Some EX Kwikasair / Comet 8 wheelers

Here is my favorite 8 wheeler...............

Yes, its 844,

Cleaned up here to go in Fishers Ghost Celebration parade at Campbelltown

Mid 1980s. Then i delivered the load to pay for the outing.

I was in this for 11 or 12 years, and was just a beut truck to operate.

Could have done with a coupla more cylinders , cos always dragged a tri

axle pig trailer. what a diffrence to the old slimlines, air con as well.

When cleaned up,the inside looked just like new & i liked living in a clean

environment.

We used to put a few hours together in this job 14 to 16 hrs every day not

being uncommon when busy. 6am was our starting time , this (at the time)got you going before

the peaktraffic. If the truck was loaded over night we would kick off around 4 am depending

on the delivery. Quite often they would send you on an after noon run to the northern suburbs

where you might unload say 6pm ,& then they would call you & say just duck up to east Maitland

& bring a load back to Sydney some where & oh you had better get the load off cause

weve got an urgent load to go first up in the morning. So you would be out running around

at 10 pm unloading in the dark , not to mention trying to find some obscure building site

& pulling gates off to gain entrance. All our wives just loved Alltrans ???.

Other times (not too often thankfully) we would deliver bricks all day , then jump in a tanker

& duck up to Hexam & bring a load of milk back to Peters Milk , catch a few winks,

then carry on with our normal work for the rest of the day'
.............................Billy...…………..........

There we go, legal with 7520 Zacuba bricks. I think i was in love with this buggy.

Together we got in more strife on building sites than speed gordon.

Mainly because you would try to go that extra mile to help some builder,

then have a problem of some kind & they would shoot through & leave you with it.

SO, it was always a battle between what builders wanted you to do & what you

thought you could accomplish.

This is typical.

One time i fronted at this house where they were building another one out the back.

Its raining & the tempory drive way is up hill, no chance to back the trailer in ,so i

dumped it in the street where i could transfer the load onto the truck.

Backing the truck up the new dirt drive way , the drive wheels start spinning & we come

to a halt. So this is the time to jump out & see what you can do. Spreading a bit of

sand or a bag of cement around some times does the trick. No such luck, nothing on site,

so i decides to go out & come in a bit quicker.

Gets just a bit further & the drive starts slipping & then Woshca the rear end slides to the right

& sinks. So here we are ,cab sitting straight as a die, low side drive wheels on hard ground,

the high side out of sight with the coaming at the back & the crane controlls under ground.
………………………….Billy...………………………...

Billy Peterson (Yours truly ) on the left , Peter Arnette (834 driver)on right .(still there believe or not)





Back to the story.

So the cab is sitting straight & the back is at a 45 degree angle.

I had to dig around the crane controlls to get at them to attempt to get the load off.

or free them up to use the other side controlls. It took a couple of hours to get the load off

onto the front yard , by then a decent tow truck with a winch fronted up hooked up & winched

old 844 out of the hole.

At that point an old lady who had been watching says to me Sonny, there used to be an

old well there that was filled in with rubbish some years ago. (Right....thanks)

So there was still a loaded trailer out in the street, i then transfers the load onto the truck

& gets it in as far as i could & heads back to the yard.

Calls on the 2 way entering the yard & sez ive got to get this mud off the truck.

The allocator then sez ,well bloody hurry up ,weve still got a heap of loads to get out!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah thanks.

Good chassis rails on those KWs . Looking at it when bogged, you would have

thought there would have been some thing out of shape , but a wash & it looked like new again.

Then we carried on with the rest of the days grind


That is just about a typical day at Zacuba

..................More to come...........Billy.................

Startin to hook up NBN to morra, heres hoping itl still work

Pic from Kenworths....................





This is 844 before her brick days.................

.....................Billy.....................

Great informations and stories BillyP, thank you to share.

]


The portable gear knob , still in my dressing table draw,

originally off a Komatsu dozer.

There was never a dull moment carting bricks...................

One day i drove into the yard & went up to get my next load docket.

(The allocators office was elevated so they could see all over the yard)

I looked out towards the main entrance (which was in a dip beneath a rise)

Next thing i see is the top of a crane & the brick grab scooting along.

Now assuming there was a truck under neath it , i grabs the 2/way to

call last truck out of the yard to stop.

Mean while the boss is talking on the phone & suddenly says

Hello.....Hello....Hello...….. That bloke just hung up on me , hang on ,


the line has gone dead. 2 days later the phones were working again.



One morning i leave the yard & its pretty foggy. Was heading towards Badgeries Creek

(of new airport fame). Still cant see all that much but, finds the relocated house site,

pulls up out out front & walks around the back of the truck. Bloody hell, whats this??

Hanging off the top of the crane is some Telstra phone cable (about 1/2 inch dia size with heaps

of little wires in it ) & it dissappears back into the fog.

The cable must have been hanging too low but......

Ever try hiding 1/4 kilometer of cable in the wet grass ????????????



One day i heads off to a building site , theres a note on the docket that says

watch out for water meter next to drive way.

Pulling up, i walk up the drive , where is the meter ? i cant see it,

Then in the grass i spots this bit of glass, well wadda you know ,

the meter is now level with the ground , no leaks , & still readable Yeah.....

Some one had been there before me!!!!!!!!!



I fronts up at a site one day , the builder says , back up to that slab & spread

the pack out the back of the truck. Ok i asks ,is there thing under ground where

ive got to put the legs down ? No he says thats un touched. So i puts a block

of wood down & the leg goes onto it nicely.

Swings the first pack around & suddenly the leg & block of wood vanish into

the ground, trucks leans over , grab with pack crashes to the ground.

Does some adjusting & lifts the leg up, With it comes all this electrical wiring.

Calls the builder over, he looks at it & says, struth, i forgot about that........Yeah ..right.

And so it goes . ...................Billy...........................

Billy great stories and pics mate many I can relate to from ridin around with dad in the mid 80s to early 90s cartin bricks your right about Lloyd mate rip cluey man big strappin man new his way around a hiab mate dad drove for Lloyd for 5 yrs got a new 85 model s line and utility triaxle dog doin austral covering central coast and Newcastle, I got to know the coast well from that job of dads I was always with him hols and sats always a load sat even in the wet we would get back to the yard dad would fuel up wash the truck and Lloyd would get the cash bag from the filing cabinet in the corner of the shed go thru dockets and dads hrs and payed up for the week he was a gentleman,i always remember him with a combe in his top pocket and accasonally look around and hed be givn the curls a swish back haha his partner then was Peter Gabriell and I think cant confirm but his son still into cranes big time under Lloyd Glasby cranes anyway thanks for the stories mate im sure your only at the tip of the iceberg, by the way from memory dad used to do some zacuba and pgh bricks but he hated zacuba packs the dog used to shake em apart by the time they got up the coast cheers Col.....

82 cab,

Peter Gabriell, yeah now thats a name i had forgotten.

Your right about Lloyd , he was a cluey but good bloke

(till you upset him ,then you could expect a bit of an ear bashing.
..............Billy.....................

Heres 844, Pan off, & starting to look like a brick truck.




Note the original rego plate on the bull bar (MVO 715).........
Also, that is not the original bull bar, so it may have had a front bingle not all that long
before becoming a brick truck..................or someone tea leafed it ..................






Torsion bars given the flick, 4 spring suspension fitted with double rails

crane mounted with tripple rails.

Box changed to direct & a coat of white paint over the lot.


A new brick split tray opening body made & fitted by Muscats of Narellan, now

all we need is a brick grab & some nice sign writing & things are getting closer.

Fill up the fuel tank, detail the cab in side (all little jobs should have been fixed

at TNT Equip Chullora) .....????

Now we want some lucky operator ( namely me) to jump into it & start choofing

around the country side.

Well,.....Thats how 1BX 844 came into being.

When i retired 11 or 12 years later i never clapped eyes on it again, but

it did leave me with some unforgettable memories as we got into & out of

a hellava lot of strife together. RIP 844.

It really was a beut truck to operate

Well......Thats it for today....................Billy..................