Ime 50 on the 28th as well mate.Jona
Johnny, you mentioned health & safety in S/A well of course there was none. that photo of the puncture repair shop in India ? Reminded me of the time I was repairing a 1200 x 20 in Jeddah , I was sitting on the wheel and the pressure was nearing 100psi with compressor struggling to its max !!! Then all a sudden the tyre exploded !! I thought I had lost my life the wheel shot up in the air and landed on top of me , this is very true , we where always aware of the split ring not being properly seated !! But this was not the case , (that is a killer ) unknowing to me this tyre had been run flat for some time and its inner steel belt of the carcass had ruptured weaking its build , Just like lightening it split on its underside sending it into the air about 10ft. And dropped on me , I thought I had at least lost my arms feeling them and realising I was OK , how incredibly lucky was I .To all tyre fitters please use a steel cage when inflating any heavy truck Tyre , and stand back ,there was no evidence that this tyre was ruptured , Ron
You were lucky Ron. I was nearly killed by a tyre as well when it blew. It was on the trailer, a super single, and it blew me 6 meters away, broke my hand in 14 places, broke my nose, right ear was just hanging on by a little skin and had 3 teeth knocked out. But I survived.
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Well Johnny ,!!! what can I say ,the world of Trucking is a dangerous place ,especially in country’s with high temp ,and nonsensical rules this was not appreciated at Trans Arabia ,it was by sheer skill of our drivers and mechanics that avoided many a miss hap , that could have proved fatal , Tyres played a big part in the troubles with the heavy loads in that heat ,I can only say that I was shocked to read your story of that Supper single blow out , and sincerely hope that you are OK ,your life really did come within the skin of your teeth , once again from someone who who had this similar experience ,and have in fact developed a switch to tell the driver in such circumstances that he had a flat tyre on the Tri axle supper single trailers I hope you have fully recovered Ron
Not 100 percent, maybe 80, but am still grateful to be alive despite the incident being over 20 years ago.
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jsutherland:
Not 100 percent, maybe 80, but am still grateful to be alive despite the incident being over 20 years ago.Sent from my Hol-U19 using Tapatalk
From all on this thread we are sorry to hear that Ron
This was TASECOs ERF no 185 polished up for inspection at the ARAMCO FAIR , together with the presentation trailer and prizes for the lucky contestant who competed in the games that the staff of TMS team had organised , it was good fun , the canopy on the trailer was later put to the side of our swimming pool for shade, it was just perfect , I bet it’s still there? the pipe I used was thick wall heavy duty and it took some bending Mr Metz said, you want more gas !!! where’s it all going , I said its nearly finished, Geoff LLoyd had got to explain to an insurance enquiry how a transformer worth a Million Rats had been tipped off one of our trailers ? And was written off .asking the Thi workers to make an exact model of the ERF – trailer and Transformer it was brilliant Geoff was pleased so he could demonstrate how the accident came about . The Thi lads said we have not finished it yet sir,and took it away they came back after they had made it exactly like the smashed truck etc etc smashing the model to replicate the accident ( GEOFF )could not believe it , I though it was brilliant , Ron
. I don’t know what went wrong here , 
: 
some of our drivers came from near this area Ken Higley ,Peter Slym Tony Tomkins Ginger Taylor Jimmy Wells ? Ron
One of the great things was that you could buy cassettes, made as I remember in Singapore and without any payment to the original artists, for maybe 5 or 6 Riyals a time. I can’t remember, so maybe that isn’t right, but the exchange rate was about 6 riyals to the pound.
Just been watching Neil Young on ‘Yesterday’ singing ‘Heart of Gold’. The thing was, that you drove so many hours and there were no radio stations, that you could really ‘get into’ some of the less popular albums. Elton John’s ‘Blue Moves’ - couldn’t understand it at first, but leave it in the cassette player for 9 hours - Ooh, that’s good!’
You would be hundreds of miles from anywhere at 9.00 pm, but ELO singing ‘livin’ thing’ while you made your meal of tinned meat, tinned veg and tinned potatoes, would drag you home!
John
John the tapes where brilliant you had a fantastic choice of all the top artist , down town Jeddah ,every body at Trans Arabia bought the biggest Radio cassette players they could, and on the weekend it was bedlam music from each room was blaring out at full bore different sounds trying to outdo each other JD favourite was Tubular bells , Gogies was classic ,mine was Boney m ,Taffy Bills Bread of heaven , land of hope and glory , but it was the music that took us on a journey in our minds back home and lifted our spirits we all had smiles on our faces , with the bedrooms cooling down the A/C s where turned off, lights out , blankets pulled tight listening for the cockroaches rattling there wings ready to fly about before going to sleep , waking up sweating the heat of Saudi that had got back though the walls and once again it’s hot ,this was how it was ,looking in your boots for the roaches before a swill down then breakfast if you where in the villa , no such luxury on the roads ,but no roaches just a few flies , beans chicken and rice ,the spead axle toilet and that big Sun , Ron
Ah the music !!! and yes john the tapes were about 5.or .6 rats sometimes you could get a deal when buying in “bulk” !!! and that was about the average exchange rate 1978 …6 to the quid I could never get over how you could buy a 100 litre of diesel for the same price as a gallon of engine oil ■■?..anyway at SARAMAT we were given a wad of Rats each trip for fuel but always filled up ( both tanks)at the yard before take off … but you had to have dockets for fuel when you got back !! back to the music …our Volvos had a great sound system ( if your truck had,nt been ratted by some one ) I was lucky all things worked !! I loved Fleetwood Mac blaring when you were on your own But being from the R&R age I liked Jerry lee lewis /Chuck Berry and the like also a great Shadows follower !! … all in all it was a great adventure but when you stop and think… how many hours did we spend driving and then sleeping … in the cab … uncountable ■■?
Mah Salahm
When I was in Australia people used to tell me that a stretch of road there on the Nullabar was 100 miles and was the straightest stretch of road in the world. They didn’t like it when I told them about the Tapline soon shut them up.
This me at Nyreah please excuse the spelling. Jona
Me at the biggest open cast coal mine in the world ATB Ping Shuo next a Euclid 170 dump truck powered by a 2000 HP V16 4 turbo ■■■■■■■ engine. Jona
This is a ■■■■■■■ Block the first one I ever rebuilt in a Chinese workshop. Jona
11 men were in this crew truck when it went under the wheels of a Euclid 5 survived. Jona
