What's new and red hot.

I am at the moment having a tidy up in the roof console, in the louie, a nice full width number with a 40 channel CB, a 80 channel UHF, CD player with 6 speakers, with a port to plug in a ipod with a full 6 days of my type of music and a clock with a alarm and I had a bit of a flash back to the first louie that drove interstate in the early 80's that had a console about 8 inches square with a push button ford radio and one speaker.
It got me thinking, when the louie runs the same brake drums, the same brake valves, pretty much the same motor less all the unreliable electrics and pretty much the same gear box, the rear suspension is pretty basic but you don't need cross lock to drive across your front lawn like you do with air bags, which always seem to have one wheel in the air, it will rock into the out skirts of Brisbane 1400ks away on 740 liters of fuel, where I ask is this great leap forward in the big flash trucks, and it's not in the ride, I am not that long out of a run in late model KW and Western stars and the louie with air bags under the cab is up there with them as far as ride goes, helped some what by a long wheel base. Am I missing something.

77louie400 wrote: I am at the moment having a tidy up in the roof console, in the louie, a nice full width number with a 40 channel CB, a 80 channel UHF, CD player with 6 speakers, with a port to plug in a ipod with a full 6 days of my type of music and a clock with a alarm and I had a bit of a flash back to the first louie that drove interstate in the early 80's that had a console about 8 inches square with a push button ford radio and one speaker.
It got me thinking, when the louie runs the same brake drums, the same brake valves, pretty much the same motor less all the unreliable electrics and pretty much the same gear box, the rear suspension is pretty basic but you don't need cross lock to drive across your front lawn like you do with air bags, which always seem to have one wheel in the air, it will rock into the out skirts of Brisbane 1400ks away on 740 liters of fuel, where I ask is this great leap forward in the big flash trucks, and it's not in the ride, I am not that long out of a run in late model KW and Western stars and the louie with air bags under the cab is up there with them as far as ride goes, helped some what by a long wheel base. Am I missing something.

Louie, yes you are missing something. Lease payments and sleepiness nights.

In terms of sales Western Star is a has-been and Kenworth has recently lost no 1 spot to Volvo, so they aren't the brands representative of the most modern gear.

overnite wrote:

77louie400 wrote: I am at the moment having a tidy up in the roof console, in the louie, a nice full width number with a 40 channel CB, a 80 channel UHF, CD player with 6 speakers, with a port to plug in a ipod with a full 6 days of my type of music and a clock with a alarm and I had a bit of a flash back to the first louie that drove interstate in the early 80's that had a console about 8 inches square with a push button ford radio and one speaker.
It got me thinking, when the louie runs the same brake drums, the same brake valves, pretty much the same motor less all the unreliable electrics and pretty much the same gear box, the rear suspension is pretty basic but you don't need cross lock to drive across your front lawn like you do with air bags, which always seem to have one wheel in the air, it will rock into the out skirts of Brisbane 1400ks away on 740 liters of fuel, where I ask is this great leap forward in the big flash trucks, and it's not in the ride, I am not that long out of a run in late model KW and Western stars and the louie with air bags under the cab is up there with them as far as ride goes, helped some what by a long wheel base. Am I missing something.

Louie, yes you are missing something. Lease payments and sleepiness nights.

Remember the old scheme where ya bought a Louie with work from the dealership.... Was it through Asanda Finance ??? Something like that.

When the Louis first came out ,Ford couldnt break into the agi and company tipper hire ....White had a stranglehold ....mainly because they were backhanding the big cement and gravel players....State managers got $5000 cash for each new White or Diamond put on ..............Ford went to court and opened up a mighty can of worms....and won....Agis went from all petrol to all diesel straight away.

JOHN.K. wrote: When the Louis first came out ,Ford couldnt break into the agi and company tipper hire ....White had a stranglehold ....mainly because they were backhanding the big cement and gravel players....State managers got $5000 cash for each new White or Diamond put on ..............Ford went to court and opened up a mighty can of worms....and won....Agis went from all petrol to all diesel straight away.

Any more details of this ? As in when were and who was involved ?


Paul

Just recall it was early 70s,for more you d have to consult your legal books.......Bribery and corruption was par for the course in those days.........My old man used to say "Every Brisbane Lord Mayor has been crooked---except one"....People would ask "which one".....he'd say ..."the one that sues me for saying that"

Some here would recall the large sums asked for brick ,concrete agi,sand and gravel ,and container cartage jobs......easy around $100,000 mark at one time.....my old mate Jack Pearce became very rich delivering bricks for Boral,back in the day Boral paid almost twice the rate allowed by Brickworks Ltd,and PGH......None of the jobs was ever written down ,certainly no contracts ,not even a handshake ,the owner driver just had a priority in the wait for a load....in the 1980s depression,some trucks were lucky to get one load a week,in boom times ,sometimes 12 loads a day.......really good money for cartage from Brittains /Oxley to Jindalee ,just a few miles away.......Boral woke up eventually ,and put Aztec into the deal ,all the brick trucks subbied to Aztec ,at poor rates.

Hi,

in an attempt to get things back on topic, the original posts appears to me to be asking what are the mechanical or technological improvements in today's trucks over a '70s Louisville.

Terry

Thanks Terry.
The way I see it is, with new truck you get a honeymoon for 600,000K's or so, then it back to the same old routine as the old ones, get under it every weekend nip up the brakes, give a few shots of grease, give the uni'e joints a bit of a shove and check both ends of the springs and have a good look for missing bolts. Back in the days of two log books 600,000K's didn't take long to come around but I guess today you maybe well on your way to having it paid for by 600,000 K's, with all the rules keeping you in the bunk, back in the days of 17.5% interest rate and you brought the farm on overdraft (read 25%) 600,000 K's came around real quick.

I did not get the negative reaction I expected, but I guess this site is the old truck fan club, the old louie will get a set of real number plates and drag some logs out of the bush for a while in the not to distant future