Commers with Knockers...

Hi Detective, Kraft Foods at Allansford near Warrnambool Vic. had a fleet of these late 50's early 60's pulling single and bogie trailers to Melbourne with products from the factory. Used to head off in the evening - we could hear them on clear nights across the valley to our farm, about 3 miles north of the Prince's Highway. Think they were silver or grey with blue logos like some of the cheese packaging. At the time the operated the largest cheese plant in the southern hemisphere. Drivers must have loved sitting on top of those motors, howling as they kept on song, back through the gears on small hills on that road.
Mid 70's Huntingdale Mobile Cranes at Burwood in Melbourne had crane about LM6 size powered by one of these motors. Sounded very similar to a GM in that unit when operating at medium revs in crane mode.
Story goes that the Commer Knocker had the cheapest registration fees in Victoria for that size truck due to the formula for calculating "Horsepower", having only 3 cylinders and being 2 stroke. From memory rego was about 14 pounds.
Cheers to all, Paul

....but what's the difference with the chassis on this one compared to an earlier "correct" one? .. every hard working truck under the Aussie sun has had some sort of upgrade (or plenty of upgrades)...

.... i guess if the the chassis is correct for the cab, the upgrades are "de rigueur".....???

It might be like my axe, had about half a dozen handles fitted then the axe head split, so getting a new axe head and fitting the old handle, now is it the same axe
Colin

Hi PaulFH .. got told the exact same story about their very cheap rego from back in the day (taxable RAC 13 HP)...and compared to a similar priced International or such like, they held their own and carved out a good reputation for themselves over the working years...

Not a Knocker, but at least its a Commer.

Same truck different colour and trailer.

Overnite, what is with the first Trailer... did it have a belly tank??? Though I think I see drop sides and only on singles, but not a drop deck...

EMNTK

/me

Overnite, what is with the first Trailer... did it have a belly tank??? Though I think I see drop sides and only on singles, but not a drop deck...

EMNTK

/me

I don't know, I was only a lad of 11 when I took this photo. I will try and find out for you, but unfortunately the friend who owned it is now 91, and in a nursing home in Qld and very hard to contact. But I remember it was loaded with Kellogs products, ( Corn flakes etc.)

Alltrans used to have a whole heap of them.They are car carriers,and they are a drop deck.One car on the front ,a couple on the floor behind, and about 3 up on top on frames .When there were no cars they would cart general

Thanks Detective, yes the figure was 13 HP so forget the 14 pound rego fee. Other advantage was cheaper to run than many of the small petrol trucks - diesel then considered a low grade fuel and sold for about half the price of standard petrol which was 3/2d ( 32 cents ) a gallon in the country in 1966. Don't know how much they used, but the International AA180s used 6mpg pulling single axle stock crates. Speed limit for trucks in Victoria was then 40 mph so these Commers probably geared to about 50 mph. The AA160 and AA180 would do 60 mph in good conditions.
In about 1960 a Bacchus Marsh coal haulier had a Commer long bonnet with tandem axles and diesel motor. Too young then to know the motor brand but members might know.
In 1970s met up with an operator with a V8 Dodge rigid and trailer set up for interstate car carrying. Repco put out high compression pistons and modified heads to suit gas conversion without power loss. Two big gas tanks let him do Ballarat to Sydney and most of the way back, finishing the trip on petrol. Gas then 8 cents a gallon so he had the fuel costs under control. LF had some V8 ACCOs with big gas tanks too, pulling tandem trailers.
Hope some Commers Knockers appear for all to check out, interesting machinery.
Nestles at Dennington west of Warrnambool and also Pakenham operated a fleet of tandem drive Loadstars, V653 and Allisons pulling tandem trailers for their product transport. They sold for about $5000 mid 1970's when no longer required, handy prime movers for local work. Light green paintwork.
Great to see the period photos of the Arnolds and other Commers here.
Thanks guys, Paul

Alltrans used to have a whole heap of them.They are car carriers,and they are a drop deck.One car on the front ,a couple on the floor behind, and about 3 up on top on frames .When there were no cars they would cart general

Don, you are correct , I thought that was the case, but didn't want to rely on what I thought, but my friend has confirmed it. I saw one of these in a paddock somewhere around Leppington NSW some 5 or more years ago but not sure of the actual location.

Rated hp was used as a base for registration fees back then and was the formula,
bore x bore x no of cylinders / 2.5
So a 3-cylinder Commer with a 3.25" bore worked out at about 13 rated Hp.
A 6-cylinder with larger bores would come in around 40 rated hp. and of course a V8 was much worse.
One can see why the 6-53 was such a popular re-power, the splayed chassis allowed the GM to drop in nicely.
Compare the amount of trimming required in chassis' such as Gilly's Dodge.
A dreadful shame the Commer cabin didn't tilt.
Would it really have been that difficult?