wreckers

could never understand why Aone never had a decent wrecker instead of the 86.Driving for Parrotts I came into wreckers on a regular basis,remember one time when I broke down near Leicester Forest south Melvyn came down in a Transit Van but he couldn’t help so a tow was needed so Tony Wood set off in the 86 but believe it or not that broke down and had to be recovered so Walkers of Wakefield eventually turned up for me but it was a long day!!

maxhagar:
could never understand why Aone never had a decent wrecker instead of the 86.Driving for Parrotts I came into wreckers on a regular basis,remember one time when I broke down near Leicester Forest south Melvyn came down in a Transit Van but he couldn’t help so a tow was needed so Tony Wood set off in the 86 but believe it or not that broke down and had to be recovered so Walkers of Wakefield eventually turned up for me but it was a long day!!

Ha,good one ,after that one we had a f88 290,than a f12 was the last one which was sold to kings and he re/cabed it,should have seen the old fodan in the 60s,keith :laughing:

keith 2:

maxhagar:
could never understand why Aone never had a decent wrecker instead of the 86.Driving for Parrotts I came into wreckers on a regular basis,remember one time when I broke down near Leicester Forest south Melvyn came down in a Transit Van but he couldn’t help so a tow was needed so Tony Wood set off in the 86 but believe it or not that broke down and had to be recovered so Walkers of Wakefield eventually turned up for me but it was a long day!!

Ha,good one ,after that one we had a f88 290,than a f12 was the last one which was sold to kings and he re/cabed it,should have seen the old fodan in the 60s,keith :laughing:

Hi Keith, Come on Maxhagar is not that old :wink: I bet he kept you busy. :laughing:
Les.

lespullan:

keith 2:

maxhagar:
could never understand why Aone never had a decent wrecker instead of the 86.Driving for Parrotts I came into wreckers on a regular basis,remember one time when I broke down near Leicester Forest south Melvyn came down in a Transit Van but he couldn’t help so a tow was needed so Tony Wood set off in the 86 but believe it or not that broke down and had to be recovered so Walkers of Wakefield eventually turned up for me but it was a long day!!

Ha,good one ,after that one we had a f88 290,than a f12 was the last one which was sold to kings and he re/cabed it,should have seen the old fodan in the 60s,keith :laughing:

Hi Keith, Come on Maxhagar is not that old :wink: I bet he kept you busy. :laughing:
Les.

Hi Les,i was born in 1960,remember my dad driving it sometimes,i must have been about 6 when I tried to get a stuffed parrot which was hung at top of the jib,got a spanking off my dad,i was black bright :laughing:

Only just found this thread. Reckon it’s as good a place as any to put this splendid example of a recovery vehicle. What a tidy piece of kit. Eddie.

When I was an apprentice at Tate Trucks I went there because A.One didn’t want to send me to college . We had a Thames Trader with a manual Holmes recover system. They then added an old Diamond T , What a machine , It only went 24 mph up hill and down no matter what was on the back . I once went to help recover a wagon near Bridlington I took us about 10 hours including recovering the wagon from a ditch. My ears were ringing by the time we got back . Another time it was sent to pull Wallace Arnolds wrecker that had got stuck recovering a stuck wagon . they chained them both up and pulled them both out at the same time . When I worked at Archbolds we had an old Scammell with a Gardner 100 5 cylinder that was terrible but got the job done but very slowly.They then got a Wardley France I think that’s how its spelt, they put a 250 ■■■■■■■ and AEC 6 speed gearbox in it and topped it off with a Guy Invincible cab. What an abortion it was ■■■■ near impossible to drive but the recovery bit was ok. I through the propshaft off on the M62 one night while towing a wagon back. the spring brakes lock up and the whole lot jack-knifed , after that the used used outside recovery firms .


From wrecker to wreck in a few fateful seconds. Note the modified Viewline cab. ■■■■ shame really, it was such a nice looking motor. Eddie.

Now these are wreckers

I wish that I had taken photos of the wreckers where I have worked! First place used a Morris-Commercial quad, ex Army of course, fitted with a four cylinder side valve petrol engine with a hand crane on the back and a solid tyred towing dolly that the tyres expanded and came off the rims if you exceeded 25 mph. That was replaced with a Morris-Comercial NVS ex AFS with folding doors and a crew cab, six cylinder ohv petrol, that had no crane but was just used for towing. Then came a Morris-Commercial MRA1, like an Austin K9, also a six pot petrol with a small hand crane and also an Austin Gypsy with the 2.2 petrol engine. Finally they bought an AEC Matador ex Army searchlight lorry which we shortened and fitted a 8 ton Harvey Frost crane.

Next place I worked at (briefly) just had a Bedford RL, quite boring!

At the quarry we just grabbed a spare eight legger and chucked ten tonne of chatter and a straight bar on the back and off we went, anywhere in Britain! :smiley: I remember going down the M5 near Illminster to drag one of ours back with a blown up Gardner, we had a new straight bar and when I tried to fit it it didn’t fit the towing eye!! :open_mouth: So off we went into a nearby village and found a garage who ground the end down for us, then back to the M5 again to finally drag the truck back to Derbyshire!

Pete.

Spotted this in Hazelcrofts yard nr Buxton a couple of years ago


One or two more
This one has been stuck here for years
Austin at Dove Holes.jpgTook this at Harrogate during the Trans Pennine run 2010
C J Elsworth of Barnoldswick.jpgThis was taken in Steve Richardsons yard at Oldham
G Littles of Nelson Atki.jpgTaken at Heybeck
Heybecks Diamond T.jpgOutside John Rhodes garage in Mossley Tameside
John Rhodes of Mossley ERF.jpgTaken at Riverside rally Banks Nr Southport 2013
Johnsons of Banks nr Southport Atki.jpg

that’s gone now john , ian has built another one , 4000 series foden six wheeler with a big hiab behind the cab . painted it up in the old hazel croft maroon .

Would it be this one by any chance Dave.

yes that’s the one john , it looks the business now it’s finished .

windrush:
I wish that I had taken photos of the wreckers where I have worked! First place used a Morris-Commercial quad, ex Army of course, fitted with a four cylinder side valve petrol engine with a hand crane on the back and a solid tyred towing dolly that the tyres expanded and came off the rims if you exceeded 25 mph. That was replaced with a Morris-Comercial NVS ex AFS with folding doors and a crew cab, six cylinder ohv petrol, that had no crane but was just used for towing. Then came a Morris-Commercial MRA1, like an Austin K9, also a six pot petrol with a small hand crane and also an Austin Gypsy with the 2.2 petrol engine. Finally they bought an AEC Matador ex Army searchlight lorry which we shortened and fitted a 8 ton Harvey Frost crane.

Next place I worked at (briefly) just had a Bedford RL, quite boring!

At the quarry we just grabbed a spare eight legger and chucked ten tonne of chatter and a straight bar on the back and off we went, anywhere in Britain! :smiley: I remember going down the M5 near Illminster to drag one of ours back with a blown up Gardner, we had a new straight bar and when I tried to fit it it didn’t fit the towing eye!! :open_mouth: So off we went into a nearby village and found a garage who ground the end down for us, then back to the M5 again to finally drag the truck back to Derbyshire!

Pete.

Pete the old Ford I think was a model that most Ford dealers had but I can’t be sure. I went out in this not long after I passed my driving test in the winter of 1955 and it was snowing.I went to go to a Ford Pilot that was in trouble at Findern and the road was very slippy.I stopped in a line down Pastures hill and started sliding without any wheels turning.Fortunately we got moving again and then the car that I was going to came past as they’d got it going.Distributor wet as they used to get like that as they were mounted at the front of the engine. The other motor is of a Ford Costcutter which belonged to Bennets Jams which came in in exchange for a 4D.I was first to go in this to get a motor that had been in a river.Here is a photo of an Austin Loadstar owned by Atkeys of Uttoxeter.The photo was taken in a lane in Abbots Bromley on the day the Queen Mother came to open Blithfield Resevoir in 1952 and it was on call if anyone broke down.Fryers had their breakdown in another lane.The chap with it is Alf Stubbs and my dad was with him.That Loadstar was a terrible ride worse than an old tractor unit

Tony

Some of our recovery waggons crowbar

Teapot Scammell, seems like everybody had one of those, but it’s a long time since I’ve seen one used in anger.

Eddie Heaton:
From wrecker to wreck in a few fateful seconds. Note the modified Viewline cab. ■■■■ shame really, it was such a nice looking motor. Eddie.

Eddie what was the story behind these pictures,do you know ?

An article i found.(CLICK ON EACH PAGE TO READ)

When I worked on Keele msa on the M6 just after I came out of the army in the late '60’s, we had a Diamond T with a ■■■■■■■ under the bonnet and Holmes 750 wrecking gear on the back, unbeatable!


Hi Dean. The story behind the pictures. In the late 70s, Terry Armstrong, a tipper operator from Wigan ran motors down to the London area, returning late in the evening loaded with offal from somewhere near Heathrow, to tip at Granox in Widnes. This happened on a daily basis.

On one particular occasion, one of his motors, whilst tipping, ended up in the river Mersey. There is more than one account of how this occurred, and as I wasn’t present at the time, I’ll leave that alone.

Barry Greenall, of Greenall’s Commercials, was called out in the middle of the night to recover the unfortunate Mr. Armstrong’s wagon.

Arriving at the site, Barry weighed up the situation. The Tarmac apron in front of the buildings at Granox wasn’t particularly wide, probably no more than 100 ft if memory serves, terminating in tall kerb, about 8 or 10 inches, followed by a 45 degree slope down to the river 80 feet below.

Having calculated the requirements of the operation, Barry requested permission to chain the front end of the wrecker to one of the substantial steel uprights that supported the building. Permission for this request was denied however. Barry had no alternative and was forced to engage plan B.

Plan B required laying down 2 x steel wedges, or ’ scotches ’ , each of which had a short length of chain permanently attached , behind the back wheels of the wrecker. The chains were then passed through the two holes in the steel skirt of the vehicle and dropped into the slots. ( these can be seen in the attached photo of a different wrecker, next to the reflective triangles ) . The wrecker could then be reversed up the scotches, the chains would become taut, the parking brake applied and recovery could commence.

Chains were attached to the casualty and the winch cable was run out.

It was obvious that the landing legs of the trailer would have to be removed to allow the rig to pass over the apex at the top of the slope, but at this point, as they were under water, it was deemed more sensible to leave them on until the casualty had been winched to the top of the slope before removing them.

A member of the party that was present, was tasked with job of alerting the winch operator at the point when the landing legs where about to dig into the embankment. The legs would have been removed at this point. This vital piece of information was never relayed to the winch operator unfortunately.

With the operation almost successfully completed and the casualty on the Tarmac apron, the landing legs began to dig into the embankment. Being 50ft away, not being able to see and waiting for a signal that never came, the poor bloke on the wrecker carried on applying tension to the cable.

The trailer wasn’t going anywhere. Something had to give, and that something was the steel plate on the skirt of the wrecker. The chains ripped out of their slots, the wrecker rode over the scotches, dragged by the weight of the casualty heading for its second baptism in the Mersey. The wrecker hit the high kerb and flipped over backwards landing on its cab and the rest is history.

I have to state that I wasn’t actually present at the first recovery, but the above is a reliable account of events from someone who was.

Happily and fortunately, there were no casualties or injuries, apart from the trucks obviously.

Funnily enough, the Scania went on to do many more thousands of miles up and down the country. The poor Atki wasn’t as fortunate.

Jeez, I’m going to have to go for a lie down now. Eddie.

Thanks for the detailed explanation appreciate it. I can not believe no one was killed looking at the
pictures,i think the recovery crew must have been very lucky that night !

Some more wreckers ! (Click on each page to read)