Fuel Delivery Tanks.

Does anyone know where I might find some fuel delivery tanks as on the truck in the photo above, taken about 1968. I would like to again have a truck and load of tanks as in the photo.

They had a capacity of 400 gallons and each of the empty tanks could be loaded onto or unloaded off the truck in less than a minute by a system of an inbuilt lever/cradle and a piece of 3 inch pipe for a roller onto a purpose built pipe stand. Bolting them to the truck took much longer.

The tanks and stands were supplied on a loan basis by the Oil Companies to their country agents in the 1960's. I can recall seeing them being used by Ampol, BP, Esso, Golden Fleece Neptune and Shell agents.

I don't plan on putting fuel in them. They would only be for display after taking the precaution of making sure there were no fumes were left in them. It would not matter if they did not even hold water.

I expect most of them probably ended up on farms as water tanks.

Regards,
Geoff.

There was a bunch at a local clearing sale several years back so they are still around. i will keep my eyes open for you.

I had a couple of them that I bought at auction in the early 1990's, but they went with the business when I sold up in 1995. They were a bloody good, well-built tank, and I bet they cost a fortune when new. You don't see them for sale very often.
That old AB182 has her ar$e dragging on the ground .. I'll wager all those tanks are full of diesel, and that Perkins was earning her keep on the hills .. and the scalies would have been keenly eyeing those flat springs, and equally-flattened-out back tyres ..

Those tanks, with 1600 gallons of diesel in them, would have 14,000 lbs in weight of fuel alone, in the old money .. that's 6350 kg in the current numbers .. and those 4 tanks would weigh another tonne at least .. making the load gross out at around 7.5 tonnes.
A heap of tare weight .. maybe a tonne-and-a-half? .. on the rear axle .. and those scalies would have been sharpening pencils, salivating, and itching to slip those scales under the back wheels ..
There's very little extra weight on the steers, over the unladen position .. that rear axle is carrying pretty much all the weight.
No-one would have wanted any extra weight on any Inter steers, anyway .. with Armstrong power steering all the go in those days ..

lol! was three sold at my BIL's clearing sale 2 weeks ago ...

One Track,

Plus the 8 drums of fuel behind the tanks and because they were so far behind the rear axle it probably meant there was 10 or 11 tons on the ground at the back axle.

I was never knocked off with a load of fuel was I was once with a load of full wool sheep that had got very wet in the rain.

I built an 18ft dog trailer to pull with the 180. I took it into the local Police Station and registered it without any drama. No roadworthy certificate or engineers report required in those days.

The Police Officer said I would need an articulated licence now and asked if I had one. When I told I didn't he said

Geoff - That is a very neat home-built trailer and combination, and the old Inter represents what Inters did best in the 1960's.

Yes, it's amazing how easy-going things were, back in the "old days". I got my licence off an old Sgt in the mid 1960's, by taking the Sgt for a drive around the block of a little country town .. and the Sgt took me past the only stop sign in town, to see if I recognised what stop signs meant! ..

Then it was back to the station (a circa 1910 wooden building), to get asked 3 curly questions .. and I got two of them wrong! LOL ..

I remember that the two I got wrong were .. "What is the minimum distance, to stop from a level crossing?" (it was 15 ft, but I never knew that!).
Then he asked me .. "At what minimum distance do you dip your headlights at night, for oncoming vehicles?" (it was 600 yds .. but I never knew that, either!! .. )

So, I got that wrong, too! I can't recall the 3rd curly question, but I got it right, and the old Sgt's face lightened up a bit, as he reached for all the paperwork. He wrote out a licence for me, and said .. "you've already been driving a fair bit, haven't you?" ......

I just said "yep" .. without letting on, that I'd been driving myself to work on every back road and side road, since I was a bit over 16! He probably knew that, anyway! You don't get away with much in small country towns!! ..

Re the illegal loading .. the brother and I bought a gold mine off a couple of old 'Slav prospectors in the early 1970's.
One of them, old Mick, lived out most of the rest of his long life, in his little homebuilt Goldfields shack on the lease next door, after we bought the mine.
After he died, we pulled down his shack and under the floorboards were some copies of the Kalgoorlie Miner from the 1930's (Mick had been there since 1922). We chuckled over the classified ads in the Miner, with one in particular taking our fancy.

The ad simply read .. "For sale - 1935 Chev, One Ton ute - will carry Two Ton" ..

Cheers - Ron.

Eddy,

Do you know how much the tanks were sold for ?. There are three listed in a clearing sale at Tilpa on the 10th April. Thats 500km from Dubbo and the cost of going and getting them on top of their selling price could make them expensive.

Kind Regards,
Geoff.

I now have the first tank of the four I would like to have.

I was told about a tank in a paddock 49km east of Dunedoo, making it about 150 km from Dubbo.

When I rang the owner and asked if it was for sale and how much, he said "How about a carton of beer".

One down and three to go.

Geoff.

Well done Geoff, do you have an Inter the same as the one in the pics??

Cunning Stunt,

No I don't have an AB182 at the moment. I bought this C1500 from Warracknabeal in February because it was something like the AB182 I had when I was a young fella. (Well it is an International and it's red !!).

Geoff.