1978 Road Commander restoration

As a kid, I spent a lot of my school holidays in the passenger seat of a truck. With my father Col “Snow” Lovett often away from home it was no different to how many kids of truckies spend time with their dads.
Dad started working for TRN Haulage in 1970. I was born in 1972 and first truck I remember spending any real time in was a Road Commander. I was 6 at the time dad got “Snow’s White” and it was a big truck for the day. The Road Commander was put to work subbying for Mitchell Brothers running between NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland.
The 290 Cummins was by no means over powered but it got the job done.
Here are some pictures of it back in the day.
Parked at home in Camden

Tipping Gypsum near Boggabilla

Fast forward 37 years to 2015. Dad had retired from TRN in 2007 and gone back “home” to northern NSW to a “slower” paced semi-retired lifestyle driving a school bus and delivering trucks all over Australia in the school holidays.
We had talked about getting a restoration project when one matching the specs of the original Road Commander came up in Naracoorte SA. After a few phone calls, it was ours.
Over the next few months as time permitted, mechanical repairs were done by Ben Rose, rivets and huck bolts replaced and the cab repairs done to get it ready for paint. With that many rivets, I imagined that it would be difficult to get a great finish but our painter - Jason Gibson made it look easy. Not one run!!







Part 2 to follow

Denis from Signs Lines ‘n Scrolls then worked his magic with some old school signwriting, much to the approval of my son, Kaden.




Alex and the boys from Adco Trailers did some fabrication work including the checker plate and everything was starting to take shape.


Part 3 to follow

Kaden and I had been working on getting all the bits and pieces off the truck cleaned up and it was now time to start putting it all back together.





And the final result was ready to hit the road.




Whilst we get the pleasure of owning and driving a bit of history, we must thank all the people who provided their expertise and support along the way:
- The Fordham Family – Owners of TRN
- Ben Rose – Mechanic
- Jason Gibson – Spray Painter
- Alex Fail – Adco Trailers

We look forward to seeing you guys around the traps.

Good job Fella's...

Beautiful job, congratulations. Gives us all a bit of enthusiasm to push on with our projects.

That is one sweet ride RC1
i hope it gives you and the family many years of fun and good memories.
Cheers
Alistair

Thanks for putting your rebuild on here, love it
Colin

A credit to all - great to hear of 3 generations working to preserve part of history.
Really enjoyed your post & hope to see men & machine around.
Best wishes, Paul.

mate fantastic stuff lucky fella to have all three generations involved in the job I reckon top thats top stuff
And the truck looks great as well


Paul

Thanks for sharing RC1, great result. Have you got any Pics of the truck as you bought it, and as you pulled it to bits.

We all love to see the other blokes challenges, so we know how lucky or how badly off we are with our project. :whistle: