Have a Guess

Well, Swishy - In answer to all ya nosey questions ....

yello Grab handles ?? ..

This IS a salt company truck .. and salt extraction comes under "mining". All the laws and regulations and OHS stuff that applies in mining, applies here.
You're not allowed to even take the slightest risk with anything .. in case ya jam ya finger .. and get a black fingernail, and sue the company for billions .... or they get fined hundreds of $1000's, for safety breaches .... :

So .... to prevent ya slipping off and falling upside down on ya head, when you're wiping the windscreen (wouldn't worry the average Screemer owner, I know .. but that's another story .. ) .. ya need handrails on any machinery part where you're more than about a metre off the ground.
Ya can't even climb on the load on a semi anymore, without a safety harness .. or you'll be escorted off site, as a major threat to the safety regime ... :

Dish washing trays on front bumper ...

Same thing again. Fold-down steps so ya don't reach and scramble and slip ... etc, etc, etc, blah, blah ...
If ya drive a big dump truck nowadays, they even have electric, concertina steps, that swing out and down, so you can mount ya rig, like royalty being swung into the saddle ....

'D" shakle under KW Bug Logo ....

More of the same .. probably a safety hitch attachment point for when the hood is tilted, and the hood support fails from rust (happens, ya know .. this is salt country .. the corrosion is horrendous .. :'( )

Right angle arm rests down each side of chrome radiator surround ..

Dunno about them .. but probably something else to do with safety ....


I see ya pirated me best pic (again). I'll just get me lawyer to tot up the total ya owe me, for publishing royalties .. no need to tell me your address ... I know where to send the bill ...

Retracta-steps .. www.retractasteps.com.au/html/s01_home/home.asp

Mining safety .. www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source=web&cd...CYOJErSST7vp__xqD9kw

Cam - Good pics ya snuck in there .. I've just remembered, I've got a nice pic of that little green/n/beige AS-120 van, that I snapped about 5 years ago .. at the same show that I took the pirated pic, that Swishy put up ..

It looks like I gotta start marking my pics with copyright, seeing as the Pirate is stealing all my thunder ....

My turn for a question now. What is the story with the Custom Carrier. Is it International based and is it an import?

Ray, the Custom Carriers were built by Master Motors in Perth for numerous Govt Depts, for quite a number of years, back in the 70's, 80's and early 90's.

They use proprietary components (off-the-shelf chassis and drivetrain components, according to the clients requirements), and the hood was locally fabricated.

Engines were often 8.3L Cummins, but numerous other engines were used as well. These rigs were popular with the State Electricity Commission, who were the biggest buyer of them .. but other Govt Depts bought them, too. A few were sold to mining companies.
All of the Custom Carriers were designed for off-road/on-road work, and carried drill rigs, pole erectors, and a range of other equipment. Most of the Custom Carriers were 4x4 or 6x6. As the name suggests, they were designed as off-road "carriers" of ancillary equipment. Some were used as water tankers.

The owner of Master Motors retired quite a few years ago, and the business was closed, from what I recall. I think he just ran out of enthusiasm, as well as old age catching up with him .. and I believe that increasing regulation of the industry, related to building trucks, which made his work more difficult, also led to his retirement.

I can't recall the old fella's name right now, that owned Master Motors. He kept a low profile, and never sought any publicity .. and someone needs to write up his contribution to the trucking industry in Perth.

I believe he started out after WW2 with ex-army trucks, working as a tow-truck operator. Later on, he got into spare parts supply and importing .. then he started building the Custom Carriers.
He stocked a lot of truck parts at any one time .. you could say he was one of the biggest independent truck parts suppliers in Perth.

I can only find passing reference to a Master Motors tow truck, in this following website link. The link is actually an oral history record of a character from the Southern Suburb of Gosnells, one Ian McCormick.
The yarns he spins are quite amusing, and this is one of the few good records of early trucking contractors history in Perth. His Dad was a trucking contractor from just after WW2, and Ian was too, into the 1970's.

www.gosnells.wa.gov.au/upload/gosnells/C...928FDF2EFB86FB6D.pdf

Thanks Onetrack, they say you learn something new everyday.

The Custom Carrier had a 3208T, 9 speed Eaton Syncro, and Styer axles, interestingly, it had a chassis that looked american width at the front, and had a couple of kinks behind the cab to narrow it to european width at the back, all unc/unf bolts in it.


The C500 had a bit of rust. Those yellow steps are actually mandatory on all equipment, steps and rails yellow, and designed so the you have 3 pionts of contact at all times. The tilt tray we have here for the mines at the moment even has the truck steps and grab rails yellow.

Ya know, the C500 in the last pic .. is quite likely to be the same new C500 (in 2005) .. in the pic that Swishy posted ..

The corrosion on Dampier Salt rigs is just horrendous. These rigs are bathed in brine 24/7/365. Dampier Salt use a dark brown, anti-corrosion coating that is like grease, that they plaster all over the important bits, like electrics. However, all panels and other components are just left to rust, and these rigs have a pretty short lifespan.

I remember a bloke buying one of the early Dampier Salt C500's, back in the late 1970's, really cheap.
You were struggling to get real heavy spec trucks back then .. and new road-train-rated prime movers, were worth a fortune to buy.
Road trains were starting to really come in, big-time, and they had started to allow road-training across the long paddock.
As a result, everyone was starting to want road-train rated prime movers.

This bloke picked up the Dampier Salt C500 for a song, took it around to W.A. Truck & Machinery Repairs in Katanning St in Bayswater, and set to, to totally rebuild it.
They absolutely gutted this truck, it was a ground-up restoration. They even split the chassis rails and sandblasted them and then bolted them back together with all new fasteners.
They rebuilt everything with new parts and panels, and that rig looked like a new one when they finished it, about 6 or 8 months later .. and it cost about 2/3rds of a new rig.

The bloke went road training East-West with it, for a long time afterwards, and it was a pretty successful exercise for him, no doubt. The specs on the C500 were heavier than anything else around at the time, and he was rated for triples anywhere he was allowed to drag them. I seem to recall it was powered with a KT-450 Cummins, a real horse back in the days when 350HP was big HP.

Hi Ron ,

Is the yellow twin steer bogie drive, a Flintstone Mack and what were they use the for , Dave

Dave - The yellow twin steer Mack is a DM800 that was produced in small numbers for some mining projects in W.A.
If Cam or Baz can let me in on where (whose yard) the pic was taken, and whose logo is on the door, I might have a bit more info on them.

Cheers - Ron.

Goldring is on the door Ron.