The great ACCO - and how they began

[Sam]

Hi everyone, I'm part way through restoration of a 1964 mk3 aaco. Just wondering if anyone knows the correct paint type and colour to use?

I notice my truck was originally painted a dark green, then sometime down the track it was resprayed (very roughly) a much lighter shade of green.

[Tony Smith]

The Australian Army's vehicle colour from the late 40's to the mid-60's was the British colour Deep Bronze Olive (in Gloss) and from the mid-60's to 1990-ish was Olive Drab 146/1 (low sheen). Deep Bronze Olive is available from PPG (I think the code is LR1?) and Olive Drab WAS available from Wattyl, but is probably out of stock. The current colour used in the Auscam scheme is close and is available as "Camoflage Green" from the current contractors to the Army, Protec paints.

Out of courtesy, Who and where are you, Coquero?

[phoenix]

The fleet was officially olive drab from 1967. I thought that the australian deep olive bronze had more black in it than the standard british colour? I need to look into it at some point as i'll be painting my ambulance that colour, and I already have a couple of paint codes for it.

Bob, any chance you could e-mail me larger versions of those scans?

greeny@vision.net.au

[Tony Smith]

Dinty has looked into the Deep Bronze Olive and found the PPG codes for one of his 88" C+R SWBs. As most of the Aust Vehicles that were Deep Bronze Olive were of British origin (Centurion, Ferret, Champ, Humber, and Land Rover), I would say that the factory coat would be the British shade. Local vehicles (Studebaker, ACCO, Jeep and trailers) that had the colour applied here during the period may have had a local formulation of the paint and appear slightly different as they fade. Many of the Studebakers that have seen plenty of Bush Fire Brigade service have faded to a Bluey-Grey version of green.

[phoenix]

THat makes sense, one of the codes that I have is from dinty, so i'm on the right track there it seems

[Sam]

Thanks for the reply Tony. My name is Sam, I am located near Tiaro, Queensland.

[Tony Smith]

Hi, Sam. Protec are in all mainland capital cities. Contact details for Protec Qld:
PROTEC PTY LTD
AUTO & INDUSTRIAL PAINT MANUFACTURERS

ROCKLEA 35 Collinsvale St 4106 (07) 3274 1188
Fax (07) 3875 1330

GEEBUNG 473 Newman Rd 4034 (07) 3216 5895
Fax (07) 3865 6351

The paint code is
"342-1166-23 Enamel-Alkyd-DPP
Lustreless Camouflage Green"
It is available in 400g aerosol tins, or 1lt, 4lt and 20lt. It is current production so Protec will probably have it in stock on the shelf.

[Sam]

Thanks Tony, very much appreciated.

[Max Hedges]

Richard, here is a photo of the tool box

[phoenix]

Thanks for that Max

Unfortunately he already has that one, but thankyou for getting the picture for me.

[Monkey Man]

G'day all.......
I own the F1 pictured earlier by Phoenix and unfortunately due to tight finances it is indeed up for offer, it is a neat truck, has a bit of rust in the cab but quite repairable, some brake work to be done but other than that it is a solid truck with no apparent mechanical problems and it drives very well indeed.
Feel free to E-mail me if you're interested in more pics or info.
Regards to all.......

Tony Eagling
dodgem37@netspace.net.au

[Tony Smith]

This item is currently on e-bay (item 170029714104). It might have more to do with Civvy ACCOs, but I'm sure the Mil version would rate a mention.

[Les Freathy]

During a rearrangement of my files i came across this photo of the aaco, it must be at least early 1970s depicting the truck on a ferry prehaps you guys in Aus can find a few answers
cheers
Les

[Les Freathy]

Morning all or evening to some of you

When i posted the last photo i had a feeling that there should have been two taken around the same time, the first was in my aaco file but for some reason i put the second in a folder on International and hey presto here it is. I would assume they were taken about the same time but this one is cruising in inland waters, again hope you guys can shine some light on them
Les

[Rod Diery]

Hi Les, This is part of a floating bridge set, in this case set up as a powered pontoon. I can't remember what the actual designation is. The outboard motor are standard civilian 40hp Johnsons painted olive drab.

The non-inflatable life jackets date the photo roughly pre-1975. These cumbersome things were basically a copy of the old WW2 British Board of Trade life jacket. They probaly killed almost as many men as they saved. They were notoriously difficult to put on, you needed a mate to get all the tapes in the right place. If you jumped over the side of a decent sized ship, the neck piece would flick up and break your neck. Once in the water, you could only lie on your back and consequently could only swim backwards. After about 1975 the Aust Army started issuing an excellent RFD inflatable life jacket which stayed in service until quite recently.

I'm not sure of the location but it must have been hot judging by the state of general undress of the troops.

By the way, the truck is a F2 tipper fitted with it's canvas canopy. Recognition point is the rounded rear mudguards.

Cheers
Rod

[Tony Smith]

While we've taken this thread into the "Floats on fluid" territory, here's a pic of an ACCO on a Class 80 ferry:

[Rusty]

I have colour matched the original Deep Bronze Green paint with paint chips at my local auto paint wholesaler and found that "Ford Deep Bronze Green Fleet" is just about spot on.

[jim sewell]

Rusty

Deep Bronze Green
The colour code I used was a PPG brand and was an Army Fleet Colour AS G63
348- BXK8 (This maybe the batch number )

This colour tends to become darker with age .

Regards
Jim S.

[phoenix]

jpduvey, I'm doing a page for REMLR about the ACCO's and it seems that i'm using an awfull lot of what you wrote in this thread. In some cases, word for word. Would there be any problem with me doing this? Also, would I be able to acknowledge you as a source of information on the page that i'm doing?

Richard