Balfour_jpeg-.jpg
Originally Posted by
Octane
hi Skridlov,
When was the picture of the truck taken and what happened to it? Guessing it would be a tad difficult to buy those tyres now....!
That was taken some time in late 78 or early 79. We'd just acquired the tipper which had been meticulously renovated - everything worked, even the brakes (at least for a short period), which were something we'd learned to do without on its brother flat bed. Working on that hill you needed to be in the correct gear at all times in the absence of brakes... The front axle could be engaged when required and in low ratio first gear the PTO winch would pull at roughly the same rate as the wheels rotated which was something very useful as we were frequently bogged during the transit of the forest section of the track (The Gap) which was bottomless mud. The Studebakers used a lot of gas - as you'd expect of 7L 6cyl side-valve motors being used in low gears most of the time.
Last time I was down at Balfour, in Jan 2001, the flat bed was still driveable although, like myself, no longer in pristine condition - snap attached. I'm not sure where the tipper ended up. I'll post a few more pix - and I hope they don't seem too irrelevant to the substance of this memorial thread because without Bill's help our enterprise would have been almost impossible. I've added a gratuitous snap of an unusual recreational off-road vehicle for the benefit of military vehicle enthusiasts.