wreckers

[chris_webb]

A couple of photos of A E Evans Sheffield depot wrecker that we had late 60s early 70s.
It was a Mandator ex Lloyds Transport and Warehousing,Water Street,Manchester,reg number was ONC 893 and it pulled a trailer on night trunk.
It came to Sheffield with a 9.6 engine and 5 speed box and was upped with a 11.3 and 6 speed box at Sheffield.It threw black smoke out like an LNER goods loco and pulled like one.Photos courtesy of Mick Cook and POD Robinson.Les Padley RIP int photo was an ex Evans driver and was tank fitter at the time.

[chrisb01]

Eddie Heaton:
0A few more old ex Ripponden bodies here that I’d forgotten about. Taken on Barry Greenall’s yard about 1980 ish.

IIRC those bodies were from another company called “EVANCREST”,who had a depot on Westagte Hill in Bradford.Next to the Wonderloaf bakery.There vehicle although the same as Ripponden District were dark blue.Sorry,but seeing those bodies reminded me of an old friend who used to drive for them.
Regards
Chrisb.

[240_gardner]

Eddie Heaton:
While I’m still in the mood, here’s a photo of the wagon that Warren Fayle started off with. I did a bit for him in the early days. Now this is a photo of a Bri-mech. I’m sure everybody is familiar with how they work. But the question is this, would you call this a wrecker ? I certainly wouldn’t. But it is, without doubt a recovery vehicle. It actually says so on the headboard, so there can be no arguing with that. The point I’m trying to make here is that a wrecker and a recovery vehicle aren’t necessarily one and the same thing.

Photograph taken at Heysham power station incidentally.

Argumentatively yours,

Eddie.

Well, you’ve done it again, Eddie! This was another Bowker motor, a drawbar box van operated as a part of the contract fleet provided for Keyes Huntsman of Skem. Somewhere I do have the photos that I took of it before it was sold as a write-off, after its second accident.

In the first event, it was blown over by strong winds, somewhere en route to Scotland (■■■■■■■ or the Lowlands). During this, the Hatcher sleeper pod was damaged, and was removed for repair. This will feature again…

After repair, it returned to service, but was badly damaged in another accident when the driver ran it into the back of a stationary wagon on the hard shoulder. He wasn’t badly hurt, but the nearside of the cab was completely squashed, literally front to back. However, this was the moment that it was discovered that the bodyshop which had carried out the previous repair (I know who it was…) had not re-fitted the pod correctly, as most of the securing seemed to be sealant. This was discovered when the whole pod came off and went skating down the road on its own!! It was brought back to Blackburn separately and lay in the yard for a while.

The body was only slightly damaged, so it was remounted onto a new FL6 chassis, together with the original trailer, and worked on for several more years, whilst the original F6 chassis cab was sold in its damaged state. I took a photo of with Fayle as well.

Incidentally, the FL6 replacement also went on to have an interesting career - after being replaced on the contract at Skem in 1997, it was cut down to a 26T tractor for local lightweight work, and looked quite odd with its Hatcher pod still in place. It ended its career as a yard shunter at Hull Depot.

[240_gardner]

240 Gardner:

gloves:
Few odd photos from my collection which may be of interest

Barry/Gloves

I’m rather tardy catching up with this thread

This motor in your photo was quote a rare beast - UYM 3F, new to Graham Adams of New Malden as a 6x2 Rear Steer tractor with a semi-auto gearbox. It still exists, and I understand that the current owner intends to restore to to 6-wheel glory. I know I have a photo of it in its original form, but can I find it■■?

Thanks to Dean, who has posted it in the Atkinson View-Line thread, here it is in its original form:

[240_gardner]

Parked in Llandysul last month:

Parked in Llanllwni last weekend:

[240_gardner]

Atkinson Rear Steer tractor, converted for recovery, and seen in Lydbrook in the summer of 1994. DVLA records show it as untaxed since 1992

I was offered it for £850 as it stood, or £750 without the recovery gear. It was said to be a runner, but it had no MOT and the cab was tired. I’d not long since acquired my own Rear Steer, and had enough of a fleet on my hands already, so I couldn’t take it on

I believe it was new to Midlands Storage at West Hallam, and had a 230 ■■■■■■■ and 6-speed ZF gearbox.

It turned up again at Kev Dennis’ first sale in 1997 in Wainfleet, but I think it didn’t sell on the day. Apparently it still exists, but is now substantially more tired!

flickr.com/photos/16693939@ … p5j-cXcMG7

[cav551]

240 Gardner:

Eddie Heaton:
No use trying to kid you John.

We must have made a special effort for the photo shoot on this occasion, as the place wasn’t usually this tidy.
0

Not quite three years since you posted this… I just spotted the Atki on the left hand side, third row back: with its red radiator cover, it looks for all the world like an ex-Killingbeck motor. Might it have been?

Do I spy a Safeway Handyman in the background?

[wheel_nut]

The first wrecker I had anything to do with had a manual winch and a four cylinder petrol engine, as the small boy my job was to turn a handle, nothing hydraulic apart from my feet in some oversize wellington boots, the only electric was a lead lamp clipped to a lead acid accumulator with crocodile clips. [emoji23]

Leave the recovery to professionals [emoji12]

[eddie_heaton]

Taken by the side of the RN85 close to Séranon in the department of Alpes Maritimes on 26.07.97.

[kevmac47]

[240_gardner]

kevmac47:
0

Pleased to see that this is still in one piece - I photographed it on the dock estate in South Shields in 2001. and it looked pretty sorry for itself then.

It’s actually a PD3, cut down by Preston Corporation themselves - they used to do quite major rebuilds and conversions in their own workshops in years gone by

[barrywaddy]

HI, EDDIE, HOPE YOU AND YOUR FAMILY ARE ALL OK ,THAT FODEN BEHIND THE KILLINGBECKS UNIT LOOKS LIKE OF OUR OLD ONES ? , NICE TO HEAR FROM YOU ON TN AGAIN KEEP WELL OLDUN CHEERS BARRY

[eddie_heaton]

Hiya Barry, how’s it going mate? The red Foden ( would it be an S36? ), behind the ’ Killingbeck ’ motor, could quite well have been one of yours, as Barry and John Willie used to do a fair bit of trading between themselves, but it’s a long time ago now, and to be fair, I honestly can’t remember every motor that passed through the place.

I think the ergo cabbed Leyland at the back, up on the ramps, was the old two pedal semi-automatic Beaver that we used to use, but again, I could be wrong.

cav551 mentions the Scammell Handyman at the back of the pile. I have no recollection of seeing a Safeway motor on the yard, and since I drove a Handyman for Safeway’s out of their Mather lane RDC in Leigh in the early 70’s I would have thought that I would have remembered it had it been one of theirs. But once again, I could very well be mistaken, as the paintwork certainly bears a striking resemblance to the colours that Safeway used.

The poxy blue Dodge at the front, trying to hide behind the Bedford, looks very much like the shed I drove down from Stonehaven for Bill, with the head gasket blown, and having to put oil and water in the ■■■■ thing every hundred yards.

The one, ( or is it two? ) that have me puzzled though, is the motor ( or motors ) tight up against the fence behind Munro’s unit and next to the Foden. Is it some sort of Heath Robinson cab conversion? Or am I looking at two units, one behind the other?..answers on a postcard please.

Anyway, keep on truckin’ Barry, and go steady mate, as we’re all well aware by now, the race doesn’t always go to the swiftest.

Regards. Eddie.

[john_west]

So, while I was messing about in the Middle East - putting tipper oil into a Scania 110 clutch master cylinder and wondering why it failed after a trip to Riyadh, and doing the next few 600 mile round trips with no clutch, get new master and slave cylinders, repeat exercise, realise that the problem was the wrong fluid, not the seals…

You were rescuing vehicles which were long past their sell by dates throughout the U.K. And bringing them back to that northern hub - Wigan!

Happy days!

John.

[eddie_heaton]

Yeah, that just about sums it up John, the only difference being, as far as I can see, is that you were getting well paid for it, whereas I was doing it for a big orange.

Happy days indeed.

Meanwhile, most of my ex-schoolmates had got themselves nice soft jobs either in education or at the BBC, or cushy little numbers working in the highways department of the local council, doing buggerall for good money, on flexitime hours, with early retirement, and an index linked pension at the end of it.

What a plonker eh?..Still, I rarely found life boring, and can honestly say that I have few regrets.

As the Bee Gees said ’ My life has been a song ', well so has mine. It’s just that mine has been a little bit off key at times, that’s all.

Regards. Eddie.

[240_gardner]

Eddie Heaton:
The one, ( or is it two? ) that have me puzzled though, is the motor ( or motors ) tight up against the fence behind Munro’s unit and next to the Foden. Is it some sort of Heath Robinson cab conversion? Or am I looking at two units, one behind the other?..answers on a postcard please.

Looks like a Duple Vega coach body, perhaps mounted on a Bedford SB chassis - the upper “windscreens” are, I think, the front roof lights.

Here’s another example:

616 Bedford S Duple Vega 1956 P1380178mods by Andrew Wright, on Flickr

[chris_webb]

DWB 225V Fleet 158.My old Ford Transcontinental that was used for drawbar work on nights for MFS eventually finished up as a wrecker in Montrose,can’t remember who sent me the photo.

[eddie_heaton]

Strictly speaking, not a wrecker I know, but since there doesn’t appear to be a specific thread for Bri-Mech on here, and since the wagon has featured previously on this thread, here are another couple of photographs of Warren Fayle’s motor. Not the sharpest of prints I’m afraid.

On the off chance that anyone may be remotely interested, both shots were taken in the same place, i.e., the lay-by on the eastbound A580 ( East lancs road ), between Windle Island ( I realise there hasn’t been an island there for decades ), and the Carr Mill café, ( I know, the café hasn’t been a café for years either, although the building is still standing ).

[john_west]

Eddie Heaton:
Yeah, that just about sums it up John, the only difference being, as far as I can see, is that you were getting well paid for it, whereas I was doing it for a big orange.

Happy days indeed.

Meanwhile, most of my ex-schoolmates had got themselves nice soft jobs either in education or at the BBC, or cushy little numbers working in the highways department of the local council, doing buggerall for good money, on flexitime hours, with early retirement, and an index linked pension at the end of it.

What a plonker eh?..Still, I rarely found life boring, and can honestly say that I have few regrets.

As the Bee Gees said ’ My life has been a song ', well so has mine. It’s just that mine has been a little bit off key at times, that’s all.

Regards. Eddie.

You’re right Eddie, we (myself and the other Brit drivers doing ‘internals’) were making £1,000 a week back in 1977 - and we’d missed the big money of 2 years earlier. As the meanest man I’ve ever met, Brummie Ernie, then in his fifties, said to me as he considered going home after building his new retirement bungalow. ‘You’m gettin’ a bit thin at a thousand a wik, John!’ He’d been used to nearly £3,000 earlier. Since most of it was profit, you could fill your tank for the price of a pint, I thought the money was good! Ah, but then I got divorced. As the old saying goes, ‘she got the mine and I got the shaft!’ Like you, I have few regrets. I worked in the tax office when I first left school. If I had stayed I would have a massive pension by now. However I may well have shot myself by the time I was 30. I hated it! As you say, at least life was never boring.

I suspect that there are others on Trucknet who have been there.

[chris_webb]

A E Evans AEC MK5 MM wrecker built at Sheffield depot. Original reg was 218 BGC,an ex Mobiloil tanker and used by Evans on a BSC Chemicals contract at Orgreave,Sheffield. 5 speed box replaced with a 6-speed.Rock on.