BIGGEE:
anyone know any history on this truck,
I’ve just bought a six wheeler for restoration and trying to find any info I can.
also looking for any parts that’s around.
I was just searching the net for some info on the TS3 and came across these links. Read and enjoy.
I learnt something as well. I thought TS3 meant 3 cylinder 2 stroke. Not the manufacturer Tilling Stevens 
I remember the Commer tankers that Tate & Lyle used in the 50s on night runs between Avonmouth and London. The noise was unmistakable, you could hear them coming from miles away.
I drove one on tipper work in later years, never really got on with it, you needed to hunt the engine all the time, if you let the revs drop you may as well get out and walk.
Super find Wheel Nut, very interesting reading
I drove a couple. The walk thru cab & the long nose one. The walk thru was a 4 wheeler & fully freighted I blew a N/S front on the M1.The force of the blowout knocked back the mudguard which in turn ripped off the air tanks & left me hanging on for dear life cruising down the hard shoulder for about half a mile. There was a guy with a broken down Transit on the hard shoulder standing looking at me with his back to the vans rear doors.There was a big smile on his face,he thought I had stopped for him.The truck came to rest a few feet from him & he was still smiling. —Very Close !! 
Wheel Nut:
I was just searching the net for some info on the TS3 and came across these links. Read and enjoy.I learnt something as well. I thought TS3 meant 3 cylinder 2 stroke. Not the manufacturer Tilling Stevens
Tilling Stevens goes back to the days of steam engines.
i learned how to drive in my fathers commer. ts3
he had a ts3 and after bought an ordinary commer with a perkins 6354 engine in it.
i have some ts3 photos i fopund on the net.i will put them up in a little while.
my father had one of these.i only drove it once .
i couldnt reach the pedals.
i must go back to the drawing board.the piture is too small.
When I was a truck fitter in the early '70’s,we had a maintenance contract with Tesco at Winsford and they had a lot of Commer TS3’s.
Friend of mine had one and still has the workshop manual for it - leant it me the other week for a look - amazing two stroke engine.
I drove a Commer two stroke in1960.Yes they had changed over to balloon tyres by then.Still remember the reg.350 FPJ.What a sad old b----r!! Went like the clappers.Used to decoke itself at regular intervals. Was like a roman candle going down the road.
charlie one:
I drove a Commer two stroke in1960.Yes they had changed over to balloon tyres by then.Still remember the reg.350 FPJ.What a sad old b----r!! Went like the clappers.Used to decoke itself at regular intervals. Was like a roman candle going down the road.
How well I remember that Charlie, it reminded me of those old Flash Gordon films we used to see at the Saturday morning matinees. Larry Buster Crabbe with his rocket ship and the sparklers buzzing out of the arse end.
I had one ( a Commer not a space ship) in my first haulage job for Hedley Shaws of Stapleford Nottingham after he sold out to C.E. (Charlie) Dormers of Leytonstone and Charlie put us under the wing of Reg Cooper at Wednesbury. For a while I did the Birmingham end of Reg’s NE trunk with that Commer roaring down the A38 with one of his 60 foot (yes, on general haulage 
) trailers. Felt like the bees knees and, if not so glamourous, was more comfy than the sought after heavy stuff of the day - Atkis, ERFs and Fodens. However I couldn’t hear my ■■■■■■ in it and, at the end of the shift, not much else either.
It wasn’t the first one I drove though. My very first job when I passed my (car) test in 1962 was in the little Commer Bantam I had as a Co-op popman. In the same garage at Nottingham they had a couple of 16 ton rigids on long distance work and one day I got to drive one to S. Wales and back. Smitten and bitten.
Yes David,you are right about the comfort of the Commer and the noise! However after a year on the old one I was promoted to a brand new TS3.Wider so you could lay down for a small kip.However the larger the cab the more you stacked in it. Wet ropes on the floor drying out.Can of oil.Dogs and chains.Any nippers know what I am talking about? Ach I am in the past again.Time to shut up.
charlie one:
Yes David,you are right about the comfort of the Commer and the noise! However after a year on the old one I was promoted to a brand new TS3.Wider so you could lay down for a small kip.However the larger the cab the more you stacked in it. Wet ropes on the floor drying out.Can of oil.Dogs and chains.Any nippers know what I am talking about? Ach I am in the past again.Time to shut up.
Stop it, I can feel the rope burns on my hands even as you speak. 
Spardo:
charlie one:
Yes David,you are right about the comfort of the Commer and the noise! However after a year on the old one I was promoted to a brand new TS3.Wider so you could lay down for a small kip.However the larger the cab the more you stacked in it. Wet ropes on the floor drying out.Can of oil.Dogs and chains.Any nippers know what I am talking about? Ach I am in the past again.Time to shut up.Stop it, I can feel the rope burns on my hands even as you speak.
My first impression of a truck cab was the passenger side full of chains, ropes and stretchers, I had to climb on top of it all as a small boy. The rest of the space was taken up by a dozen sets of different lamp lens and bulbs of every size, single, double, stop and tail, festoon. 
Yes David,but do not forget the all important suitcase.Everyone had a large one(suitcase).I,ve still got a large one (suitcase).Where to put it? On the passenger seat. In the Commer ok, because there was a bench seat.All was fine until you went round a sharp corner,when the ■■■■ thing would slide across and hit you in the side.I still remember the pain.
i bought my first truck in 1974,it was an old ts3.it had been brought in from england by a company in cavan.i put it to work delivering concrete blocks[no cranes then]i hand off loaded[no pot belly either]them.
this was a single axle 16 tonner.
i used to put 16 ton on,not a big load by volumn.
if anyone knows dublin.there a street called dorset street leads into drumcondra road as you head north out of the city.
its all uphill,and failly steep in parts,i used to get up this hill grossly overloaded in top gear.
they were some truck.pity i never kept it.
it would have made a greta restoration job now.it was a 1968 reg.
i havnt even got a picture of it.
My Dad’s first two car transporters were TS3’s a 1959 reg TJF 908 and the other was a 1961 I think 487 DRY both Leicester reg’s. In fact the first 10 transporters BRS had were TJF901 to 910.