intro to forum

Gday to all, My 1st post here. Have been turning a wheel for about 35 years now, & have been carting produce for the last 12.

I did my truck licence test in an Austin 245F & semi test in a D series Ford

Trucks I can remember driving include Ford F500, F600, F700, Inter ACCO, Inter D1630, D series Fords, Ford Transit, Ford Louisville, various old Mercedes, Mitsubishi,
Isuzu, Leyland boxer,Ford cargo, Volvo F10, F12, F16, various cabover Mercedes, Leader, Hino, Kenworth SAR, Freightliner, Scania, Kenworth K125 and perhaps a few more which have been forgotten.

Am presently steering a 1975 KW 125, which has not been restored as such , but has had quite a bit of work done to keep it on the road. The truck works 7 days a week - about 1500ks / week on average, pulling a 45' taughtliner with a fridge.

Engine is a Cummins 350 @ 335hp, 13sp RR, Torsion bar
suspension, goes ok & sits on 100k all day long.

Hope this is of some interest to others.

OLDB

Sounds like a nice old truck, don't suppose you've got some pics? you're going to have to figure the photobucket thing out sooner or later anyway.Welcome. This is one I had in about 1989, it was a 1972 model, 400 small cam downrated to 350, 15 OD and 44's on crowbar,

Talking about older trucks still working.

I've seen this truck and trailer many times before, but yesterday it was standing still long enough for me to get a photo as it was on the inter-island ferry; I even talked its owner/driver into letting me take his photo as well, which wasn't easy.

What's the big deal, you Aussies will say, it's only an old T-Line. Well, yes it is, but...............................

This old International T-Line Eagle was sold in New Zealand in 1992 and as far as is known was the last one to be sold here. It was first registered here as an International F4870 Eagle and I know that AtkiPete will say that that is an Atkinson model number, but it was definitely sold here as an International, not an Atkinson. It was bought by the present owner/driver in 1994 and is still driven by him full-time carrying cattle and sheep all over New Zealand with an all-up weight of about 44 tonnes. So far it has travelled 3.4 million kilometres, and in his ownership has averaged 209,000 km in each year.

Originally it had a 14-litre Cummins 400 engine but this has since been replaced with a Cummins 444 (the famous "triple four"). It still has the original 15-speed Fuller Roadranger gearbox which has never been touched and still works as well as ever! I must wonder if one of those new-fangled I-shift or Opticruise thingys will do that?

I'm not claiming this to be any sort of record, but you must admit it's not too bad.

http://i842.photobucket.com/albums/zz350/vicandval/Eagle1.jpg?t=1271366254

http://i842.photobucket.com/albums/zz350/vicandval/Eagle2.jpg?t=1271366254

the t lines definatly hold there age well

Two things I hated about the Inter Acco :

1. My line of vision was obscured by the dip of the wipers that was smack in the middle of where I looked through the windscreen (the area where the wipers pass and the screen is not wiped - the three wiper model)
2. Water mist (and oil when the oil filter gets loose) being deposited on the rear view mirrors

Otherwise they were a good truck except for regular axle breaks - we used to snap axles carting acetylene bottles to mainland lighthouses back in the seventies