Some more toys

Another interesting Hartridge story I remember.

I was just pulling out of the Melbourne depot for Sydney one afternoon when a bloke ran over and gave me an AEC axle and a box of tools. One of their trucks had broken an axle on a long climb south of Gundagai.

I got there about first light and the old crusty driver was waiting. We soon had the broken axle out of the housing but it had broken off right at the diff. I thought we were stuffed and he would need to be towed (not by my Commer) to where the whole diff could be pulled out.

But I was hugely impressed when the driver walked over and cut 6 feet of wire out of the farmer's fence. He then got some string and made a small running "noose" in it and attached it to the wire. Carefully feeding the wire into the axle housing with me holding a torch he lassoed the broken stub, pulled the noose tight and slowly jiggled the broken bit out.

We had the new axle in a few minutes later and drove together to the next roadhouse to celebrate with a big breakfast.

I actually used this method on a Landrover broken axle about 10 years later! A great lesson.

Lang

good stuff
can ya remember what year they sold out to f.h. now my truck is painted green,silver with a white roof & light green pinstrips,& has no.3 on it looks like old paint. need to know the easy way to post pics

lang
the pics i hav theres three kenworths they look near new,painted red & white,on the door they say cubico. the paint codes on my plates say red & white. cheers dave

That wire noose for the axle sure is an old trick, and it comes from the 1920's when broken axles were just a regular occurrence.
I knew a couple of farmer brothers who had a 1929 Chev on the farm, in the late 1970's, still in good running order.
Their Dad had bought the Chev new, and it had been on the farm, and around the area, all its life.
They said that when their Dad bought it, it came with a brand-new spare axle, behind the drivers seat!

When I was a young tacker, the eldest brother bought a beat-up old 1937 Chev sedan. This old Chev had been used and abused, but the brother loved it, as it was his first car at 17.
We all climbed into it, about 1958, and took off to Albany to visit some rellies. We got to Mt. Barker, and there was a big hill in the middle of town.
The brother gave it to the old Chev, to get up the hill, and next thing .. KAPOW! .. everything stopped driving.

The brother was very mechanically minded, and soon figured it was a broken axle, and was well prepared with tools, so he and Dad whipped the axle out in the street.

There was no chance of acquiring a new one, so one of the locals suggested they go and see the local blacksmith.
They paid the blacko a visit, and within a couple of hours, they came back with the broken axle beautifully forge-welded.
They popped it in, and we were off again .. and that axle was still in there, and performing well, when the brother traded the Chev about 3 yrs later, on a new FB Holden Station Wagon!

Slim,
As Swishy said, they became part of Cubico, as per one of the photos I sent you. Peter Gunn had sold Cubico to Maynes in 1973.

Don't know for sure, but I'd have a guess they didn't stay in the Cubico fleet for long as it was a subbie operation and there'd be no place for non-sleepers or company fleet. Don't think they would have re-painted them while at Cubico either.

The current colours on your truck would have been done by later owners. Relax and continue with your plans for red & white - it's as original as you'll get.

I am sorry I don't have any info on the later Hartridge period - I was a captain in the Army by 1976.

I do know the Kenworth (and AEC etc) paint scheme of the 60's was all over red with the white Hartridge wing sticker on the doors and a yellow lettered Hartridge sign either above the windscreen on the roof or below the windscreen depending on the cab style. A couple of the AEC had white roof, probably because they were hot as hell, but the Kenworth schemes I saw were all over red.

I know the correct colour because I had my truck painted especially to subbie for Hartridge (Commers were delivered in grey undercoat). It was BMC Champion Red (MG) or Tartan Red (Mini) - same colour, and a very nice shade too. I have painted several of my cars and trucks this colour since.

Some of the subbies had the big roof sign and others only had the door wing sign. Subbies had any colour truck.

Hartridge were the whitegoods and car part kings and I spent lots of time carting fridges and washing machines all over because in those days there were factories for different companies in every capital city. Our trailers were flat tops and had no coaming to damage fridge bottoms and we carried fridge bags, like big sleeping bags.

I used a company trailer for about 3 months before I woke up to the fact I could pay my own trailer off easily with the amount they deducted from my payments for the use of their trailer. I had Freuhauf (which in those days was the Rolls Royce of trailers with lovely wide side coaming and a solid beam like modern trailers unlike the spiders web of channels and straps Freighter, Haulmark and the rest were making)build me one with gates, under trailer gate racks, flat deck and wait for it ...37 feet long! This was the longest trailer you could have and then it could only be legally pulled by a forward control truck in those days of 45 feet maximum length. Everybody else has 34-36 foot trailers.

All Hartridge trucks and trailers had Freighter type turntables (with the square guide to line up the turntable as you backed on).

As for wind down legs, what pansy invented that system, we had the drop down type with pins which never lined up on uneven ground. Don't know how much time I wasted getting blocks of wood or bricks to even the legs up and even then the bloody trailer would drop down a couple of inches too low requiring something of a rearward charge to get back under it later.

Guyz
FWIW
can remember Hartridge getn the Single drive KW COE Sleepr
they were spose to B the 1st most powerfull single drive truck on the Rd 8V-71 318HP
But Oakgrove Trucking had a single drive 8V-71 long B 4 th@ time in a 'S' model KW

Cya
[ch9787]

Great to see some old photos of the Cubico trucks. My father Peter Cogan and two others started Cubico when I was very young.

g'day dave cogin and welcome to the forum .

... just plying through the posts tonight and the oakgrove logging S model kenworth '' popped up in me porridge''.

swishy ...show a pic of what she looked like in her latter days (still single drive, but lazy fitted) with a pretty ordinary looking tarped load, tri axle trailer etc...with a bit of eighties bling!!.....

cheers

Tective
Gudday M8
not sure wot we got in the way of pix
OakGrove Logging carted wood chips to Maryvale Vic
on his cross country trip from Mansfield thru a short cut thru the mountains to save sum Miles he travelled thru towns where they had never seen a KW B 4 n the locals said first time they ever seen a truck use brakes go n up a hill to go round a cnr. he didn't warrant a bogie drive truck as the unloading tilt doodadd @ Maryvale twaz limited to the capacity spread bogie trailer only.
Ron Kadenzie (OakGrove Loggin) n me travelled to Sydney as host of Theiss to view the White trucks n how they put 2 gether
Ron eventually traded his 'S' model KW on a V truck

Recent pix of the beast in Q? now aza Bogie drive







Cya
[ch9786]