offroad . The driver had vanished so it was the cleaners duty to drive the bus while alot of people and a tractor pulled it. The cleaner did what kuttapan did:-) Yep he released the brake and there you go. Waited for quite sometime with my uncle pissed off till the things were back to normal.

I drove the swaraj mazda vans and god its fun. Only complaint is it jumps without any load and also thanks to kar govt the roads are more of a jumping rollercoaster ride. Lorry is still on my waiting list

[SirAlec]

Originally Posted by dkamath

Are you very sure about this? I was once told by a source who had worked earlier in Telco, that the engine was actually mounted lower, to reduce noise intruding into the cabin. Can anyone else confirm this?

Mods: Sorry for double post.

The previous ones 1210 buses if you have seen, were naturally aspirated and engines were made by tata. The newer ones are turbocharged and almost all uses cummins engine.

[kuttapan]

Originally Posted by SirAlec

Mods: Sorry for double post.

The previous ones 1210 buses if you have seen, were naturally aspirated and engines were made by tata. The newer ones are turbocharged and almost all uses cummins engine.

Attachment 210391

This mod came in even before Tata brought in the cummins engine. In fact, the cummins engine(TCIC) had a different engine cover layout with a slanted section(see above) that was not in the models with 69x NA engines. While it may be true that the engine mounting was lowered, I am positive that some of the height reduction came from relocating the airbox as in the above picture. You need to see an open engine bay of an old 1210 to understand what I am saying. Changing the engine cover also enabled them to change the gear lever location and it is operated by linkages, gearbox position is same. It is hardly an item that can be moved around, is it?

Leyland also experimented with different gear lever linkages, starting from the early 1990's but found that the old one works best. It was funny seeing the drivers search for reverse in some of the odd gear patterns/gear lever locations that leyland came up with. One incident I remember - The KSRTC(Kerala) bus I was travelling, stops at the depot restaurant for dinner. He parked very close to the restaurant and when trying to reverse, it always ended up in second gear. Every try of his would inch the bus closer and closer to the wall and one try brought him within a mm of hitting it. He must have invoked all the gods he knew, as he miraculously found reverse gear at last and visibly sweating he drove out of the depot. I am sure he would have made sure to leave enough distance in front, the next time.

Originally Posted by SirAlec

The newer ones are turbocharged and almost all uses cummins engine.

Attachment 210391

It is true that the first TCIC buses were Cummins engines. Tata had to go for Cummins as their own NA engines would not meet the emission norms. However , Cummins was probably a costlier option and they somehow brought back their NA engines after couple of years(I am talking the 90's here) - must have had some mods to take care of the emissions. It was very easy to distinguish the Cummins engines with their distinct exhaust note, very different from the sweet note of the Tata NA engines.

Leyland was able to survive for a long long time without turbocharging, only a few years since I noticed turbo charged Leyland buses.

Can anyone confirm if all the buses now use turbocharged engines?

[SirAlec]

Yeah all of these now comes with turbocharged engines. I have the all the versions of TATA's original service manual CDs (newer ones).

will hunt and try to take pictures of old 1210 if i find one. anybody beat me on that one, i will be thankful.

[extreme_torque]

Awesome... thanks for your "out of the ordinary" reviews! Waiting for more of the same.

[Mpower]

Originally Posted by SirAlec

Under the hood is a 6 liter Cummins straight 6 motor mated to a very dependable GBS40 gear box. It has 5 forward and 1 reverse. It churns out a respectable 130bhp with massive 410Nm of torque, which can haul in excess of 30 tons with ease, which is illegal on this by the way.

Thanks for sharing SirAlec ! Whats the payload and GVW?

IIRC 1613 means 16 ton payload and 130bhp engine.

[SirAlec]

^^^ You are right. thats TATA's way of naming their trucks. But it can haul just double of its rated capacity even here in hills. WHen it came to our place it was loaded with 400 bags of cement, but the driver said he unloaded 200 in their godown previously.

[14000rpm]

Originally Posted by 14000rpm

AFAIK, the 1613 means 16 ton (permitted) capacity with a 130 hp engine. thats the TATA way of nomenclature. a 407 simply means 4 ton capacity with a 70 hp engine.
So, 30 tons is definitely illegal on this truck.

Originally Posted by Mpower

Thanks for sharing SirAlec ! Whats the payload and GVW?

IIRC 1613 means 16 ton payload and 130bhp engine.

hmm. so i was right with my guesswork about TATA's nomenclature.

[SirAlec]

Originally Posted by SirAlec

Yeah all of these now comes with turbocharged engines. I have the all the versions of TATA's original service manual CDs (newer ones).

will hunt and try to take pictures of old 1210 if i find one. anybody beat me on that one, i will be thankful.

Originally Posted by condor

IIRC, the old air filters were the flatter, ciruclar type (as seen in older cars), compared to the cylindrical one we see now. The filter is now mounted below the windshield/dash (in many buses)

In between busy schedule, i manage to chance upon an old 1210 E. Here are the images. Enjoy!



Check the bonnet and gear Lever


Check the shape of the gear lever and its location. Driver has to literally keep his hand behind to change.


Beautiful old Instrument cluster with Round Dials. I liked these very much than the newer ones.


Diesel Filter, Air Filter and Mico Fuel pump. Ofcourse the original Naturally aspirated TATA engine.





This is what makes the bonnet high


Airfilter


Fuel pump


Exhaust Manifold.

[SirAlec]

Some more Images

Rear Diff, this is definitely an aftermarket job, as seems that came from a new model. If i remember correctly, the older ones had a cap and nuts to hold them in place.


Prop shaft


Prop Shaft and muffler, compare this with the one of 1613, This had a single end pipe


No Damper used, just two stage leaf combo.


No Slave booster. This was very notorious in hills, if somehow air leaked, this one use to roll.


Smaller 160 liter tank


Single Air tank

[SAHIR.KITTUR]

@ SirAlec, You said 400 bags of cement, which is 20 tons. From my experience of owning & driving them, The unladen wt. of the truck in picture is min. 7 tons. The gross wt. permissible on a 1613 is 16200 kgs. This means that this truck was overloaded by 10800kgs.