Yair...We had a bit of a reunion of some of us old(ish) blokes who worked in the scrub pulling outfits in the nineteen sixty's. Most of my photos from the era were destroyed in the '74 floods but a couple of the fellers had some copies and it was nice to see some pictures of the old rigs again after over forty years. I won't go into any details about scrub pulling as it has been dealt with at length on this and other boards. What I will mention though is the amount of country that has been chained. We did a road trip of over two thousand kilometers to catch up with the blokes and for the most part the country had been chained to the horizon on both sides of the road...millions of acres of scrub and forrest country was made into productive grazing and farming land with chains and tractors. We took delivery of the G's shown on Christmas Eve 1965 and I think they were the best looking tractors to ever work the scrub. They made their first dollars on Christmas day...I think we logged about eleven paid hours. The 'nines seemed lumbering and slow after the Allis twenty ones but they covered the country and were probably the most reliable tractors in the scrub. After a reasonable run out of the early torque converter twenty ones we had the first three powershifts to come to Aus. and they very nearly broke us. Nothing would touch them performance wise but they were truly dreadfull tractors and I don't think there was one part that never broke. Having said that scrub pulling is the hardest work that a tractor could be ever asked to do. The boss devised a very effective technique of pulling with three twenty ones which allowed us to continue on with two when one crapped its self...one of the problems with the scrub pulling game was that when one tractor was down the cash flow stopped. The Mack may be of interest. As shown there she would have been grossing at about 170,000 pounds. She had what was known here as the "C" motor and that particular truck was fitted with a Schweitser turbo and (I think) was set at 237 Hp. Some units had Air Research blowers that upped the ante to 250 Hp. Some of the Mack blokes might correct me if I'm wrong. She had the Triplex transmission that for extreme loads I preferred to the quadbox. The second stick was just worked as a splitter for the main and the ratios seemed better matched. Hauling loads like this you were constantly on the sticks doing several thousand shifts a day. There was no power steering either and if you didn't wear along sleeve shirt you wore the skin though onyour bicep where your arm went through the wheel I always drove very conservativly and if the road was getting gnarly I was not adverse to dropping both boxes into joker and sitting back to roll a smoke. They had a big six inch pyro on dash bracket that made a good place to hang your hat...the needle was way up in the red most of the time so it didn't matter. When pulling steep on gravel roads this particular truck had a disconcerting habit of some times "locking in". That is to say she wouldn't turn. You could have the steering on full lock and she'd keep going straight ahead. You would need to get off the throttle and she'd come around and when you put the boot in again she'd start to surge and it's wonder we never screwed off drive shaft. Incidently tractors wer never chained on back then. I think the theory was that if you were going to lose the sucker no chain was going to stop it and you may as well save the truck.
wow, great pic's mate.. love it, your right about he land thats been cleared only have to take a plane trip out of Perth across the wheatbelt to appricate the amount of land that had been cleared around the same time, as for productive farm land, I'm not so usre that rings true over here, too much salt in the low lieing parts this days
Yair...rare ss. You're right, in WA some of the low rainfall country has been a disaster and should have been never cleared...same thing in places on this side of the paddock although the problems don't seem to be so severe. As a bush kid it never made sense to me to walk a couple of tractors into a five thousand acre paddock and chain it fence to fence. Thats pretty much what happened though. I always preferred to pull back and forth on a face instead of going around and round...if the cocky was open to suggestions it was very easy then to leave fifty meter strips the width of the paddock linking up with strips left around the fences. I believe it was proven to be better for stock and critters. With the re-growth thats occuring a lot of cockies are in the position now to correct past mistakes...particularly out in the twelve inch rainfall country. It has been found too that for grazing, managing gidgea and brigalow regrowth is more cost effective and better fot the country than trying to eliminate it completely. Cheers
Neat post. That Mack with the 237 brings back memories. When I stated in the '80s we were using 1970s R models w/ the 237 to pull 100,000 lb lowboys. I always laugh when I see people advising each other that a 300hp engine won't pull 50,000 lbs. It might not be fast and fun, but it'll move the load.
Great dozer pics there and like old Mack Mitch that like us at work we have 3 DM mack rolloffs. One has a 250 in it and the others are 237s. Had a truck sales man bring a pick of a Peterbilt with air bags and a high hors motor saying our trucks were out dated. We run 6 speeds in them . Have gotten 64 k on one can that was loaded with cement.