windrush:
Do you always have to lift vehicles when recovering them nowadays Rob, I can’t remember the last time that I saw a truck being pulled on a straight bar yet at Ballidon we did it all the time from wherever in the country they happened to expire, unless there was serious accident damage to the running gear of course?
Pete.
No not always Pete, it depends on the nature of the breakdown, the length of the journey to be recovered and the type of vehicle. If it’s a straight forward job like a clutch problem we will tow it on a bar still but if the engine wont run we tend to lift it as it’s easier than fighting with a steering wheel with no power steering, as you know it’s actually harder to fight against the fluid sometimes than it used to be to drive a vehicle fitted with Armstrong steering. Phil has a contract with a couple of the local bus companies and it usually a straight bar job with them because if you lift the front end high enough the back end soon catches the ground.
All the recovery lorries have a straight bar on them but the one in the pictures I have put on here is just for straight barring, it has no lifting gear on at all, best lorry on the fleet really a good old F12, I was driving it about a month ago with a four wheeler on tow just coming up by the new fire station at Duffield when there was an almighty bang and the steering wheel was snatched out of my hand towards the middle of the A6, we stopped and had a good look round and both me and David, who was steering the lorry behind, decided the offside front tyre was most definitely blown out, so out with 2 jacks to get it high enough, wheel brace, etc. you know the score, but after we did a quick pit stop we carried on to Imperial Commercials (Kays to me & you) to deliver the four wheeler.
Thank’s for that info Rob, I know what you mean about being pulled loaded with no power assistance as I steered one back from Luton like that and it didn’t do my shoulder muscles any good at all. Not too bad while on the M1 but thirty + years on I still suffer pain in it through trying to stop the loaded S80 Foden tanker from going through the wall of that bank on the junction of Compton and Mayfield Road while on the end of the straight bar, scary moment time! Normally we could run the engine on tickover if it was just a piston knock to give steering, though during one tow in the knock did vanish when the conrod appeared through the side of the block!
Yup the Daf driver was sacked on the spot ,and the scania recovery driver assured me it was a job not for the weekend wheel spinner recovery driver Robert .
Punchy Dan:
Yup the Daf driver was sacked on the spot ,and the scania recovery driver assured me it was a job not for the weekend wheel spinner recovery driver Robert .
That’s right, Shipton’s is a place to know your limits so I get all the simple jobs like this one!!!
oiltreader:
Hi 1970commer,
David(Whiskers) looks a real character, me with my wagon, oozes confidence in no job unsurmountable, nice one
Oily
That’s right Oily, he’s about got the hang of it now, he’s been doing the job for 57 years, as he likes to tell people “lorries didn’t have windows in when I first started this job & the snow used to blow straight through”
I went with him to move a couple of horse boxes & the owner could almost have been David’s twin brother, David says he is the good looking one on the left.
Normally we could run the engine on tickover if it was just a piston knock to give steering, though during one tow in the knock did vanish when the conrod appeared through the side of the block! 
now and again is no bad thing.
