Lawrence Dunbar:
Kempston:
A rare one. Nmp
0
Well thats a blast from the past, Woods also had a Pop factory too. The owner was Lance Wood and his brother was called Harry IIRC, When Lance passed away the firm was taken over by
Northen Aggregates based at Catterick, I got the haulage of the sand from Hemscott Hill beach at Creswell, It was a good earner until they got a new manager at Catterick who reduced the rates so I kicked the job into touch, But I must say they allways paid on time.I .just moved on to better things
Interesting stuff Lawrence, surprised they were allowed to take sand from a beach,
Well it was then but not now, Woods was the sole hauliers at time, Unless someone was collecting it.
essexpete:
Lawrence Dunbar:
Creswell Beach 1981.0
The Dodge was quite quite old by that time, was it a good truck?
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It was indeed, We ran it a long time & we had a swop body system and did long runs with a flat on, It had a Perkins 6354 engine a 5 speed box with the good old Eaton two speed backend, It was good on fuel and a good payload.Larry.
Well I wonder if our twin steer artics are included. Larry
The first truck I drove was a Leyland six wheeler of the two steering axle one drive axle configuration, about 1963.
I want to find out where the name Chinese six came from.
Anyone ■■?
Peter
I’d guess that it originates as a vernacular way of describing anything that was “back to front” in the 1920’s/30’s, when that type of vehicle was first built.
gnasty gnome:
I’d guess that it originates as a vernacular way of describing anything that was “back to front” in the 1920’s/30’s, when that type of vehicle was first built.
This to my knowledge is accurate. Back then the “wrong” way of doing things was the “chinese” way . They just looked wrong with 2 axles at the front and 1 at the rear? My view is that perhaps they were trying to get away from the tendancy of the conventional sixes to go in a straight line,no matter what you did with the wheel! 
Incidentally my first sighting of a chinese six was a dray out of Hunton Bridge, Ind Coope I beleive. So I know breweries used them, but cant recall them on general haulage.
they should av called it brummy six then cos their back to front 
This is a Chinese six for our younger viewers to see 
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I suspect the same same reason as Chinese Gearbox, Chinese Puzzle etc. Its different, odd, back to front, not that straightforward, etc.
The oldest vehicle in the yard which was reserved for the naughty boys had a chinese six box … when I had to drive it, no one had told me this and it took me about 2 hours to work out what the hell was wrong with the gears pmsl
Dunno then?:
Incidentally my first sighting of a chinese six was a dray out of Hunton Bridge, Ind Coope I beleive. So I know breweries used them, but cant recall them on general haulage.
They were indeed popular with breweries; Tetley for example used D-series Fords and IIRC Bedford TK’s were another regular option. ERF also made quite a few of them.
The layout lends itself well to urban multi-drop of course as it avoids the inherent problem of diminishing payload causing the front axle to become overloaded. I suspect that the advent of power steering, and the increase in front axle allowances, caused the decline of the Chinese Six.
Another area where they gained considerable popularity was for the haulage of hay and straw; I’ve seen the odd one or two around recently.
Here’s another nice one;
Who can remember the Chinese 6 tipper,it could have been an ERF that was up and down the M1 for many years,at least into the '70’s and maybe even the '80’s when all vehicles like this had been extinct for years?
Click [u]here[/u] for the Chinese-Six thread of 2006…
When I first started on the coaches in the mid 70’s,the firm I worked for had two chinese six Bedford VAL’s.Seem to remember them having a comfortable ride and they cornered like they were on rails.
Suedehead:
Is that true?
Cant get my head around that, if the front axle is overloaded to start with is more weight on the back is going to make the front lighter? ,I know . . . its probably me 
Percentages mate. Assuming the vehicle is fully loaded front to back (bear in mind the payload would be beer kegs or straw bales etc of equal weight) then as the driver unloads from the back the percentage of load on the front axle will increase. Having the second axle at the front rather than the rear removes the risk of doing that.
I would assume that on hay and straw work the configuration allows the lorry to be loaded over the cab, as per this…
Highlander:
When I first started on the coaches in the mid 70’s,the firm I worked for had two chinese six Bedford VAL’s.Seem to remember them having a comfortable ride and they cornered like they were on rails.
I actually saw one of them last week at Gledrid truckstop on the A5, Plaxton bodied I think. I’d forgotten what a lovely looking coach they were.
seem to remember a chinese six leyland freighter around the mid 80’s coming into the dealership i was working at…
Birdseye frozen foods iirc.
