thomas

Wonderful job

Very nice

x diamond t 969a?.

Betty Boop is still alive and well in my shed

11 hours ago, caprirs0 said:

That was called the hulk it ran out of a company called crown motors on the old Maidstone road ruxley Kent many moons ago is it still alive do we know 

Hope of interest. Tom.

Without doubt there have been more than enough GMCs used abused as lime spreaders in the 20 years following the war to establish with some certainty the weak points. I can only go on what I've been told by other people, some no longer with us, but I'm not aware of any ongoing issues with transfer boxes. However there are still a few former operators around who can testify to the CCKW's strengths and weaknesses.

 

One such example is an operator of several trucks who used to replace the banjo axle diffs with units from Chevrolets. He claimed that despite being a bit faster they were actually stronger than the standard CCKW diffs.

 

What do you reckon, Tom? :cool2:

My father in law ran two GMCs until 1968 as lime spreaders. They hauled chalk from quarry to farm and then spread on fields so they always carried a lot more weight than they were designed for. One had a Perkins engine which was a Perkins conversion kit. The other was fitted with a Ford engine and to do this the transfer box was moved back. Transfer boxes were hardly ever any trouble. As Tony says they were indeed ran on Chevrolet diffs again not a lot of trouble apart from a few bearing troubles. They always ran on 900 x 20 tyres, rear trunnions were troublesome. Ransomes of Ipswich made some stronger ones which seem to cure the problem. Probably the biggest problem was the short intermediate shaft between the gear box and transfer box mainly due we think to using English UJs. The grease nipple holes were bigger than American ones and this is where they seem to break. We found we normally broke them when spreading on freshly ploughed land where they were sinking in and getting plenty of traction. When considering the work that they were doing they coped very well. I can see no problem with the above conversion as someone who has earnt a living in the past using one, it looks an excellent job.

Tom

Thanks for posting.

Sorry brain not in gear should be TFL.

Lifting gear TLF winch original , it was all fitted to a 6wheel AEC.Have you started the engine yet.

Very handy man to know.

Hello Nigel,

I've managed to dig the pictures out. These are the only ones I have I'm afraid.

Thanks

Thomas

Will post pictures of 981 when I can find them, all the best Thomas.

Didn't she live at Swanley for a while?

It may well be that she was in Swanley. She was with Turlows of Stowmarket in Suffolk as their wrecker but she became

troublesome, cracked head? She was purchased by Charley Frost of Needham Market who removed the Winch and Lifting gear. I bought the chassis cab in 1983. Sold it some years later to Adrian Barrel.

I replaced her with CSU 578 ex Tony Graves.

This was owned by me in Suffolk was originally equipped as a wrecker. Nice to see it again. Thomas

Taken at Berkeley Castle MVT show 1999[/QUO

 

If this vehicle has a Detroit engine in it, it is now under my ownership.

 

Thomas

My name is Tom Weston I am the owner of Diamond T's 981 Hercules engine and 980 Detroit engine.

First became interested in military vehicles as GMC's were used in family business as lime spreaders.