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Memory of the month the way things were. (Part Ten)

A few small tales.

One day I was sent down to Market street Torquay with the old D9 to do a relatively small job, there had been a church built on a large outcrop of sandstone that had been demolished just leaving the rock, as it was close to the pavement and buildings so no blasting could be allowed. There was a cliff behind the site so the sound bounced off it and as the covered market was on the opposite side of the road I was not the flavour of the month but that was nothing new.  The cab had be taken off for repair and naturally it rained frequently leaving me sitting in a pool of water, luckily the chap hiring the machines drove a convertible E type jag and wore a proper Stetson hat he took pity on me letting me have it, just the job and it kept out all the rain, proper job. 

I used to rip out a good pile for the 977 to load then hop in a lorry and do a few loads then rip out some more, now I didn’t like tipper work as I found it rather boring and naturally had the crappy spare lorry, on the first load just as I drove off the site a police car pulled in behind me and followed all the way to the Barton tip, on route was a very steep hill and I was praying the brakes were good and as it happened they were fine and no problems occurred. You may laugh but I drove lorries before the mot test was brought in and if you had all your gears and a handbrake you were doing well, once I was on a scow end tipper loaded with large lumps of concrete going down a steep hill when a motorist stopped me and said “did you know all your wheel nuts fell off back down the road” it transpired they had put two left hand hubs on it, (not Whites) anyway the little job took a week or so and the locals were well pleased to see the low loader take me away, but I did get a fast ride in the E type over to Paignton and back.

Later I filled in on another D9 in Somerset while the usual operator was on holiday and after a couple of days when the machine was stopped I noticed the top of right hand track was bouncing up and down, standing on it made no difference so I thought maybe it’s balancing on a stone but moving to level ground it was the same so obviously a problem had developed.  As the engine and transmission were running perfectly the only thing it could be was the large universal joint between the two, so fetching some tools I lifted the footplate expecting to see some sign grease or maybe filings, but nothing showed and the joint seemed ok but I was convinced this was the cause, so ringing the yard I explained the problem and possible cause so they got in touch with Finning the Cat dealer in Bristol.

I carried on working and after a couple of hours a fitter arrived so I explained the problem and he said he had never come across it before but agreed the  joint should be removed, it was tricky to get off due to lack of room but when we did it still seemed tight and nothing obviously wrong with it. As he had brought a new one with him we decided to fit it and as it was an expensive part I hoped it would fix it, with a bit of trepidation I started up and behold problem fixed

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Photo: Courtesy of Contractormag.co.nz.

Back on my own machine there was a small crack in the bottom corner of the fuel tank and diesel was dripping down onto the hot transmission with the vapour filling the cab, over a period of a few weeks it got worse and became unbearable even with the doors open.  So Les White sent Nick the Greek, our fitter to weld it up, by this time the crack was an inch long, Nick wanted the tank full to avoid an explosion and with me standing by with an extinguisher he started to weld and as soon as he touched the rod the fuel squirted out in a stream of fire but he kept going with me trying direct the flame away from him, gradually it reduced and eventually stopped altogether, job done and I was much relieved although it took several days for the transmission to dry up and fumes stop. The Co-Operator