....Jack Errit and his Jackbilts....

Hi-Beam has added the appropriate pictures on the Mackworth stories.
Here's a taster if you want to go back and have a look.

That blue Hancock Mackworth started life here in the NSW Hunter Valley as a maroon SAR on the coal during the early 90's. It was a neat and tidy jigger whose owner kept it very nice.

Old mate from south of Singleton loved the sound of the big V8 Mack donks so when it was time for a new one he asked around and came up with a 500 for the job.

The cab was jacked up to allow for the extra size of the Mack motor and bigger battery boxes were made to fill the gaps under the cab.

The bonnet then started to be modded as the wheel arches now reavealed half of the side of the engine block so T900 wheel arches were grafted into the SAR bonnet.

This old girl continued to work during it's transfirmation, ever reliable.

I spotted the truck a couple of months ago outside the Truckers chrome shop there at Lavington, Vic. Now painted blue and without a turntable so I thought it had joined the show circuit.
The girl behind the counter mentioned that Adtrans now owned it but that it was for sale.

Just a little background on a much loved sight at full noise here in the Hunter.

DW

this is a great story
I was was doing a off the books run to the castle the other day , pulled up at Merriwa to let the taillights catch up....an old roadboss pulled up on the other side of the road , so after a walk around I did the admiral thing and went over and said hello...after his mates all pulled up we all chatted away about things old and I mentioned that I had just been driving a mates mack superliner 440V8 , EX Bromage for a week, and one ole mate digs another ole mate in the ribs and says this ole mate is a mack guru, so after some chin wagin ole mate tells me he fitted a mack E9 into a SAR and fitted a 401 cab (bingo the blue one in the story)..... more chin wagin....time to go.....mor chatting on the way back to the truck . ole mate mack guru told me he had fitted a E9 into a kenworth T604 , (has anybody seen this one)in the finals steps he grined and said that if he keeps this K104 aerodyne much longer ,that he might put aE9 in that....so stay tuned......sorry peoples no pics

Ditto my take on Jack Ehret, what a great yarn. Thanks Hi Beam, thoroughly entertaining! What a character!

Cheers, Dave 64

Once again this is a terrific story, and being the owner of an NR Mack, it is of great interest to me.
Melonreo mentions a T604 fitted with a Mack engine and asks if anyone as seen this truck, well this may be the one. This T604 used to have a Cat that had a lot of problems so he decided on the Mack as a replacement, I think he had a KW cab over previous to this one with a Mack V8 also.

Keep the stories coming guys can't get enough of the old Aussie ingenuity good to see