Tubeless wheels may not look right on certain ages but from a safety aspect they are a lot better than the old two ring jobs and if you are useing old rims that have been rusting on some old wheel in all weathers and you factor in a bit of metal fatigue then tubeless are definately safer. Eddie.
Stanfield:
Three here to add to the collection210
Love the pic of the Dolans Austin.Been sat here for 5 mins trying to figure how the cut out in the front lower of the body,would aid cab entry though 
A rather sad-looking FF tipper , photographed on Malta about 10 years ago.
It is in need of :- oil, n/s headlamp, n/s wiper, handbrake adjustment,…and possibly more replacement parts.
When I revisited Malta, 6 months later , the tipper had gone, - only the stain on the road remained.
Cheers, cattle wagon man.
Suedehead:
Stanfield:
Three here to add to the collection210Love the pic of the Dolans Austin.Been sat here for 5 mins trying to figure how the cut out in the front lower of the body,would aid cab entry though
It replaced the step that was usually bolted to the rear of the wing which often bent under the weight of the more portly driver. 
Pete.
An older one from the stable.
albion1938:
Some “proper” Morrises
Bernard
attachment=0]morris @ rovers.JPG[/attachment]
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Yes Bernard, a haulier once told me that if you had a Morris-Commercial in your fleet then you had a quality vehicle. I have worked on the LC series (top pic) many times but the FV (centre pic) were almost gone when I started. They had a sidevalve petrol or (in the FVO) a Saurer diesel and of course the ‘suicide’ cab doors! Derbyshire Stone ran plenty of them and there are still a few doing the rally scene, a company in Stoke ran a chinese six version well up into the 1980’s when it was replaced by a chinese six D series Ford but alas I have drawn a blank finding information about it. Bet the Ford wouldn’t do thirty five plus years service with them! 
The vehicle in the lower pic is before my time alas. 
Pete.
hI Windrush , Y ou dont happen to have the reg no of the BMC twinsteer ,do you ,we had one a tipper reg no ,5054 DF ,Cheers Barry
b.waddy:
hI Windrush , Y ou dont happen to have the reg no of the BMC twinsteer ,do you ,we had one a tipper reg no ,5054 DF ,Cheers Barry
Hi Barry, no I dont I’m afraid. I cannot even find any Potteries folk who recall the thing, it was blue, signwritten, double manned with a cage type body fitted (possibly a tipper?) and I used to see it regularly in the Fenton area of Stoke in the mid eighties but it appears to have been visible only to me! 
Never seen another chinese six version, be a shame if it was scrapped as it appeared to be tidy.
Pete.
Hi Windrush , thanks for that , Cheers Barry
I like the tailor made rad blind on the LC Jakey, it probably didn’t even have a cab heater as they were optional though, being a decent looking firm, it may well have had one fitted. The FG looks like one of Modern Vehicle Constructor’s bodies based in Reading, a little more room in there than the ‘threepenny bit’ cab! Modern Display in Reading had some very similar, some had the six potter BMC diesel fitted.
Pete.
Hi windrush , dads FG was a great truck he said , but after the fg and a very bad petrol TK ,Dad bought Commers then Dodges for many years , after Mercs came long we took over and bought a Daf lf Dad went made and said it was Leyland" S h I T " , 
, Lucky for us he no longer held the ■■■■■ strings !
windrush:
albion1938:
Some “proper” Morrises
Bernard
attachment=0]morris @ rovers.JPG[/attachment]Yes Bernard, a haulier once told me that if you had a Morris-Commercial in your fleet then you had a quality vehicle. I have worked on the LC series (top pic) many times but the FV (centre pic) were almost gone when I started. They had a sidevalve petrol or (in the FVO) a Saurer diesel and of course the ‘suicide’ cab doors! Derbyshire Stone ran plenty of them and there are still a few doing the rally scene, a company in Stoke ran a chinese six version well up into the 1980’s when it was replaced by a chinese six D series Ford but alas I have drawn a blank finding information about it. Bet the Ford wouldn’t do thirty five plus years service with them!
The vehicle in the lower pic is before my time alas.Pete.
Hi Pete,
During our history we usually had at least one Morris Commercial, or there derivatives in our fleet, and more than often realised after buying, regretting it.
The first we had, I believe was a ‘Z model’, from about 1927. My grandfather often told me about it and I wished I had taken more notice of when he told me all the problems he had experienced with it. I believe when it was about two months old, it was returned to the factory and almost rebuilt, and he didn’t keep it long, as it was so unreliable. Yet he still bought more, and in fact our first purpose built removal van was a 1934 Morris.
In my memory our first was DPT100B, a FG 2 tonner chassis scuttle, with a Marsden integral pantechnicon body fitted. This was put on the road about 4 months before my 17th birthday and had been planned as a van could drive, once I passed my test. I hated driving it, with L plates when was learning to drive, and as it was an expensive vehicle it needed a regular driver, and I only got to drive it when someone was ill or on holiday. It was a pig to drive as the cab was too wide. In fact a passenger could sit on the right hand side of the driver as there was such a gap between the driver’s seat and the door. Fitted with the 3.8 diesel engine (an extra) and its crash gearbox, it was however a good, reliable vehicle.
We were so impressed that the total number of FG’s we operated was seven, most with the larger engine. However all had the three penny piece standard cab after that Three (J, K and L reg.) 30 cwt. (below operator’s licence) with Marsden large fibreglass Luton bodies, a 4 ton Luton van, a 30cwt platform used mainly by our maintenance side and finally a 30cwt box van (about V or W reg.) We were told that the crash gearbox although old fashioned was very reliable, and it was, and the doors round the corner of the cab were designed to open and close 100 times a day which they were. The four cylinder 3.8 engine was certainly better than Ford or Bedfords offerings and I think they were the best options in their size
In our small vehicle fleet we also ran J2, J4, and JU. EA along with several Transits of various sizes and two Bedford CF and overall the Morris-BMC options were more or less comparative.
WE ran two or possibly three (My memory is unclear) Mastiff tractor units with V8 Perkins engines, which initially we complained about but given time to take a longer view they might not have been so bad.
With regard to the FF models we were tempted to buy a new one at one point. Mark Robertson of Hayward and Robertson Darlington ran quite a few; with large Marsden fibreglass bodies and in the sixties and early seventies we used them quite a lot as sub-contractors. Seeing these vans on the road always impressed me and when they came to us to load, usually transhipping from our vans both dad and myself got a chance to look closer at them. At the time we had just about to change from the SB passenger chassis to the TK and the TK’s needed chassis extensions to get the body length, whereas BMC made a longer wheelbase option making them a cheaper vehicle to buy than the Bedford. Dad saw a new, unregistered chassis cab advertised in Commercial Motor which had been a cancelled order at a very good price and for some reason we got a similar offer on a Bedford so it was not to be.
However when I read on this thread of changing engines, with the Gold engine which was cheap to buy at 120,000 miles, perhaps we were lucky, as our first Bedford Diesel a 1961 SB passenger cassis with 300 cu in engine, did just over 300,000 miles when we fitted a new short motor (Also cheap) and then continued to 625,000 miles when we sold it to go even further, I hate to think how many Gold exchange engines we would have needed to fit. We must have operated well over 100 Bedford 6 cylinder diesels and in the majority of occasions they all achieved similar mileages. We did however inherit two lutons with on this chassis, from fleets we purchased. We rant these for only a few months as they were both relatively old and in fact neither were ever painted into our livery.
Finally our biggest ever mistakes, which did near fatal damage to our business was buying about 14 or 15 Lairds and Boxers, with both BMC engines and Perkins. Their performance and reliability was dreadful. Even with the last new Boxer we bought with a Perkins engine lost us a fortune. Unfortunately even after the dreadful results from the Lairds and Previous Boxers we made the error of buying a last one after being offered the Chassis/ cab with a 50% discount (Special offer to renew our confidence in Leyland Redlines) It’s strange that in the seddon passenger chassis we operated the Perkins engine was quite good. Average in the Dodge rigids (Dreadful in Dodge tractor units) yet in the Leyland Boxer the same engine could not perform and I hate to think how many new engines we fitted. The Leyland disease must have spread even into the engines
Carl
Ah well Carl, nobody bought a Laird expecting reliability as they were just an FJ with different headlamps! The Boxer surprises me though as several folk ran tippers with the Perkins 6.354 engine and they all did around 150,000 + miles before needing major work which equated to about three years service which was pretty good for a ‘cheaper range’ truck in those days. It was usually more cost effective then to fit a Perkins replacement unit than repair the old one.
Pete.
Taken somewhere in the Manchester area during the 60s FF tipper(vehicle owner unknown)
Here’s another one.Looks like the drivers nipped home for a brew.
cattle wagon man:
A rather sad-looking FF tipper , photographed on Malta about 10 years ago.
It is in need of :- oil, n/s headlamp, n/s wiper, handbrake adjustment,…and possibly more replacement parts.When I revisited Malta, 6 months later , the tipper had gone, - only the
stainon the road remained.Cheers, cattle wagon man.
It wasn’t a lot better when it was new!!!
