agree with slospeed Andy, great pictures to study, thank you, I was particularly interested in the Diamond "T" s, when in Burpangary North of Brisbane I used to visit two brothers who at one time had a earth moving business in Sandgate, I remember you drove West across the railway tracks and they had a huge building on the right with the best private collection I have ever seen, they never traded their trucks, Diamond "T"s with the plastic still on the doors, looked like those in the picture, they had long retired then so probably gone now, they were super guys and just enjoyed fooling with their collection, lot of old cars as well

hey Cam, thanks so much for putting on the Utube link to Darwin, real trip down memory lane, couldn't believe it seeing a young Ted Stiles guzzling down a beer at the Vic hotel, he came up from Perth with his wife and 3 daughters after the war, worked for a while, played a sax in a band, bought a Commer traytop and started carting freight from Alice to Darwin, his mate, Jimmy Burnett bought a Bedford traytop and did the same, hard to believe you could make money with such small trucks, but 25 quid per ton and cheap fuel in Darwin must have made it pay, always stayed with him when I visited him, real character, developed quite a large operation but always treated life as a bit of a joke, ended up the last time I saw him he was living in a demountable out at Howard Springs. thanks again.

s1141.photobucket.com/user/ronhorse/medi...zps079a73f6.jpg.html
All truck repairs are best made in the shade of a tree as it's light and cool as against a dark shed, this was changing an engine on one of Bond's Maple leaf semi buses used when Tuit and Bond joined together around '53-4 Bert Bond had a real thing for semi-trailer buses, built all his own running all over the country.
The next one I copied from Jack Maddox's book most of you have seen.

Steveb, how interesting that happened to you, and good of the guy to warn you, I was driving for DeVito of Waikerie, a Leyland with hydraulic brakes and bogie trailer with full air, I just had a feeling while stopped at Murray Bridge and adjusted up the trailer brakes, just above Devil's elbow a front hydraulic brake hose burst and the pedal went straight to the floor, a horrible feeling most drivers have had, yanked the trailer brakes on and stopped me enabling me to select bog cog to go the rest of the way to the first pub!!

Hey greenie, funny how things trigger your memory, I remember bringing a Jaguar back from a customer that kept cutting out, Jaguar were under great pressure to come up with a new engine so came out with this V12, a piece of rubbish, it was the ignition box that was overheating as it sat in the middle of the two heads, I arranged the windscreen washer tube to point at the box and give it a squirt every few mile to keep it cool, I like your dad's idea as standing on the wheel doing as he did would have given me great pleasure as that's exactly what I thought of that engine

Greenie, that story is priceless, should be mandatory reading for all school kids to "think out of the box" should be in the history books

Yeah Eddy, sorry about that, my bad, bit of oldtimers disease! pic of Harry Ding's (no relation!) semi, had the mail run from Yunta in SA, I was born at Waikerie, nearest hospital, one of the few who made it, most were aborted during the depression, even animals knew not to breed when times were tough, my father spent 4 years in the trenches in France in WW1 so have to allow him a bit of slack, lived on the banks of the Murray, survived off the river and the land, never saw money, very healthy, Government supplied rations of flour, tea, sugar and bolts of cloth, used to take a jam jar to the river to drink, clean then, wrigglers in the water, might have wriggled into our brains as none of us were to swift, being a boy at least I had something to play with!! had chooks and a cow so were completely self sufficient, wouldn't mind being like that today, Government probably wouldn't allow it :'(

I guess this is what is meant by "going 'round the traps"

Very cheap in the U S of A also. :

These were the exact same trucks we used at the Woomera Rocket range to retrieve rockets with.

Old trucks go cheap in the Northern countries.

Though, I would think they would have preferred this to turn the paddles