Heritage Commercials Magazine - capturing the spirit of vintage days

1961 Ford Thames Trader

Making its first public appearances during 2009 was another vehicle from the collection of classic commercial vehicles owned by haulier John Mould. Unlike the Scammell Routeman which appeared in a recent issue of Heritage Commercials, this Ford Thames Trader is too early a vehicle to have been part of John’s working fleet. In fact, production of the Trader had ended a few years before John started his company in 1969.

However, the Trader has now been in John’s ownership for over 20 years; a period of time which exceeds the service life of some of his own working fleet.

I saw the Trader for the first time as it made its way down Madeira Drive at the end of the 2009 HCVS London to Brighton Run. With John having entered his newly restored Scammell Routeman as well, a lorry which certainly turned a few heads that day, perhaps the four-wheeled Ford did not make quite the same impact.

However, rather than engage in the ‘big is beautiful’ debate with devotees of the eight-wheelers, I think that this tipper, just like its big brother, has been restored to the highest standards. The quality of the work was recognised by the judges as the Trader came away from Brighton with a Third in Class award.

Keen to photograph the lorry away from the crowds of a public rally, John kindly allowed me to visit his yard last November to photograph the Trader. Fortunately, the weather also decided to play fair and the bright red and black tipper looked absolutely stunning as it stood parked in the yard under a clear blue autumnal sky.

This short wheelbase tipper was first owned and operated by N Painting & Son, a general haulier based near Reading. Fitted with a six cubic yard tipping body with an Edbro hydraulic ram, it was used mainly for delivering sand and gravel which was being extracted from the many gravel pits and quarries in the surrounding area. Registered as WMO 865, it was powered by a Ford six-cylinder overhead valve five-litre diesel engine driving a four-speed gearbox which had synchromesh on 2nd, 3rd and top and a hypoid differential rear axle.

The Trader remained in use until the mid 1970s when it was taken off the road, having been replaced by a larger vehicle. Rather than being abandoned in a corner of the yard or sent for scrap, the old tipper was moved under cover and remained in dry storage for over 10 years.

In 1988, John bought the vehicle as a restoration project and it was moved to the company yard.

In fact, it was driven back to the Mould workshop on trade plates and the engine had not only started but also seemed to run quite well with no smoke, no ‘heavy breathing’ and no rattles. Perhaps a quick tidy-up and a coat of paint would do the trick.

No rush

However, as Rick Richardson, John’s restoration manager, observed: “We didn’t want to rush into things and needed some time to carefully consider the work which was to be carried out.” There certainly was no possibility of the restoration team ever being accused of rushing into the project as the work on the Trader did not finally start until 2007, some 19 years later!

Despite being dry stored since it had been retired, the old lorry had been worked pretty hard; and being driven in and out of quarries every day and being on the receiving end of the ‘gentle’ attentions of the average shovel driver had certainly taken its toll. To put it as kindly as possible, the Trader had been ‘very tired’ when it was laid up.

Not surprisingly, the body had suffered quite badly and there were some significant areas of rusting, a number of very large holes and what metal did remain was very thin. As Rick told me: “Even from the start, it was pretty obvious that the original body was beyond saving, but we managed to remove it in one piece and the entire body was sent off to a local steel fabricators. They used the old body as a model for an exact copy that they built for us to a very high standard and it is correct in almost every detail.”

The strip-down of the Trader continued, the cab was lifted off, the engine taken out along with the gearbox and the axles were also removed. Having reduced the chassis to its basic components, it was shotblasted, cleaned, primed and painted and put up on jacks to enable the rest of the work to proceed. Once they were cleaned up, both axles were found to be in pretty good condition. New kingpins and bearings were fitted to the front axle while the rear only needed the brakes relining. The expanding cylinders, the front cylinders, the servo and the master cylinder were all sent away to a brake specialist in West Bromwich to be overhauled.

The cab, once it had been removed, was found to be in a much worse state than they had first thought, as daylight could be seen through the metal panels and where there should have been a floor on the passenger side, there was only a large hole. Much of the sub chassis was also badly corroded and was considered to be beyond repair. However, in the best traditions of vehicle restoration, it was very much a case of “Now here is one I prepared earlier.”

Donor cab

A short time before the Trader restoration had started, John had also bought a long chassis Trader complete with a cab which was in much better condition than the one on the old tipper. The donor cab still needed a good deal of work doing to it but at least it did have a complete floor.

The whole cab was secured to a metal frame, which made working on it much easier as it could now be easily moved around the workshop as and when required. There was some repair work needed around the gutter and also the wing joints, but once this was completed it was taken back to bare metal ready for priming and painting. The chrome handles and badges were also sent away to be re-plated.

Rick said “By now there were parts of Trader seemingly scattered all over the country, as well as all over the workshop. Some were being worked on, others were finished and there was a growing pile of parts that would not even make good scrap.
As various parts were repaired or refurbished, they were cleaned, primed and painted and then put aside until required again. However, we were now at the stage where things could actually start going back together, rather like a huge Trader jigsaw puzzle and hopefully there would no pieces missing!

“With everything painted, we fitted the parts back to the chassis. A new set of brake pipes were made and fitted to the refurbished cylinders. The engine, which apart from an oil change and a new filter had been left more or less untouched at this stage, and the gearbox were installed and with a battery hooked up given a test run.

“We did have to splash out on a new rocker cover gasket because when we made some adjustments to the tappets, the old one broke to pieces as it had become so brittle. We also decided to drop the sump which was just as well as we found an inch of thick sludge in the bottom which had to be cleaned out before the sump could be refitted. When we dropped the sump, we also cleaned out the crank-case, connecting rods and the tappet chest. All the hoses were replaced, a new exhaust was also fitted and the radiator was re-cored.

“The inside of the cab was re-trimmed and the seats also had to be re-upholstered. We could not find an exact match but they were re-covered in the closest match to the original material pattern that was available in today’s market. The steering wheel and all the internal fittings and switches were refurbished and refitted.

“Another problem with parts which we encountered was the windscreen rubbers. We found that suitable rubbers for this vehicle are generally unavailable anywhere in the world. We eventually had a pattern made of the windscreen rubber ‘profile’, which was very expensive, and a local firm used this pattern to make us 90 metres of sealing rubber, so now we have a good stock. Let’s hope we get to restore a few more Traders in the years to come.

“We had the tipping ram overhauled and we fitted both that and the newly built body to the chassis and then the ram was piped to the hydraulic pump. The vehicle was rewired, a new starter motor was fitted and the lamps replaced with new ‘old stock’ ones. A new voltage control regulator had to be fitted to maintain a charge to the batteries. A new set of tyres was also fitted.

“The painting was then completed by Shaun, our resident painter, in the red and black livery previously carried by the Mould fleet. Finally, our usual signwriter, Nigel from Theake Signs in Reading, together with Eric who came out of retirement especially to work on the Trader, completed an excellent job of writing the whole vehicle in the standard Mould script.

“I then took the finished tipper out for a road test, only to be extremely unimpressed with the brakes, which was somewhat unfortunate as it had been booked for an MoT two days later.

Brakes

“So it was back to the yard where the lorry was put onto the brake-rollers to try and find out what was wrong. The problem seemed to be with the front brakes, which were found to be down on performance; so the brake shoes were removed and taken to Friction Services at Bristol where they cut linings from a band and relined them. Back at the yard, they were refitted and tested and now everything seemed fine. The Trader duly went to Newbury on the appointed day for MoT plating and passed without any problems.

“By then it was late April 2009 and there was just enough time for the last minute ‘titivation’ required to get the Trader into first-class condition for the London to Brighton Run. Although it was a close-run thing, the lorry made the start line and fortunately we had a very successful run with no major problems and came away with an award – not a bad result.

“She is quite easy to drive. On a good road, she will reach a top speed of around 45mph and we are getting around 15 miles to the gallon on average. The vehicle appeared at a few other events that year, including Gaydon, and hopefully she will be out more often in 2010.”

Although some of the jobs were contracted out, most of the work on the Trader was carried out by the in-house team; with Rick and Shaun doing much of the work, ably assisted by ‘Tony the tyre fitter’, ‘Humpty the windscreen man’ and ‘Eric the upholsterer’. The team is to be commended on completing an extremely fine restoration. While the Ford Thames Trader may not be a rarity in the world of preservation, this vehicle must rate as one of the best around.