Some EX Kwikasair / Comet 8 wheelers

.
Carried over from some time ago......................
.
.I have just spent a fair bit of time chasing the Photobucket pics that went missing...............
I don't know if it is only me , but , now when i try to get onto PB, it just freezes , so i am thinking
that is payback for not coughing up the 400 bucks they wanted for their services...............
Anyway , i hope i have put most of the pics back in the right place................
In doing so i have found a few extra pics of 1BX 819 (Ex 1KT 819) that were taken during the refurb
before it went to god............they have weathered a bit with time, but here they are.................



this pic shows one of the adaptors ( 0n the front wheel ) that bolted onto the 10 stud hubs that enabled spider rims to be used
in stead of the Budd disc wheels that were cracking and becoming rather scarce .............


Refurb pics......That cooler is the air con condenser











At this stage , all the adaptors are still on the hubs for the spider rims................
................................Billy...................................

.I am thinking this may be the last pics of 819 ..(i think i have said that before)...........

Here is the owner builder assembling the one piece opening brick body..........
At this point i have to congratulate him on his refurb of the truck, mostly carried out by himself...............






Lifting the new rear mount crane onto the chassis...............


And last but not least ..........some thing that is probably not seen all that much........
The bill of sale for 1BX 819 ( 1KT 819 ).......from TNT Equipment.............
The Ch No has been added to the bill..(we are 99.9 percent sure that it is correct)............


Name withheld by request................

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

Just slightly off the nominated topic, Billy P, but you stirred the old grey matter and got to remembering back yonder, (always a danger), so apologies for getting off track.
Always had a bit of a soft spot for the 8-wheelers, especially the Syd-Brissie runners.
Wards (the Batmobiles) ran some pretty fancy times going back in their day, not sure how many they had in their stable. May have been running 8/71T G.M's or maybe the first series of the 92's, either way they were pretty quick. Maybe not as slick as a couple of the 6-wheeler KW's but seemed to steer that bit better, up the top end of the New England when it was still rough and twisty, would be very few that could stick with them in that time.
Often wonder whatever happened to them?
Dave

I know of two still about Dave, One of the earlier 8x4s stil with it's pan and one of the latter set back axle ones but it's been seriously damaged

Werkhorse,
That 8-wheeler with the set back front axles rings a bell, quite noticeable the gap between the front bumper and the leading set of tyres.
IF it is the one I'm thinking of, it broke a crowbar coming off the old Moonbi's and the driver limped into the old TNT changeover point at Bendemeer. Did a damn good job of keeping her upright. Never had one go on me (torsion rod), but could imagine leaving a sour taste in your mouth.
What little I can remember of them, they could only drop just so far before coming up against the housing. Hate to have one go hooking through the ten-mile on the Putty.
Dave

.
.Yeah Dave i suppose it would be a bit disconcerting on a fast bend..................
But then again, the truck would already be leaning right over (mostly) .....So the noise of it breaking
would be the wondering bit.........( bloody hell, what was that ??????????? )...... sort of thing...........

However If one breaks , jack it up, ram a block of wood between the housings and carry on as normal...well nearly................
In all reality . they didn't give all that much trouble, most of them outlasted the truck they were fitted to...............
Main trouble came from setting them too high......that meant the bar twisted too much before bottoming............
.............................Billy.............................

Heard that KW engineers couldn't believe their wheels and other components were failing
in the early days of these trucks operating here, so visited Aus for a looksee.
Story goes that they rode shotgun and so amazed at the poor road conditions on the Hume
for example. The road was plotted on computer to enable mods to be designed back home.
You know the stuff - 15 mph. corners with reverse camber, holes you could bury a cow in
and so on.
Perhaps the historians haave some details. Thanks BillyP, Paul.

I can relate to the crowbars letting go on the old s2 rigid Comet had called the Beast .On this day the driver of the old KWwas bringing a load from the SYD depot at Alexandria to there satilite depot at Prospect NSW.He said the old girl as fully loaded to the roof and she was doing some rockin and rollin around the bends as he went into a bend not far from the Prospect depot he heard a loud crack and she would not stand up straight anymore. He limped into the depot looking rather grey around the gills with the old S2on a large list to port . i'm told the workshop jacked up the crowbars to much as the drivers were complaining about the way the old truck would lean into the bends even at a relatively slow speed . After that the work shop set them back to the normal height . Trouble was a lot off the local drivers got to many scares & refused to drive the old girl :

Know we are getting a bit off the original topic, so apologies Billy P.
But why didn't they perservere with them? Torsion Rods, I mean,
As Billy said, pretty reliable and must have been pretty light in weight as there wasn't much to them as far as components.
As far as reliability goes, even the common old Hendrickson was known to drop the odd walking beam off the perches.
Reyco were also light in weight and seemed to be plenty of them around.
Dave

.That's quite OK dave...................
When i said they mostly outlived the truck, that meant the bars,.... pins and bushes were a different matter
wholly depending on the greasing situation..............
Yes they were light, KW mainly used them because really, they didn't have much else to choose from within their own stable...........
Even then KW baulked at using them with high CG loads ( 2 decks of moo cows or whatever )...........
Then you have the heavy duty gear, but that is another story .................
I think road friendly suspensions (air bag ).......sounded the death knoll of a lot of suspensions.......Ripley ,believe it or knot............
..............................Billy.............................