Knight International.
I have just finished Mike Wheatley’s autobiographical ‘Wherever the road took me: 50 years of International overland transport.’
I’ve known Mike for fifty years. He is a real character. My brother Andy drove Mike’s 110 with me in Pete Robbins’s 140 on our trip to Damascus, the first trips for Mike’s newly formed company NODAG. This is documented in a T&D article from 2012, which is on my website. In fact Mike has used (with permission) a couple of photos from that trip.
He also tells a tale I’d forgotten about. I absolutely hated squatting to s***. After returning from Damascus and before setting off on the next trip, I visited the hardware store and bought a lavatory seat. I fitted this to a wooden frame and put 3 hinged legs on it. It caused huge amusement to anyone who saw it - but everyone asked to borrow it!
In fact, returning from Baghdad with Paul Kerr, I had some eggs at the Telex in Ankara (I’m blaming the eggs - I was no big drinker!) and I spent the next day constantly stopping to vomit and s****. That seat was a godsend. Paul got to the mocamp several hours earlier than me!
Anyway, Mike’s book is a really good read, and well worth the money.
Here’s the Amazon link:
amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss … ad+took+me
ERF-NGC-European:
ERF-Continental:
The DAF-trailers stated “DAF Trucks Holland” and drivers of Jan de Rooy (indeed the now retired
driver of the Dakar-rally, with now son Gerard often participating) did the job towards the ME.
On arrival and after a hot bath and a good meal another journey was planned and well paid.Yes indeed! Hans commented on this in one of his emails to me (which I have permission to use in this thread) as follows:
All the tilts had DAF Trucks Holland signwriting.
Robert
I meant the two vehicles behind the DAF convoy- does anyone recognise those trailers?
Looks like a covered in roof rack… I bet that got a bit of attention from the border guards…
Jeff…
Jelliot:
Looks like a covered in roof rack… I bet that got a bit of attention from the border guards…Jeff…
Might draw their attention from the belly-tank and the false trailer floor though 
!
I read the review on that book John it looks good… is it going to be printed at some stage…or will it only be on Kindle… Talking about “bad eggs” it alway used to amuse me that outside the UK eggs were never sold in dozens or half dozens. I used to get boxes of 5 or 10 not 6 and 12…
I was never a fan of belly tanks uncle Robert, every time I used one I always seemed to get covered in Derv… better of with a head board tank. My old step frame had one, it was only 5 inches wide but nearly the whole width and height of the head board. It couldn’t be seen at all from the outside of the trailer, lined on the inside of the trailer with ply wood… unless you knew it was there you wouldn’t have guessed… The only draw back was that you had to un thread and lift the tilt cover to fill it… If I remember right it heald about 1300 liters…
Jeff…
Jelliot:
I read the review on that book John it looks good… is it going to be printed at some stage…or will it only be on Kindle… Talking about “bad eggs” it alway used to amuse me that outside the UK eggs were never sold in dozens or half dozens. I used to get boxes of 5 or 10 not 6 and 12…I was never a fan of belly tanks uncle Robert, every time I used one I always seemed to get covered in Derv… better of with a head board tank. My old step frame had one, it was only 5 inches wide but nearly the whole width and height of the head board. It couldn’t be seen at all from the outside of the trailer, lined on the inside of the trailer with ply wood… unless you knew it was there you wouldn’t have guessed… The only draw back was that you had to un thread and lift the tilt cover to fill it… If I remember right it heald about 1300 liters…
Jeff…
Yes, those headboard tanks were good; never had one but met drivers who did. I used to wonder about the weight over the drive-axle though: useful when you wanted traction but a bugger on the weighbridge! I didn’t mind the belly tanks but you had to remember to turn the tap off well in advance of removing the nozzle! Happy days! Uncle Robert 
Headboard tanks were good, no air needed so less likelyhood of blowing a seam open and flooding a German services with red diesel on a Saturday afternoon during a summer lorry ban! How I, sorry I mean how the driver got away with that I’ll never know [emoji16]
The downside to the headboard tanks was filling them up, the filler was 13’ off the ground and you needed to be a contortionist to take the cap off and on and thread the hose through a sealed tilt, but far worse was an over enthusiastic forklift driver spearing the forks through the tank when loading through the back.
Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk
newmercman:
Headboard tanks were good, no air needed so less likelyhood of blowing a seam open and flooding a German services with red diesel on a Saturday afternoon during a summer lorry ban! How I, sorry I mean how the driver got away with that I’ll never know [emoji16]The downside to the headboard tanks was filling them up, the filler was 13’ off the ground and you needed to be a contortionist to take the cap off and on and thread the hose through a sealed tilt, but far worse was an over enthusiastic forklift driver spearing the forks through the tank when loading through the back.
Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk
Never experienced a headboard tank as stated probably easy to hide on the type of trailers used in the trans europe middle east countries,in my cattle carting days we used belly tanks slung under each trailer in road train configuration they were plumbed into a common discharge line which went from the back trailer via the discharge line which was hooked into one of the trucks tanks the air pressure was controlled by a valve in the line as I recall set at 4 psi was all that was needed to pump fuel from the rear tank to the prime mover,as you can imagine it wasn’t a fast procedure but it could be switched on and off with a simple air switch mounted in the cab obviously prime movers and trailers needed to be all common to one another and belly tank discharge wheel valves open when refuelling on the move which i did on a regular basis.
It could be easy to forget it but when fuel was discharging through a tank breather you smelt it before seeing it.I only did that once fuel in those days was about 48 cents a gallon and the clean up of the mess after was time consuming and messy so lesson learned.
The trailer in the pic was originally one of my cattle trailers the tank held 900 litres it had been cut down from 1200 litres and with 3 of them plus 1500 litres in the trucks tanks we had a range of around 5500 kms which was about 6 days between refuels when we were busy.
Dig
Just found this:
[zb]
anorak:
Just found this:
Turkey. Marvellous! That took me back a bit. Loved the Fiat & spready tilt descending on tippy-toe… Robert
mushroomman:
Centrum had a large fleet in the 70’s/80’s, they were a Dutch company who employed a lot of Turkish drivers.Does anybody have any info on this one, Arthur G. Evison from Radcliffe-on-Trent.
Regards Steve.
Hi mushroom man my dad jeff stringfellow worked for arthur evison in the middle east in the 70/80s ive posted a pic of him and his truck that we travelled to iraq in 78 this m.a.n was shot to bits when the ahatolla invaded and my dad had to be flew out by the british consolate
DEANB:
Knight International.
Hi Dean, I had to collect a load of machinery once from Knights of Old at their Cherry Hill depot for a new factory that was being built near Ankara, Turkey. This was sometime in the early eighties and after I had loaded the yard foreman gave me three very large vinyl stickers and told me to stick one on the back of the trailer and one on each of the cab doors. 
When I asked him why, he said that if I happened to brake down then anybody who came along working for Trans Arabian Freight would stop to help me. As I didn’t want to upset him I put one on the back of the trailer, I drove out of the yard and kept the other two for over twenty five years.
Photo courtesy of Knights Of Old website.
knightsofoldgroup.com/page.p … NY+HISTORY
Edit.
I have just been looking at The Scrapbook Memories thread and I came across this on Page 4 so I hope that Bubbs won’t mind me reshowing it.
Regards Steve.
Another ancient Brit heads east! Robert
Nice one Robert.
It does us good to recall these hero’s. I remember seeing Atkeys, Big Js, Mandators, Fodens the whole lot. Whoever imagined that money could have been made using such crap?
People might even have thought the same about my Scammel Cruisader but they would have been well wrong. That was an excellent truck for the job.
David
David Miller:
Nice one Robert.
It does us good to recall these hero’s. I remember seeing Atkeys, Big Js, Mandators, Fodens the whole lot. Whoever imagined that money could have been made using such crap?People might even have thought the same about my Scammel Cruisader but they would have been well wrong. That was an excellent truck for the job.
David
Quite a few Crusaders did Middle-East, I believe. They had very strong (probably over-engineered!) chassis, Rolls Eagle 280s and Fuller transmission. I would have been happy to take one down. Will we see you at Gaydon in June, David? Robert
Morning Robert.
Certainly will Robert. I shall have to be armed with my Spaz Wagon (can’t walk that far anymore) but I’ll be there.
David.
David Miller:
Morning Robert.Certainly will Robert. I shall have to be armed with my Spaz Wagon (can’t walk that far anymore) but I’ll be there.
David.
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Bless you mate, I’ll look out for you! Robert