Some EX Kwikasair / Comet 8 wheelers

I should have said there was no 818 in the fleet also.
........................Billy........................

Tec,
To add some more info, the Zacuba fleet NOs that had Budd disc wheels were...

815, 819, 820, 821, & 822. All the rest came with spiders.
............Billy.............

Yes Billy, that's KT813, the Brisbane-Darwin runner. Although that photo was taken at KW St Peters so I guess they sometimes maxed out it's utilisation by squeezing in a Brisbane-Sydney.

Billy great story mate, did you happen to work for Kenworth at St Peters? When Goth starting to try and sell his new suspension i took a brand new K125 slimline there and they fitted it for testing,at the same time Les Mac from TNT Equipment came to St Peters to test drive the truck to see if it would be any good for there local operation
Cheers Chappo

Ive been having some problems getting into the HCVC site lately, so i just keep trying

till it goes through...........

Chappo, I didnt know about that Goth bit, but yes,i did have a stay at KW St Peters

for a while,,then went to Lansvale when it opened .(by the way,are you Dave ??? theres a

chance i could know you). From Lansvale i went back to Alltrans (Zacuba) & stayed there

till i retired. ................Billy...............

Another shot of 844 up the central coast.

Heres another 819 story.....................

I left the yard at Cecil Park one rainy morning to deliver a load to the Central coast.

Now, .....im on Pennant Hills Rd just before Carlingford,& am last in a line of about

5 assorted trucks,all in the gutter lane.

Looking in the mirror, i sees a trailer catching up , & it seems to be goin a bit quick.

Now,.......you know when you see something that makes the hairs on the back of

your neck stand up & you just know that something nasty is about to happen,

well,.........thats how i felt at the time.

Here was a Liner Services G88 gonna round us all up in the wet.

His cab just got past me & he started to jack knife, The drive moving onto the other

side of the road & the cab swinging around in front of me.

So..........here am i,.... in the gutter lane with elec poles on my left & the volvo cab coming

round to meet me. All i could do was brake steadly & HANG ON.

Next thing ,.....Whack...........My bull bar hit the centre of his L/H steer wheel , the impact

literally flung the Volvo cab around to the right, & the whole thing shot across the

road , mounting the foot path & into the fence.

As luck would have it, there was a break in the south bound traffic & nobody else

was involved ,...... how lucky,....... it could have been pretty nasty.

Any way ,....the Volvo got towed away,.....and me ??? well........

I just polished the scratch on 819s bullbar & carried on with my delivery.
....................Billy..............

Chappo,
That bit you said about the Goth test truck fills a space in my memory bank.

I had no idea how Alltrans came to use the Goth suspension or who was involved.

So that seems to point in the right direction. It turned out good.

Over time we would jump into every thing that was hanging around, & when you got

out of a Goth equipped truck & into 815 or others, (that still had the t/bars), it felt like driving

a big lump of jelly on wheels .


Now............They( TNT ...Alltrans) started employing uni graduates as top bosses

This brought about a heap of problems that seemed would be left to others to clean up.

The drivers ,being last in line , appeared to have a hard time because we were in direct contact

with the customers. Now..........dont get me wrong here because Alltrans were always

very good to me (but they still wanted their pound of flesh, which was fair enough)

My wife only had to ring them with some sort of a problem, & they would divert the nearest

truck to assist her,(no questions asked). But ..........these uni blokes..........

Well they decide to buy 2 new trucks...........................




This is what they got..................................................

A good thing (perhaps) for another type of work .......But ...........for us not too good.

Far too heavy, Legally carrying 2 packs less than the KWs.

You had to scatter bricks all over the place to get correct axle weights.

Wouldnt pull the skin off a rice puddin.

And bounce,..........on a bit of rough road you had to keep your hand on the roof

to stop getting your head flogged off.

Reverse ratio was that high you had to always slip the clutch trying to back into

awkward sites (9 speed ZF box that regually stuffed the range syncros...(making

terrible noises plus neutralisin reguarilly & you couldnt go anywhere.

So they put a 9 speed road ranger in ,& that cured those problems

But all this was costing quite a few dollars. So .............the uni blokes said the

situation can be fixed ,.................by getting new drivers .............yeah.......right.

Well the UDs went (eventually) & the drivers stayed.

The uni blokes...........well some how, they just carried on as usual.
.................Billy...............

Well, every body,
Im going walk a bout for a while,

Thanks for listening,

I shall return. ..............Billy...............

Billy, been a fascinating read, so enjoy your travels, we will be looking foward to your return,
cheers Pat