What's a real truck ?

Merry Christmas Roland and all over your way -
tell me mate - how does that " DINKY TOY " of yours run with no fuel tank under the cab door ? Must be a hell of a rush when you fall down on the ground after missing the step tank eh Then again by the cleanliness of that BIG RIG I suppose you need some way of getting your hands dirty to say that your've done a bit for the day ! Very nice Roland , best wishes , Clarke .

Highwheeler - The Poms don't need step tanks .. or fuel tanks over 20 gallons in capacity, for that matter. They have servos every 5 miles .. and it's only 50 miles across the "old country" .. and 200 miles from top to bottom ..
By the time we've got to the outer suburbs, they've crossed the country .. and the thought of a trip that takes longer than 4 hrs makes them positively reel in horror ..

Gday Onetrack and Highwheeler,

I'm glad you like the truck.
It was not used in the UK at all.
It was operated by the REME division of the British Army and was based in Germany, and this is one of 5 they had.
No step tanks because it was only used for short runs.
(The tanks were 44 Gallon)

Now, whats all this mallarkey about Poms being worried about long trips ?
Any British Truckers reading this....Come on back me up !!

Onetrack.. you need a new measuring device.

I am a Pom that loves to drive long distances.
In my younger years I reached up as far as 110,000 miles(not ks) over a 2 year period.
We are not all the same, which is what makes this world an interesting place.

Lets have some more pics

Cheers
RS

Highwheeler, it's not obvious in the previous photo, but my truck is actually a 9400, which has a longer bonnet than the 9200. It is virtually the same as the 9900 but has a sloping bonnet instead of the more square one of the 9900.


http://i842.photobucket.com/albums/zz350/vicandval/Inter9400.jpg?t=1261674660

Gday Vic,
Please excuse my ignorance, but is this similar to yours ?



This one was made at Dandenong - Victoria.

By the way I love the G... M ....S....er text
Somebody has a sense of humour.

Cheers
RS

And my point being - WHERE WERE THEY ORIGINALLY DESIGNED AND DEVELOPED ? Cheers all

Real truck? my Aust Army recovery rig
6X6 air start, ;D320hp 10 spd,lots of winch rope x 2,handy little crane, a/c and i have a digger next to me to wind down passenger window if i ask him nicely! http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz71/cribpointtowing/IMG_0930.jpg?t=1261688321

If we define a real truck by it's window operation then surely they should be sliding, not winding or electric!
The oldgirl in this photo and I recently managed a round trip of 800 miles, Cornwall to Norfolk and back in two days. Out empty and home carrying two old Mclaren diesel gensets, as shown, grossing about 20t. See the auxilliary fuel tank lashed to the headboard? Fortunately she is old enough to be tacho exempt: 11hrs driving time out and 12 return.
The longest nonstop, except for fuel, food and ferry, run I have done is to Prague about 1000 miles but, that was on a bike. About the same distance as Sydney to Adelaide which I did, hitching, 30 years ago.
Rod

Gday Vic,
Please excuse my ignorance, but is this similar to yours ?

This one was made at Dandenong - Victoria.

By the way I love the G... M ....S....er text
Somebody has a sense of humour.

Cheers
RS

Hi Roland

One of my grandsons thought that was an appropriate name for it and it has given lots of people a laugh. I think that Australian Inter you have shown is a 9200, but it is a bit hard to tell with the angle that photo is taken from. The only difference between the two is that the 9400 has 8 inches of extra bonnet length in front of the front axle.

Highwheeler, I believe that these models were designed and developed by Navistar in Canada, but to quote Swishy, "I do stand to be corrected".

A real truck is one with a big old long-stroke, 6 cylinder thumper, that doesn't run over 1800 RPM .. that has a flywheel so huge, it takes forever to slow down .. and which makes changing up a gear, a nightmare on any kind of slope ..

A real truck doesn't have power steering .. and you need to put your feet on the dashboard to keep hauling on the wheel with both hands, to get it on full lock, to get through that 9' gateway alongside the road. A real truck has a steering wheel, at least 28" (700mm) in diameter ..

A real truck doesn't have A/C .. it has opening front windows. A real truck doesn't have a heater either .. you have to rely on the pathetic amount of heat coming off the engine, through the (un-insulated) firewall. If the real truck is a cabover, you're totally stuffed for heat .. it bypasses you completely.
Neither does a real truck have padding or upholstery on the door panels. A real truck has a sheet of masonite covering the door lock and window regulator mechanisms ..

A real truck doesn't have an air suspended seat with fancy trim. A real truck has a seat based on a park bench, with minimal padding, and a covering material that is nearly as durable as steel .. and which reaches about 200 degrees in the sun in Summer and which freezes your ar$e in Winter. This seat ensures you feel every sunken culvert, pothole and minor depression in the road, in the form of a kick in the kidneys ..

A real truck has a handbrake lever that is twice as long as the gearshift .. and which requires two hands to operate. A ratchet handbrake makes it even more of a real truck.

A real truck has a main gearshift lever that requires the full power of at least one arm .. and preferably, two .. to shift gears. Any gear speed mismatch in a real truck promptly produces a kickback through aforesaid gear lever that makes a mule kick seem tame in comparison ..
If you're real lucky, your real truck has two gearlevers .. with both of them, the same size, and with steel knobs. Most real trucks only have one gear lever.

A real truck has a solid-mounted steel cab, with no soundproofing, upholstery, padding, quilting, or any other fabric that makes it look like a bedroom, instead of a work vehicle.

A real truck has an exhaust note that is a snarl when muted, and which turns into a hoarse bark when the load is well and truly on, on a long grade.

A real truck can't make it up a steep pinch. A real truck runs out of puff with the RPM dropping like a stone, in bog cog .. forcing you to come to a stop, apply as much braking as you can muster, so you can unload the tractor and walk it up to the top of the hill, where you can load up again.

A real truck gets bonus points if the braking system is so pathetic, that when you run out of puff on that steep pinch .. a hasty and panicky search is required, for wheel chocking instruments .. such as blocks of wood and big stones .. to prevent the whole lot rolling back down the hill into the ditch ..

I've driven a real truck. They make men out of boys ..