: Seeing that picture that 5 wheel commented on he’s obviously just been greased ■■ I have not passed my best YET RON
ronhawk:
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See the Volvo 240 estate that the fitters had for going on distance repair works - ex Binzagr Barber Agency after John Kellet ( from Preston)had a Yemen coolie with a fridge on his back over the bonnet and windscreen - he didn’t stop but went to Wahib Binzagr the next morning and told him what had happened - he ended up in the Traffic Jail on Mecca Road for a few days untill some cash was paid!!!
He didn’t want it back!!!
Ken Broster
John West , the flies the flies the flies they loved white skin, I don’t think they bothered the Philos but they know we tasted and drove better ■■ But what about the Camal Spiders !! They where fast and could jump a mile, I was always checking the deck while it was still light before wrapping up in the blanket on break downs !! They where like Scorpions ,The Thi drivers where good cooks, one time I was on a job way out in the mountains, they got a chicken and impaled It on a thick stick up its bum, piled stones round the base so it stood up, then found an old 5 gal dried out oil drum put this over the top of the chicken put all bracken round the bottom and lit up, the chicken was cooked In double quick time and tasted really great. Better than the deep fried greasy bits we did on the pri’mus , I always wanted to do this, when we have a BQ and will do it this year ? Ron
Writing about BBQs ? This is one I had last year ! I got the Bug when I was out there, it was better than the oil drum Oven, and the drink was un rationed no religious police to be seen If you’ve got it Flaunt It, the weather was England at its best Ron
Sorry I forgot the menu , This fed about sixty never to be forgotten
New tackle just arrived the skellies Are a great asset to T/A not seen any in Jeedah the locals will be scratching there fan belts see photo they could not understand how our boxes stayed on the flat beds Ron
This is the result of trying to copy Trans Arabia at cornering the place was littered with containers that had slid off Ron
Magnificient picture Ron! How did this 5mw perform according to you towards the 7mw?
Impressive way of loading the tasker’s…you remember the tasker’s flat with twistlocks?
Weather over here will be yours of yesterday 
A-J this was some truck I think it had a 350 c I’m not quite sure but it felt great , 9 speed fuller it was a different feel all together than the Bs more compact just felt like getting into something special ,even with out the air con , it was worth the drive It was strong and you got that feeling as soon as you fired up ,Great motor. made me feel proud , Ron
ronhawk:
A-J this was some truck I think it had a 350 c I’m not quite sure but it felt great , 9 speed fuller it was a different feel all together than the Bs more compact just felt like getting into something special ,even with out the air con , it was worth the drive It was strong and you got that feeling as soon as you fired up ,Great motor. made me feel proud , Ron
I love your description of this motor, Ron. I know from my interviews with Jerry Cooke that it had a ■■■■■■■ NTC 335 and 9-speed Fuller in it. I did post this picture on the LHD ERF 5MW thread (page 3) and the ERF ‘European’ thread some time ago. This has got me thinking: one of those MWs was an ex- SJones unit on a British L-plate, so it might just be a 3MW rather than a 5MW. Here’s another picture of it. Robert
robert1952:
ronhawk:
A-J this was some truck I think it had a 350 c I’m not quite sure but it felt great , 9 speed fuller it was a different feel all together than the Bs more compact just felt like getting into something special ,even with out the air con , it was worth the drive It was strong and you got that feeling as soon as you fired up ,Great motor. made me feel proud , RonI love your description of this motor, Ron. I know from my interviews with Jerry Cooke that it had a ■■■■■■■ NTC 335 and 9-speed Fuller in it. I did post this picture on the LHD ERF 5MW thread (page 3) and the ERF ‘European’ thread some time ago. This has got me thinking: one of those MWs was an ex- SJones unit on a British L-plate, so it might just be a 3MW rather than a 5MW. Here’s another picture of it. Robert
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Hi Robert
The ex Jones fleet was 104 that went originally with the first Bach of tractors - Stan Brindleys motor that he drove on the Qatar/ Doha run from the Uk before Trans Arabia
Cheers
Ken Broster
Kenb:
robert1952:
ronhawk:
A-J this was some truck I think it had a 350 c I’m not quite sure but it felt great , 9 speed fuller it was a different feel all together than the Bs more compact just felt like getting into something special ,even with out the air con , it was worth the drive It was strong and you got that feeling as soon as you fired up ,Great motor. made me feel proud , RonI love your description of this motor, Ron. I know from my interviews with Jerry Cooke that it had a ■■■■■■■ NTC 335 and 9-speed Fuller in it. I did post this picture on the LHD ERF 5MW thread (page 3) and the ERF ‘European’ thread some time ago. This has got me thinking: one of those MWs was an ex- SJones unit on a British L-plate, so it might just be a 3MW rather than a 5MW. Here’s another picture of it. Robert
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Hi Robert
The ex Jones fleet was 104 that went originally with the first Bach of tractors - Stan Brindleys motor that he drove on the Qatar/ Doha run from the Uk before Trans ArabiaCheers
Ken Broster
Thanks Ken! Yes, that fits because 104 was SRF 304L, and the picture Ron posted was of 123. They may both be 3MWs though, because the ‘L’ suffix ran from 01/08/72 to 13/07/73 and the 3MW/5MW change occured smack in the middle of that period on 18/01/73. Robert
ronhawk:
A-J this was some truck I think it had a 350 c I’m not quite sure but it felt great , 9 speed fuller it was a different feel all together than the Bs more compact just felt like getting into something special ,even with out the air con , it was worth the drive It was strong and you got that feeling as soon as you fired up ,Great motor. made me feel proud , Ron
Never mind the horses down under, it was a ■■■■■■■■ The NT-series had 335 as well as 350, the C (for custom rated) was actually intended for California only…but proved its value since the early sixties already.
My personal opinion is that this 5MW was the kind of lorry a lorry ought to be!
Have a nice day Ron
Well A-J you have certainly got me thinking ,so to has R52 and KB ? Working at S Jones I was running a night shift !! I had a phone call fromStan Brindley he was in Calais and wanted to speak to Frank Hicken RIP I said its 1/2 past midnight and he will be asleep what’s the problem ! He would not say and insisted that he spoke to Frank ,thinking it must be urgent I phoned FH ,he was not to pleased ,so I put the 2 phones together one in reverse this is absolute true and they exchange conversions through these 2 phones ,I hope you are following this ! Picking the phone up I could hear them shouting to each other ? After a while they stopped and I put SB phone down .What’s the trouble Frank ? I said , trouble ! trouble he replied that SB just wanted to tell me that he had just mist the Bloody Ferry and he had drove from the bottom of Italy in record time !!! Do you know what ERF he was driving ? Yes you have guest it , The 350 ? 5 MW. This was the Best Truck S Jones had . It was delivered to us from Sand Bach by our so "called " fleet engineer ?who smashed it up " just short of Aldridge brand spanking New . Ron SB was a great lad RIP " To be continued "
Hiya rusty nuts ? Thanks for following this thread started by my mate Wirlinmerlin , hope he is OK , it has I hope brought back good memories of SJones Bly 'me it’s going back a bit,but that’s life the 12/4 Austin Burnham Saloon ,you asked about ! I must have been mad ?i had 12 months off work never signed on the dole ,and worked solid on this car removing the body and rebuilt from the bare chassis! the cost was at the time ■■ But I just loved that car, results speak for itself Ron. Sold it ,I run out of readies
Austin heavy 12/4 Burnham Saloon
@Ron…not in your nice Austin, but had your JAG a Meadows installed?
A-J you mentioned trailers ! This may be of interest to you ,S Jones where running try axle C/F tippers with super singles tyres on when they jack knifing loaded in tight turns the tyres where under tremendous pressure twisting against each other, resulting in tyre failures on the motor way. I had an idea ? .and had a meeting with Edward Jones RIP about this problem. I had made 4 rubber switches with copper contacts And told him I can tell the driver when he has blow out ,stoping all the strewn rubber debris going all over the motor way and may even save the tyre and save accidents !! He was impressed and gave me a week off to try this out ! The switches I had made where a double type and these where fitted above the equaliser spring bracket on ether side of the trailer , wiring up to the spare Blue & Black in the 7core loom I then put a warning buzzer in the cab this was on Dickie Granthams Unit & trailer 96 , Well sure enough it worked He did have a blow out and the buzzer told him to pull up !! Edward was well pleased■■? the tyre was in one peace but , by the time DG had pulled up the brake drum had chopped up the side wall and the tyre was ruined Edward wanted me to tell the driver when the tyre had lost 20 pc pressure this I failed to do but I tried , A-J the Jag 4.2 doh. S U Triple carb the trouble with this motor was ,we where continually being ggggorpt at and I was shy? I felt like an oil sh-sheik Ron
ronhawk:
Hiya rusty nuts ? Thanks for following this thread started by my mate Wirlinmerlin , hope he is OK , it has I hope brought back good memories of SJones Bly 'me it’s going back a bit,but that’s life
Hi Ron,
Agree with you, Merlin started a great thread here. So many interesting memories, but also great photos, from all contributors.
Your earlier remarks about eating (I guess the Phillipinos had less Riyals than you and me to buy ‘nus djaj wa ruz, minfudlak’ - chicken and rice - from the many
roadside Campylobacter restaurants!) reminded me of what we often ate while travelling within Saudi.
Amazingly, Pot Noodles - a recent invention, were widely available, but mainly from China. They were quick and easy to make, so often featured as a meal. I stopped eating them when I realised I was getting a pot belly, despite pulling my plums out on a daily basis!
John Longhorn became addicted to the newly available fresh milk in about 1981. He would practically live on it for weeks at a time, I can picture him now with a white ‘moustache’.
Most of the guys seemed to set off for Riyadh at about 6.00am and return to the villa at about 10pm, (600 miles round trip) totally f*****, having had only water all day. Eric Collins said ’ It’s starting to hurt when I pee - it’s almost crystalline yellow coming out!’ I’d read a bit about it, and the effects of dehydration, after one of the lads died, setting off soon after coming out from England, and replied ‘You’re not drinking enough water.’
‘No, that can’t be right, I seem to be taking a drink every couple of minutes.’ (no air conditioning in our trucks).
‘Well drink more!’
A couple of days later, he agreed that he was feeling better, after drinking more, even though he’d felt he’d been drinking enough.
If I didn’t stop at the restaurants, I used to pull over and have a ‘proper’ meal at lunchtime. At first it was the pot noodles, but after realising they weren’t good for me, it might have been a can of tuna and a can of Chinese pears (they tasted different from our own canned pears). I felt you needed something since the constant drinking must have been washing the salts from inside you.
Contrary to current medical thinking, you were recommended to drink water with salt dissolved in it. I found that hard to take!
When I first arrived at Khobar on Overland, I was getting short of meat for the cabin hotel meals. I went into Al Abbad Supermarket. There were tins of meat available, ‘Tyne’ brand if I remember rightly. at 6 riyals a tin - that was £1.00 at the time. I couldnt believe it! That brand was coppers at home! I didn’t buy any.
Ted Thomas and Pat Conway went down to Jizan and went to a local market to get some potatoes. When they took the lid off the box, a swarm of cockroaches ran out - hundreds of them, not the tiny ones you see here, huge things, over an inch long. As they told me my stomach started to heave - ‘Ugh, what did you do, shove the lid back on and leave?’
‘Nah, we just bought them anyway, we wanted potatoes!’
Oh I also bought a large bag of toffees once from somewhere in the middle of nowhere. They had ‘Made in Yugoslavia’ on the bag. I swear there was no butter or anything good in them, but they were strangely addictive and I worked my way through them over the next couple of days. Our stomachs had turned to cast iron, nothing made us ill!
Oh and I’ve already mentioned somewhere about Geoff and Ginger seeing the rats running about in the ceiling of the cafe just outside Riyadh…
John
Cracking posts very interesting.
about the salt intake with water, VERY TRUE,once we got around the red sea area, salt tablets were put on the messroom table for all to take 2 every meal and the “bosun” used to make sure us young lads took more ,plus lime juice mixed water…, maybe you had access to limes when you were all there, but did not know the good it would have done you all… HENCE THE NAME “LIMEYS” THATS WHY THE AMERICANS CALLED BRITS…FROM THE PANAMA CANAL CONSTRUCTION .