Anyone who owned a red and green number 8 Meccano set in the mid-nineteen fifties would have been familiar with the model shown in the pictures above left of a Road Sweeper (model 8.17) . I never did get to build it at the time but thought it was about time I did ,after a successful building of the jumbo crane from the same manual. I built the model using the same1978 dark blue and yellow parts some of which I have restored. The number eight set was never produced using the dark blue and dark yellow parts. 1978 saw the introduction of a completely different range of sets of what was to be one of the shortest lived range of sets and colours, as the Liverpool factory closed in 1979.

I thought the model looked better when completed than it did in the manual. The model has steering, leaf springs a motor driven rotating brush ( well two cylinders) this can be lowered and raised and be disconnected from the drive by levers in the cab. The model is driven as per the instructions by the Meccano E20R electric motor. Quite a few constructional changes were needed, to make the model go together, be firm and rigid this included using extra parts not included in the 1954 number 8 set. However looked better than it performed! I could not get it to operate very well, it was fine upside down but it only just managed to crawl along the work bench. There were two reasons for this one was the fact I only have a 15volt transformer for the 20 volt E20R motor the other more fundamental was the fact it has no differential and only one rear wheel is driven, given how heavy it is I am not surprised at its lack of agility. Also with the rotating brush lowered, this revolved against the direction of travel adding further to its rather sluggish progress. Some areas of the construction just did not work and there were differences between the illustrations and the text. “To make Meccano Boys think,” it was claimed by the Meccano company but in reality almost certainly just errors.

To sum up, looks quite good but it needs a differential and better brush drive, I did have several attempts at the latter but without a great deal of success. I think a custom made belt for the drive might be the answer rather than the nearest Meccano size! However a much simpler solution would have been to leave off the belt drive , fit a tyre on the centre 1" pulley and allow the brush to rotate as the model runs along. Its interesting to note that the nickel finish parts supplied in the set are shown in the 1954 manual using the black Korean war style parts with a black plated finish. Picture above shows the construction method for the tank.

Although to the casual observer it is a strange looking vehicle it is in all probability based on a road sweeper built in the early Post-War years, by Lewin Road Sweepers Ltd. of Southport Lancashire. The cab and chassis look very much like a Thornycroft a type of vehicle that was often used for public service vehicles. A picture of the Lewin road sweeper is shown on the right, this was featured in an item about "Mechanical road Sweeping" in the March 1952 Meccano magazine. In the May of the same year the Meccano Magazine published full and detailed instructions for a road sweeper that could be built with the Number eight set. This model shown below has a forward control cab and a shorter version of the same chassis and brush mechanism as the 1954 model. Before taking the model completely apart I decided to rebuild it as the earlier 1952 version this can been seen by clicking this link.

Similar vehicles to these are still a common site on roads in the UK and have changed very little, basically a water tank , spray arm to clean the gutter and brushes to sweep up the dirt into a container.

More pictures of the two Road Sweepers and in larger sizes can be see in my Album on the NZ Meccano web site

October 04 2011 revised October 16 2012