I agree Robert…that being said, both Ron and Ken were GOOD in their specific area
with all of a sudden ‘frustrations’ or ‘lack of knowledge’ what happened behind the
curtains…still a very nice thread with room for experiences, both business and private
has a lot of freedom to highlight! But, where are JD’s archives on T/A now? Just speak
of intelectual property nowadays…
It’s all about transport, make things HAPPEN and the entire company is happy by performance!
Maintenance, often neglected but too often expensive when a customer is directly involved and
that is the front- and backside of the haulage business…
This article was written last June ! Turning the liners was would have been a wast of time and one hell of a job , a compleat strip down ,and for what ■■ I do apologise. To KB , but talking about something that I worked on ? Well it hit the mark !! Trans Arabia is bigger than that, and I also apologise to ,Wirlinmerlin sorry seems to be the hardest Word Ron " That feels Better "
Ron…you are/were an asset to many companies involved in transport! I remember the chief mechanic
of Van Steenbergen stating ‘something chemical is going on’ with regard to liners and also the KRUPPs had
this devil inside. I remember an advice has been designed to handle the water …for what it’s worth.
To me you really DESERVED the “■■■■■■■ golden spanner” and few can say they have this medal!
You’re the older brother I never had…A-J
Oh my good gawd 
!
robert1952:
Oh my good gawd
Well that’s truly stirred the pot up
JD not sure where he lives now - I have not seen him since Bill Smiths funeral some years ago and I do not think he is the type of person that would engage here.
Ken b
I did say sorry , I see JD in Alridge quite often Ron
ronhawk:
I did say sorry , I see JD in Alridge quite often Ron
No problem - pass my regards onto JD. I used to see him at the National Car Classic weekend at the NEC years ago
Cheers
Ken b
Well, now that’s all out of the way!!
Ronaldo and Ken, here are a few scary faces from the past to come back and haunt you!
I bet you remember the white socks and clogs. My feet certainly do. The clog bottoms couldn’t stand the heated sand abrasion and wore down at great speed (and expense!) as I scuttled about in a frantic effort to ensure the jinglies chained up right without damaging the building frames we were carrying. (As they were too small to pull the dwangers tight on their own, it was with much terror I would watch them, two and three at a time, heaving away with tubing slipped over the levers!) And all done wearing flip flops!! Maybe that’s where I went wrong!
We did have a young manager who was brought in to run the Riyadh operation who discovered another, very cruel use for dwangers. Apparently he was plagued with wild dogs coming into his compound and so, as a kind of macabre sport, would hurl dwangers at them, a bit like a highly lethal, none returning boomerang. I never witnessed it but he thought he had thinned out the population somewhat!! This pastime of his gave rise to an expression…“He’s been dwangered” ie been killed or died… or it’s dwangered" ie broken or useless. I don’t remember this bloke’s name and don’t know what happened to him. He’s probably dwangered by now!!
Rons farewell GCC ,engine bay ,there where at least 10 engine stands with ■■■■■■■ of all shapes and sizes in this " oven" of a place all good men straight and true , the work was hard,the men where great ,The man on my left Pervez his ears use to bleed running up the test at full bore on the Dyno i insisted he wore ear muffs no silencers where used full load at 2100 rpm , I really rated the ■■■■■■■ Engine Ron
The ■■■■■■■ cylinder liners!! when over hauling the stationary engines from the oil fields ,the static fire hydrant engines in particular that where only used in emergencies these had to be completely overhauled regardless of condition I found the liners to be within the tolerances and if ,after inspection used again !! The generators these had a hard life the liners in all cases from the small V,s to the large KT v 12s and auto motive ,The cylinder liners I all cases where renewed , and the engines where completely rebuilt to as good as new tested and Guaranteed, liners on inspection were found out of tolerance on the power Stroke ,and the dial indicator will show the ovality and the worn top of the bore ,if ever they where used again it will be like putting your shoes on the wrong feet , and most certainly burn oil with lack of performance Ron
Thank you Ron for very nice GCC-pictures and ■■■■■■■■■■■■■
Herewith some pictures from GCC, founded in 1947 by Suliman Saleh Olayan
Brilliant A-J, the work we did at TASECO TMS, was exactly the same supplying the oil pipes to the desert sites ,that picture of the KW with safe sided trailer looks the part , our flat beds ,we had 4 rows of box section going across the trailers with right angle ears making the the width of the trailer wide enough to carry 5,4,3,2,1,try angle ? To much really we did have some doggy loads , Wirlinmerlin will have some shots I am am sure , ? It may have been 4321 ? I remember looking out of the ERF mirrors , the rear view was straight down the overhanging pipes ,making the width some 11+s ft this was our bread and butter work ,on contract to Aramco with 185 ERFs all with the ■■■■■■■ engines a proved combination ,and 300cf trailers Ron
TASECO The Veeder Root tachograph was fitted in all the fleet of the ERF s! But they had got a problem ? Constantly having condensation under the glass ?so much so that that you could not see the speedo ? VR supplied many replacement parts ? And was baffled to why this was happening ? none of the trucks had A/Con not that this would make any difference!!! ■■ But indirectly it did !! ,when the drivers where working in the red hot conditions in the dust of the Desert windows where never shut ! "Only when passing the cess pit on the Abqake rd " ,but then I found that the drivers washing out the cabs out with the hose pipe ■■ This was the result in the Tachograph problem , it must have cost a few bob before this was found out Ron
Wonderful input and quite an exerience for VR…! Nice picture as well, I remember this picture
was partially presented on the TMS-thread.
For those who are (also) interested in the first oil-years of KSA attached a link with first export in 1939.
15 Kliks down the Abqake rd was Taseco camp , back towards Damman was the checkpoint office near Aramco complex ,This road had just been Tarmacked ? Unknowing to one of our drivers there was a big lump of " tar "that had gone hard this must have been dripping from the tar truck when stationary ,it was a big as a bucket ? Right in line of the NS drive line ?difficult to see !! You have guest it. By now ? This truck hit it !!! Taking the wheel out of his hands , the ERF went off road down the bank and hit a sand dune !the damage was quite considerable !! So I went out with tin of white paint ! And painted a long line on the approach to this lump and also painted the lump white , our trucks where up and dow this road all the time ,day and Night, Ron
Wirlinmerlin the thread you opened up was fantastic,to re live all that I remember and hopefully pay tribute to the lads who took part in the Trans Arabia adventure was indeed a pleasure for me !! Hearing from the experiences of the John West , Backsplice ,DBP, Kenb , A-J ,R 52 ,and indeed Yourself ,and all that have contributed ,to make this journey a roller coaster of very true stories I am indebted , thank you Martin ,and to find a new friend in A-J is a bonus !! Long may it continue. Ron
@ Ron, really a heartwarming postand you ARE a genuine asset to this thread with your pure stories,
a good sense of crisp and lovely memories! You should write your memoires, a bit like Roald Dahl
did in his shed with 25 pencils, some beers around and after two hours you’re again free to tinker
on technical stuff! Feel free to state if I might assist on documents, ideas or whatever…but to
be honest…it’s time for you to have a ride on your motorbike or any oldtimer (cabrio preferred)!
A-J
Note, I have been contacting some contacts on ■■■■■■■ (even Mike Hawkins of Mechelen) if there
is room for some experience-stories…I noted you have a golden spanner!
Back to some history on GCC-founder Suliman Saleh Olayan…
Suliman Saleh Olayan was born in the desert village of Unayzah, some 150 miles from Riyadh, on Nov. 5, 1918. His mother died a few months after he was born, and his father, a successful spice merchant, died when he was 6. A few years later, his brother, Abdullah, took him by camel to the Arabian Gulf coast and then by boat to Bahrain, where he attended a missionary school and first learned English.
On his return to Saudi Arabia, he took a job with the California Arabian Standard Oil Company, which later became the Arabian American Oil Company, also known as Aramco. With the oil industry expanding rapidly, he set out on his own and established the General Contracting Company, which later struck a deal with the Bechtel Corporation to help build the Trans-Arabian Pipe Line, linking the oil wells of Saudi Arabia with terminals in Lebanon. He went on to play a central role in developing Saudi Arabia’s earliest insurance, electrical power and gas companies.
In the 1950’s, with thousands of Westerners flooding the country to work in the oil industry, Mr. Olayan opened a food and consumer distribution business that eventually became the exclusive distributor for Kimberly-Clark, General Foods, Pillsbury and Atlas Copco. Other joint ventures with major multinationals followed.
The Olayan Group eventually became an influential participant in global equity and financial markets, particularly in the United States and Europe, but also in Japan and Australia. In the United States, the group has substantial minority holdings in public companies like Coca-Cola, the Thermo Electron Corporation, Occidental Petroleum, J. P. Morgan Chase and MetLife. The investments in each company are generally kept below 5 percent, a threshold that would require a public filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Mr. Olayan is survived by his wife, the former Mary Perdikis, and four children, each of whom is an executive of the Olayan Group. They are a son, Khaled, who is chairman of the Olayan Financing Company, and three daughters: Hayat, vice president of the financing company; Hutham, president of the Olayan American Corporation; and Lubna, chief executive of the financing company.
Associates said that Mr. Olayan was unusual among successful Saudi businessmen in that he had no blood ties to the royal family, which controls the Saudi government. Herewith a picture from April 1947 during the visit of King Abdul Aziz Al Saud to the Aramco HQ in Dhahran with the King to the right and Suliman in the centre. He acted as spokesman/translator. The same year Suliman founded GCC.
