New to me C60L's

[Ken Smith]

Good day friends,
I recently purchased a good C60L rolling chassis with chassis number 38443M00001,I am guessing that this was the first C60L put together by GMH for 1943 in Melbourne.
Today I looked at a mint 1945 C60L.The plate on the dash reads like this,
CHASSIS MODEL 4X8443
CHASSIS SERIAL 4-8443-71597
ENGINE I didn't write it down
DATE OF DELIVERY 5-5-45 1ND (It is 1ND not IND,maybe a stampo/typo.)
The ARN is 77821
I thought that the ARN was a bit early but I will check with the War Memorial records.The ARN stencil is original as are the tyre pressure stencils.The truck has a canvas covered round roof hatch.
The CMP was bought by the farmer from a local disposal dealer in 1956 it had a Australian wooden body with Australian steel tyre carrier and toolbox,all long gone.
The truck was repaired to condition 4E at 24810 miles on 5 DEC 1955 for Northern Command.
The truck doesn't have the rear chassis extended like the workshop trucks so I think that it would have been just a GS.
Would this truck have been built completely as a cab chassis in Canada,or like the earlier cab 13s shipped as a chassis then fitted with Australian cab.
The only pictures I can find of the round roof hatches is on trucks in Korea during the Korean war,the trucks have Australian registration numbers.
This truck is deep bronze green,which reminds me there was another round roof hatch truck in town untill about 15 years ago then it disappeared.
I have waited 31 years to buy this truck,I will try and post some photo's when I get it home in the next couple of months,I have to wait for the farmer to remove the grain body fitted to it.
Cheers Ken

[Ken Smith]

I have been wondering what sort of body/tray to fit to the 1945 C60L.I have found 2 Australian drop side GMH steel bodies locally which would do the job,I have also found a Canadian steel body in poor but restorable condition,it has a tag at the rear with 42 1 5F2 340 stamped into it ,the body was made by W.D. Beath and Son Toronto.Does any one know what a 5F2 body is used for?
I have been studying Keith Webbs oldcmp.net site in detail and now know that the late cab with the round hatch is made in Canada.Is it possible that these late trucks were diverted cargo similar to the Studebakers that came here after VE day?
Cheers Ken

[Ken Smith]

I paid a gentleman in Canberra to check out a lot of my ARNS and I got him to check 77821 it was demobbed 20th August 1956. In one of the columns it has this notation W/O BofS, I am thinking W/O means written off as in written off the books,do any of you know what BofS might mean? May be something of Supply .The same notation is used for my 1952 F500 that was disposed of in 1964.Earlier trucks and later trucks have entirely different notations.
All the other numbers check out and it appears to have never had an engine change.
When I put the photos up I will start using the restoration forum
Cheers Ken

[Keith Webb]

W/O - Written off as you suggest, or at least approved for disposal. BofS = Board of Survey which was the examining government authority.

Usually the priority was government agencies such as GPO and fire authorities first, then back to manufacturers to sell through dealer networks, then to other buyers.

You'll see a lot of sales to GMH and Ford for CMPs. Another thing you'll see is SAN with a number which is simply Sales Advice Note.

Originally Posted by Ken Smith

I paid a gentleman in Canberra to check out a lot of my ARNS and I got him to check 77821 it was demobbed 20th August 1956. In one of the columns it has this notation W/O BofS, I am thinking W/O means written off as in written off the books,do any of you know what BofS might mean? May be something of Supply .The same notation is used for my 1952 F500 that was disposed of in 1964.Earlier trucks and later trucks have entirely different notations.
All the other numbers check out and it appears to have never had an engine change.
When I put the photos up I will start using the restoration forum
Cheers Ken

[Ken Smith]

Thanks Keith I would never have worked Board of Survey out.I had wondered about SAN.
My cab 12 F60L ARN 51720 appears to have been sold back to Ford Motor Company.
Cheers Ken

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

The 38443M00001 was off a CKD chassis assembled in Melbourne Plant. The 1944 MODEL truck has a plate on it that has been mis-stamped as it should be 'X4' and not '4X'. X4 was the code for Australian delivery.

Note that there were other 00001 chassis, with each plant using their own system with a plant identifier: A, B, M, P and S.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Hello Ken,

Amazing find, now see if we can reconstruct its history.
What if it could tell its tales about being built in Canada, shipped to India to be assembled and fitted with a locally made wooden body. Then taken into army service, again being shipped over vast distances and used in various countries, changes of ownership, only to be sold off and serve out it's working days at a farm. And now finally retired in your barn.
It will make for an interesting historic information sheet, if not a booklet of several pages.

Will be following this with great interest.

Hanno

[Ken Smith]

Thanks everyone for your input, I phoned the farmer today to give him an update and check up on a few C60L related things. He said I sounded like a kid in a toy shop.
The only photo he has of the truck with the wooden body on it was taken too far away to make out any details. The truck is in a paddock being loaded with bagged wheat. They were one of the first farms to change to bulk in our area, and that is when they dumped the wooden body for a hydraulic steel body made by another local farmer/engineer.
He does have a few photos of the truck when he shifted his house not once but twice, and I mean the whole house, on a couple of dollies he made himself. He is going to get some copies of the photos made for me.

Tony I would be 100% sure our trucks were kept together some time in their lives. Looks like yours lasted longer than mine in service. I have taken a photo of the 4004 it looks like 1004 but you can just make out the pointy side bit of the 4 if you look carefully .

Keith and Mike thanks for your input, your enthusiasm and sharing your knowledge.

Hanno that was an interesting chronology of events and probably close to the facts, the farmer wrote out a similar A4 page list of the trucks civilian history.

Ken

DSCF4326.jpg DSCF4321.jpg DSCF4320.jpg DSCF4319.jpg

[Ken Smith]

Tony,I forgot to put in I don't want to sand the doors as the paint is to good, there is nothing on the bumper, but interestingly when I was rubbing the dust from the 4004 for the photo, another set of numbers has started to appear under all the ones I have found so far.

I think Mike is correct and these trucks sat around getting painted a lot.



What do you think of the weird looking 7 at the beginning, it is really thick paint?

Ken

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Ken Smith

What do you think of the weird looking 7 at the beginning, it is really thick paint?

If you rub back to the right of it Ken I believe you'll find another complete ARN stencil. Judging by the colours there were two complete repaints in Australian service, so I'd expect to find 3 separate ARN stencils. The two most recent ones are visible already, which means this 7 belongs to the original one.

I think you need to work on the lower serial, ie. the one you've just spotted. It appears to be the most recently painted IARN. The one you've already revealed is less than conclusive, mainly because the first digit is unclear (although I agree it's most likely a "4") but also because it looks to be from a different repaint, in a much larger digit size. The vertical looks way too fat to be part of the same stencil set, and as a "4" it's out of alignment with the 004. Maybe the correct "4" has already flaked off...? That's the problem with using a scraper, the flakes usually comprise several layers of paint, and you can wind up chasing the wrong digit. Based on my own experience I'd strongly recommend avoiding the scraper and sticking to wet rubbing only, working gently through each layer of paint, and taking lots of photos as you progress. For precision work on digits I use a folded corner of wet and dry, wearing magnifying spectacles. It's slow painstaking work but it's the only option when you have so many serial numbers superimposed. This is the trickiest one I've seen, you rarely if ever get so many serial number repaints, and they're usually above and below each other.

Fortunately the bottom serial is almost clear of the others, and with very little paint on top it should rub back quite easily. Also, since we already have 004 we only need to confirm the first digit, and check for anything to the left of it, which is hopefully the 2 smaller IARN digits. These appear to be in evidence already on earlier repaints, in particular what looks to be a small "4" jammed in at the left, possibly associated with the larger "4" stencil mentioned above. I'd expect the broad arrow to absent on the front shell, just like the pic below, as there's obviously no room.

I agree with you about the doors Ken, there's no guarantee the IARN is present anyway, as it was far from universal practice on these C6OL doors, judging by BCOF photos. Hopefully the front shell will yield a full IARN, without resorting the driver's side! Apologies for the bum steer on the bumper, I should have known it wouldn't be there on these vehicles.

Nice work on the bonnet, quite a bit of info there. I'm curious to know what "CLASS" refers to in this context. Interesting to see two stencils, which seems to indicate both repaints were Northern Command.

Anyway thanks for your all efforts Ken, it's priceless info you're providing here. I believe yours is the only IARN ever reported anywhere, and I'm pretty sure we'll never see another one!

P01813.874 Sea of Japan 1950-09-28 3RAR en route from Kure Japan (BCOF) to Pusan Korea aboard.jpg

[Ken Smith]

This post is about a F60L I have just purchased, I am putting it in here in the interest of keeping all my stuff together.
When I start putting the restoration pictures for the C60L and the F60L in the restoration section I will put them in different threads.

This F60L was only about 3klm from my place and I didn't know it existed until about a month ago. The previous owners father and uncles bought the truck at a disposal auction at Cecil Plains aerodrome just after WW2. The aerodrome was on a farm near the tiny town of Cecil Plains west of Brisbane. In 1945, 102 Squadron RAAF flew Liberator bombers from there, there are some good pictures on the AWM site of the bombers in their dispersals. To this day there is still heaps of steel cable in the trees for the camo nets.

Anyway back to the blitz, some details are Serial 14717, Engine 2G40613 F and ARN possibly 46660. I am confused with that as I thought 1941 F60L's started with 51***, 52*** or 53***. The spare cab I have is Serial 12891, Engine 2G41490 F and ARN 52498, which is earlier serial but later engine and ARN.

The blitz was deregistered in 1976, then did 10 years as a spray rig, then parked up, it has always been shedded. It has all doors and really is very complete, and not a rust hole anywhere, the previous owners grand son took the headlights out of it a couple of months ago to put in his Suzuki scrub basher, I have a feeling the 6 volt bulbs didn't like 12 volts. I will add that although he cut the wires he carefully put all the retaining screws and the headlight doors to one side.

It was painted at some stage with a incredibly thick coat of yellow primer and 2 coats of grey gloss. The yellow primer put me off a bit as it looks like desert sand, but from reading the forum I found that F60L's with a Australian roof hatch didn't go to the desert, so I sanded through it to find the ARN. There are 2 coats of green, both layers the ARN starts with 4 .

The truck has a very good home made wooden dropside body which I will leave on it, painted olive drab instead of the current lettuce green, and with a canopy it will be a reasonable copy of the original body.

Pictures to follow shortly.

I forgot to say the local truck wrecker offered double what I offered for the blitz, and at a family meeting the family agreed to let me have it, at my price, as long as they can follow its restoration progress.

Cheers Ken