Nice old truck resto project up for auction - Adelaide, S.A.

[onetrack]

Here's a interesting and good project for someone - a very original and largely complete 1934 Bedford tray truck, currently up for auction on Grays auction site.

 

https://www.grays.com/lot/0001-60011723/classic-cars/vintage-classic-bedford-flat-tray-truck

 

I find this truck quite interesting because it's one of the earliest enclosed cabin truck cabs. Most trucks in the early 1930's came with the bare cowl, you got a body builder to build you a body for it.

Part of the reason for this was that many truck buyers wanted specialised truck bodies, so it was usually easier to get the body builder to build the cab as well, and even include the cab in the body, particularly if the body was a van-type body.

 

As a result, from the earliest days of trucking up to about 1933, the truck cabs were all simple, basic, open "C-cabs" - no doors, just a simple wooden framework with curved openings for the driver and passenger - which shape resulted in the "C-cab" nickname.

But from 1933 to 1934, there was a big change in design as drivers and owners started demanding better cabins that were weatherproof - rapidly following the trend in truck cabin design in America.

 

Many of the early enclosed truck cabins were basically modified "C-cabs" - still largely wood, but with more and more sheet metal sections added. In 1934, if you you owned a steel, fully-enclosed cabin on your new truck, you were a real pacesetter.

I have never seen an early Bedford truck cabin like this, but it looks like a genuine GMH-built cabin. The Bedford trucks were built in the U.K., then sent out here CKD in crates, re-assembled, and then the local cabins and bodies were fitted.

 

Bedford also sold a 1/2 Ton utility in this same era - starting from 1934, as I recall. I've posted a link to a 1934 or 1935 Bedford utility that was previously for sale on a U.K. car sales site.

I thought the 1934 Bedford truck in the auction used the cabin from the 1934 Bedford utility - but if you look closely, you can see it's not the same cabin - just similar in shape.

Note that the truck roof still isn't fully steel, it would've had a wooden slat centre section covered with canvas and painted with a bitumastic paint to seal it.

 

No Australian car manufacturer had the ability to press a vehicle roof in one complete sheet pressing in 1934 - it was Chrysler in 1935 who imported the biggest sheet metal press from America, that Australia had ever seen, to press the "completely revolutionary, all-steel, one-piece roof section" for the new 1935 Chrysler cars.

 

https://car-from-uk.com/sale.php?id=137909&country=au

 

 

[pmccarthy]

The cab on my 1932 GMH Chev truck project. I think this was the first year they did them..

[onetrack]

Peter, your '32 cab has a full timber roof just sheeted with tin, hasn't it? Full length doors sure make for more comfortable travel at "highway" speeds!

 

Of course, you do realise you were limited to a speed of 25mph (40kmh) in 1932, with a gross weight up to 3 tons? Over 3 tons to 8 tons was 20mph (32kmh), and over 8 tons, the limit was 15mph (24kmh)!

 

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/242978361?searchTerm=truck speed limit

[old man emu]

My earliest memory relating to my Dad is of the International KB5 removalist's van he drove. It had to be early because he was somewhere between Hay and Wilcannia when Mum went into labour with me. So the memory I have must come from when I was about 2 years old. 

 

Dad's truck had a C-cab, but with the added luxury of canvas covers for the door openings. If I remember what he told me, it had a joey-box transmission. I have a photo of it still to be unpacked. 

[onetrack]

OME, it's unlikely your Dad's KB-5 had a "joey box" unless someone had installed one as a later modification. What the truck more likely had was a 2-speed rear axle, in which case, it would have been designated a KBS-5.

 

https://www.shannons.com.au/club/enthusiasts/scatcrow/garage/1948-international-kb5/

 

The K-series and KB-series were among the trucks that built International Harvesters reputation for tough reliable trucks. Not fast, and pretty thirsty, they needed lots of fuel to cool the valves.

45mph or 70kmh was their effective top speed, thanks to their low overall gearing. Over this speed the fuel consumption went up dramatically, and the engines fairly screamed.

The "K" and "KB" series trucks ran the "Green Diamond" flathead engine, which came in 2 cubic capacities - 214 cu in. and 233 cu in. If you hammered them "pedal to the metal" continuously, under heavy load, you'd more than likely find you had incurred burnt valves. Low grade fuels of the era didn't help.

 

http://restoringcornelius.com/truck-facts/specifications/green-diamond-engine/

 

In 1949, IH produced the OHV Silver Diamond engines, which engines were redesigned to try and improve valve life. These engines appeared in the new "L" series trucks (and "AL" series, if Australian-built).

Australian IH truck production started in 1949, but it took until 1952 before Australian-produced trucks became the majority of sales, over the IH trucks that were American-sourced.

 

http://restoringcornelius.com/truck-facts/specifications/silver-diamond-engine/

 

 

Edited August 28, 2022 by onetrack

[onetrack]

I must apologise, I was perusing through my International Harvester files and came across the KB-6 sales brochure - and the KB series used the Blue Diamond engine, not the Silver Diamond. This was the first of the OHV, I.H. truck engines.

 

Re the old Bedford, it was passed in at $4,800, and obviously didn't make the much higher reserve. It is marked as "referred to seller", which means that Grays will probably try to get the seller to reduce their reserve.

For some reason, the old trucks never bring big money, even when restored - so they don't bring good prices, unrestored. I guess that's because the largest number of trucks are slow, they're costly to road register, and many are not easy to drive.

[old man emu]

On 28/08/2022 at 2:10 PM, onetrack said:

OME, it's unlikely your Dad's KB-5 had a "joey box" unless someone had installed one as a later modification.

It is very likely that his truck was fitted with a joey box because he was doing intrastate removals so he would have had a "top and tail" load which would make the truck very heavy and he'd need another box of gears to travel on the poor country roads of the time. I can remember him doing a charade of changing gears and he indicated using operating two levers at the same time.

 

Here's a sketch of his truck, taken from the 1953 Sydney Pink Pages 

[willedoo]

The only two stick arrangement I've driven was a B model Mack with the quad box. It was always a lot of fun to drive. One thing about the quad box, it was always very forgiving going up a steep climb. If you ever stuffed the shifting sequence up, you could rattle the sticks around and it would drop into a gear somewhere. Unlike some boxes where if you don't hold your mouth right, you could end up stuck half way up a hill having missed a gear.

 

That happened to me once in one of those old IH Transtars. The bloody thing should have been in a museum rather than trying to pull a road train. It was grossly under powered with a 671 birdscarer engine and a thirteen speed Roadranger gearbox. It had a float and 28 tonne D7G Cat dozer on the back, with a 40' fuel tanker behind that. When I hit the first big sand hill, the engine lost power and the truck lost momentum quicker than I could change down in gears. I'd been press ganged into driving the truck at the last minute and if I'd known how under powered it was, I would have stopped at the bottom of the hill and crawled up in low gear.

 

On the uphill climb, it lost momentum at a rate where I knew I would have to try for first gear at some stage. I remember thinking 'if I miss this, I'm stuffed', and sure enough I did. The first instinct when it stopped moving forward was to stand on the brakes. What I didn't know was that the trailer brakes were barely working and the prime mover couldn't hold it. All I could think of at the time was to apply the clutch, get into first gear, give it a few revs, let the clutch out and hope the forward motion of the drive wheels would pull it up if they got some traction. Naturally, all this was happening as I was rolling backward toward certain doom as there was a 30 or 40 foot drop off on the side of the road.

 

Luckily, the rear trailer jack knifed and acted as a brake, pulling the whole show up.  I only had about 4 foot to spare before some part of the arrangement would have started going over the edge. It's probably one of the highest heart rates I've had. The engine sounded bad when I pulled up; it was pumping out black smoke and running very rough. I thought I'd broken a crankshaft as the symptoms were very similar to when a crankshaft lobe breaks off. I switched it off and waited about ten minutes for the pulse rate to return to normal, then fired it up again. It was back to normal, and turned out that when I had let the clutch out in first gear while I was rolling backward, the drive drain (running backward) won the day and forced the engine to run backwards. Before that incident, I didn't know those GM's had a history of running in reverse. Bloody trucks. I don't miss them, although I wouldn't mind having an old classic as a restoration project.

[facthunter]

There are better ways to inflict pain on your self and they are easier to move around. Really old motorcycles. None of them require power steering. Nev

[old man emu]

The trouble with really old motorcycles is that the really old mechanics. You can't use the Internet  to ask them for advice. You have to use a Ouija board because those who knew them are dead.

[facthunter]

Thanks.. Nev

[Yenn]

Truck tales are interesting, but I never got to rdive one with a dual or a joey box, whatever they are. I drove the largest land vehicle in the world in 1955 and 1956. It was the Thornycroft Mighty Antar which had from memory 5 forward gears and was powered by a Rolls Royce B80 engine. As usual for a Pommy vehicle it was slow and heavy. It had power steering, which from memory was mechanical and prone to failure. If it failed you needed to slip the clutch and keep the revs up when you were manoeuvering in a tight area, or it took two of you to steer. Not too bad as there was plenty of room beside the driver for a muscle man. We used them to haul the 75 ton Conquerer tanks around, but they were designed for carting steel pipes to the oil pipelines they were building. My favourite from those days was the Diamond T, which had a hand clutch, back up where we hitched trailers on.

[Jerry_Atrick]

5 hours ago, willedoo said:

 Bloody trucks. I don't miss them, although I wouldn't mind having an old classic as a restoration project.

I think I may have found you one:

On 27/08/2022 at 11:14 AM, onetrack said:

Here's a interesting and good project for someone - a very original and largely complete 1934 Bedford tray truck, currently up for auction on Grays auction site.

 

https://www.grays.com/lot/0001-60011723/classic-cars/vintage-classic-bedford-flat-tray-truck

 

🙂

 

[old man emu]

The Number Plate would have to be worth more than the truck. But a good 90% units. Too bad there were no pix of the engine.

[facthunter]

People learn to remake boilers and sulky wheels. and even veteran Planes. Nev

[facthunter]

Seen plenty worse. That body has wooden frame behind the steel like Chevs had till 1936.  Nev

[onetrack]

The Bedford truck engine is a clone of the Chevy Six. They're a good reliable donk, but cooling system corrosion is the biggest problem with old engines.

[facthunter]

  Sort of but not exactly, The chev had a dipper oil system to the big ends for a while (till post war) and a different combustion chamber and cast iron Pistons. In some ways the Bedford was probably better and the GMC six was better again.  Plenty of those motors cracked heads and blocks but it may have been neglect rather than a severe design fault. GM's CHEV engine was in their BLITZ waggon. The people I worked for got a zero miles one in the 50's and made a tow Truck of it. The motor ran absolutely quietly with no mechanical noise at all.. Nev

[onetrack]

The Bedford truck engines used cast iron pistons from their introduction in 1931, up to the late 1940's, if I recall correctly. I definitely know that cast iron pistons were used, as I found the Bedford truck introductory notes in the 1930's newspapers.

But I'm not sure when Bedford went over to aluminium pistons, I suspect it was when the TA (A series) was introduced in 1953. They may have changed over earlier, but I can't find any records relating to that at present.

 

Yes, the Bedford engine was full pressure lubrication on the bottom end, while the Chevys used the dipper and oil jets from 1929 until 1953.

GMC was the truck division of GM, most GMC vehicles were built heavier for heavy duty use, although they shared quite a number of components with Chevrolet.

 

Some interesting facts ...

 

Vauxhall Motors produced a total of 209,000 Bedford trucks for the duration of WW2 - a production rate of around 1,000 trucks a week! They employed 12,000 people during WW2 and also produced the Cromwell tank.

During WW2, Bedford trucks made up nearly one-third of the British Armys truck fleet.

Thousands of virtually new British Army Bedford trucks were abandoned at Dunkirk when the British retreated, so the Germans made good use of the ones they could recover.

The British drained the engine oil out of them and left the trucks running, but the Germans managed to repair a lot of them.

 

The Bedford TA (A) and TJ (J) series trucks used a cabin that was interchangeable with the post-WW2 Chevy trucks. Many other Bedford  parts were also interchangeable with other GM products, such as doorhandles.

 

[old man emu]

13 minutes ago, onetrack said:

The British drained the engine oil out of them and left the trucks running, but the Germans managed to repair a lot of them.

Maybe it's an urban myth, but there is a story that the Germans got British POWs to work on those Bedfords. The Tommies fiddled with the oil dipsticks so that they indicated that there was more oil in the engines that there really was. As a result, the engines seized up and the Germans could not work out why.

 

You have to remember that the German military wasn't a mechanised as the propaganda depicted. Throughout the War, the Germans relied heavily on horses to move supplies. 

[onetrack]

Yes, the dipstick marking error is an old trick. It was used by Pierre Boulanger, the VP and chairman of Citroen during WW2. He arranged for Citroen engines being built under the Nazi occupation, to have their dipsticks incorrectly marked, so the Wehrmachts Citroen engines seized rapidly.

When the French Resistance ransacked the Paris HQ of the Gestapo in 1944, Pierre Boulanger's name was high on a Nazi blacklist, to be arrested as an "Enemy of the Reich", if an invasion by the Allies commenced.

Fortunately, Pierre Boulanger avoided that possible murder at the hands of the Gestapo, and he survived WW2 unscathed - only to kill himself in a Citroen Traction Avant in 1950, when he lost control at high speed in rain and fog, and his Citroen slid sideways into a large tree!

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Jules_Boulanger

[old man emu]

3 hours ago, onetrack said:

Yes, the dipstick marking error is an old trick. It was used by Pierre Boulanger

That must be the story I heard, not the British. A Brit wouldn't do such a dastardly thing.

[old man emu]

On 28/08/2022 at 7:21 AM, old man emu said:

My earliest memory relating to my Dad is of the International KB5 removalist's van he drove

Came across a photo of my Dad's truck.

 

[onetrack]

Wow, she would've been a freezing drive in Wintry conditions! They don't make truck drivers like they used to. Nowadays, they refuse to drive a truck without a top-grade stereo system and A/C.

 

Re the Classic Bedford truck in my initial posting - the bidding only got to $4,800 in the initial auction that ended 30th August. The truck was passed in ("referred") and obviously the seller refused to accept the highest offer, because the truck was promptly re-listed again in another auction, that ended 8th Sept.

 

I can't find what the highest offer was in the second auction, as Grays site won't reveal that, and their site simply says "sale closed" - which means, in the hidden auction parlance, it wasn't sold in that auction, either.

Obviously, the seller is hanging out for a lot more money, and now they'll probably put it up for offer on a regular sales site, looking for a negotiated sale.

Edited September 24, 2022 by onetrack