What Did You Get Up To Today?

Off-Topic
3822

I think it comes back to my previous statement on another thread

They’re either not very well trained and uninformed, or it’s the old “at the customs officer on the days discresion”

“I don’t really know the legislation but think you should have that, denied”

The only plates in the plate carrier are made of foam and the vest itself is polyester, it’s not bullet proof, it’s not stab resistant, it’s a cheap ass AliExpress plate carrier, it’s not the real deal, in my opinion, it’s essentially a tactical costume, nothing more, nothing less

And when you can buy more legit ones in hunting stores that also don’t contain anti ballistic or anti fragmentation protection here in Australia without a licence already, what’s the difference and how did those stores get them in the first place?

It’s a joke

3823

That’s the part that gets me, “can be up to the discretion of the Officer on the day.”

What’s the point in having Laws if they are enforced by individual people’s personal judgements and not the Law itself.

May as well just drive down the freeway at 140 and say to the Cops, "in my personal judgement I wasn’t speeding.":roll_eyes:

If you make Laws make sure that your Staff is trained to understand those Laws and apply them to each case across the board, not just make decisions haphazardly depending upon their own personal feelings.:face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

3824

Welcome to my world pal :rofl:

Don’t get angry, get even.

I’m covered in bruises. Dum fuck lamb, I was pushing them into the yards in the Ford. Cunt went mad. I was stopped. Ran into my car headbutted the front diff, knocked itself out. I was running out of daylight.

Fuck it, hit the manual overide, lock it low to get over the fucking thing. 4wd burnout haha. Paddock fertilizer. :rofl:

Fucking cunts tried running off in to the scrub, manual overide you fucking cunts, had the ford fucking sideways at 80klm/hr. Oh fuck there a tree better settle down, nope sideways at 40klm/hr. One less tree. Oh fuck, just looking after the enviroment :rofl: :rofl:

Should have seen my farmer mates yesterday. Haha they are top fellows. Bar banging Aussie farmers.

3825

Mate called up to head over for a couple of beers and a catch up as he’s actually home for a couple of days to clean the Truck out before restocking and heading back out on the road again.

I got to sit behind the wheel and reminisce about my old driving days.:blush:

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Bloody weird not having a gearstick and splitter, instead just some push buttons on the dash panel for the Auto gearbox.

I’m not too keen on Automatic Trucks, but he reckons they are brilliant, saving a heap of work, especially when hauling 50 and 100 tonne Floats around the outback.

Nothing much to play with, so just sat there making vroom vroom noises and dribbling all over the steering wheel.:joy:

2 Likes
3826

Nice rig, with a nice sturdy roo-smasher!
My truck is an auto, there are many times a day where I complain about it, but overall they do make it easier to keep your attention on the morons in the smaller tin cans!

For all the times it does get it right, they don’t have a good “looking ahead” yet! So gearing down manually is done a lot still, least it is just tap a lever on mine, no double clutching or grinding.

They are just a electronically controlled road ranger. Some kind of voodoo I suspect!

3827

The Autos are ok.

Just got to make sure it’s locked in manual override otherwise they run away on you down big stonking hills like Heysen tunnels, burn the brakes out, go splat through the intersection and kill some poor civilian family members going splat into the waterfall at the bottom there.

I watched a SAPOL commo jump in front of one and brake in front to try pull him up as the brakes were on fire while 3 more ran ahead to clear the intersections as he couldn’t change down being a road ranger with an auto shift on top of the gearbox. Took another whole 3 intersections before he ground to a halt thankfully missing cleared out civ traffic and wheels caught fire and the truck burnt to the ground.

A bit of real world experience from doing my truck licence. Talking to older truck drivers, got a hill, lock it manual overide in the gear you went up the hill in, you come down in that same gear.

Do NOT leave it in AUTO, as it will upshift through the gears downhill burn your cab and trailer brakes out in about 5mins on fire, and splat. Then you are on manslaughter charges if you survive or whatever happens.

Watched SAPOL wreck a Commo trying to stop a T909 that the dickhead driver left in auto and runaway downhill gaining speed, hit about 130klm/hr by the bottom, killed a Mum and couple kids at the toll gate intersection at the bottom, rolled it, caught fire. Marks are still there, plus crosses and flowers for the deceased.

3828

THIS! My most hated thing with them is they are “reactive” to speed and load, not proactive.
And they love riding the brakes. The brakes on my twin steer are some of the meatiest I have seen on a truck, but full load down a steep range and they will cook brakes if you don’t make it sit in the right gear.

So yeah, they will auto and be easy but you still need to know what you are doing! When I went for my licence I said I wanted a road ranger and the trainer was like “why? everythings auto?” There is the problem… everyone should be made do the manual version so they have a proper understanding of how shit works, and how it will fail horribly if you don’t know how to be in the right gear for the right climb or descent.

All of us at my work share that thought, but yeah we are pretty happy the thing is an auto at the end of the day as most of our work is through traffic haha.

2 Likes
3829

Bingo. All of that, then I get some slapper trainee sitting there on her phone didn’t teach me fuck all but charged me $1600.

Rewent for it the next year with a proper accredited trainer and actually learnt things that you need to watch out for.

Then a farmer went bust locally, Elders sent the T909’s in to grab his sheep and recover his debt. Dry as f on dirt, traction control, alarms n shit going off as trying to drive on sand with 100psi in tyres.

Nekkminut, knock knock, help, help. Here I am with an Australian built 1978 80hp tractor dragging 2x T909 B doubles out the shit. Don’t bury the effer down to the diff or I got no hope.

Lock the diffs in, manual override, when I raise my arm, that means I’m going to plant it. 2 trailers full of sheep each. 600 odd per trailer, quad deck. Fuck me. This is going to be interesting haha

I just made it. Even the truck driver said where’s this tractor made. I said was Australia. He said damn I would have been fucked without you. All good champ, bit close but we got it done.

Excuse me while I ring fucking Elders and send them the bill for pulling them out the shit. I blew shit out of them, got nothing for it. Tsk tsk

I told Elders off, you can’t send owner drivers in to the middle of a dustbowl they are getting bogged. I mentioned it to a local farmer that has more modern quarter million dollar tractors Dear John. 2-400 hp if I couldn’t get them.

Oh I wasn’t there anyway busy on holidays. I said I don’t give a fuck I would have just grabbed your tractor anyway and I was about 1 minute away from doing it. Oh oh, that’s ok, we trust you.

3830

I had this exact thing happen to me on my first $1600 failure. Why bother with a RR, they are all auto you don’t need to worry about it. Umm no wonder they are running away and crashing.

The autos are a effin road ranger gearbox with an electronic servo driven shift on top of the gearbox that changes it for you.

So it’s still a road ranger for fucks sake, you can float gears and split gears all sorts of fancy shit but you have to rev match to do that. You miss a gear you have to stop and start from 1st, you cannot downchange untill you are stopped.

Try that going down a big arse hill, your jake brake will not do it and you can’t change down to hold it. With only 50t of shit onboard.

I learnt from some elderly Farmers, plus a proper trainee.

I even reported the failure trainee to the gov. Gov said they are not proper accredited trainees just average joe truck drivers. Umm how do they get away with that. Umm we don’t know.

Several more truck drivers went through the same dodgey place and failed.

The problem is the dodgey bastard is still in operation to this day.

I’ve done my due diligence and this is why trucks are crashing left right and centre.

They are not trained properly. You have to learn what you are doing. I know that and wanted to be taught the right way so I saught out a proper accredited trainee.

I don’t want to kill people like the weetbix packet licence drivers have done.

I just can’t believe how the gov lets it slide and wonders why there is fatalities. I’ve told them direct. Problem, here is the problem. Nothing gets done and people die. Oh just throw the driver in jail for life on manslaughter charges.

That’s not going to fix it. Get your accredited trainees squared away first Not some dodgey bitch effin around with her phone instead of teaching me that has no accreditation what so ever.

I challenged them as well, show me your credentials please. Oh we have none. I’m not kidding either. I was WTF how can this happen.

The KW T909’s have tilt sensors for the trailers and when you are quad deck(high) on dirt uneven terrain they go off and retard the motor so you loose power. Bogged :rofl:

3831

That’s where I ran into trouble looking to upgrade my Truck licence to MC.
There was only ONE single place in the WHOLE Southwest that had a SINGLE qualified trainer that was able to do it, BUT they don’t actually have a single Manual Prime Mover to do it with!

It was hell expensive because I didn’t just have to pay for the training and the Driver Assessor, but ALSO the Hire of a Manual Prime Mover for 3 days from some outside supplier to to be able to actually do the whole training course!

Luckily I had a Job offer from a Truck Company way out of Esperance who was willing to employ me, run me through the Trucks for a week with their own drivers and willing to pay for everything to get my MC licensing upgrade etc, but that’s exactly when my back totally shat the tin and I got tied up with all the Doctors and Specialists and had to drop the whole thing.:confused:

That company was as keen as mustard to take me on board because of how difficult it was for them to find experienced open class/manual Truck drivers these days, where everyone seems to be Indians/Pakistani with WeetBix Auto only licenses and fck all experience.

Whilst having a beer with my mate and going over his truck, he suggested I look into Linehaul driving jobs, as would be something that I could achieve even though my back’s rooted, it’s the easiest work physically compared with all the other driving jobs :thinking:

3832

Might be an option, except if you have to tie down cargo. That can get shitty on your back.

Especially when you deliver housing frames and there is no crunt there to unload you. Off comes the straps and swing it, big pile of shit on the curb. I can’t lift 5t ffs.

Last I looked I didn’t look like a forklift haha

Oh well that one gets cunt tax on top. Then you get the phone calls. Pretty simple you were not there to unload me when you said you would and I was smack on time.

Why my Dads back is buggered and mine aint so flash either.

But if you do interstate linehaul that might be suitable as you go from depot to depot where they have workers operating forklifts etc that do that for you.

I hear you on the licence, I had to search far and wide just to get my MR via a proper accredited trainee as I wanted to learn the right way. Gov had no idea who is what from what. Not kidding either. I was shocked, wonder why pakis/ind are crashing all the time you have fuck all proper training going on at all. There’s your problem.

I got other shit going on so didn’t go for my MC, couldn’t afford it about $8k last I checked. Not really in to interstate line haul anyway just wanted what I have for my business. That’s me done.

Not far from me a b dub was oddwardly parked on the side of road quickly with 2 trailers full of pigs. I saw it from way back 100klm/hr zone, some cockhead in a SsangMusso SUV thing blew past me at over 140klm/hr, flew straight up the B dubs arse flashing head lights and honking horn, pulled out in to oncoming traffic, jumped right in front of the b dub, then brake checked him. He locked up both trailers. Straight stretch of road, no hills or intersections.

That truck driver was wild and rightly so. I gave him my details as he was reporting that car to police. I’ll back you up 150%. I couldn’t believe it but I was witness. Calmed the truck driver down. Said should of not stopped, sink the slipper in to it and push the crunt off the road. Cheered him up a bit :rofl: :+1: :v:

3833

There is so many places that think we are forklifts! My last job was like that, and now I have a fucked back for life. I love work!

So I got into tanker work. Pretty good on the back as only really dragging hoses not lifting them (you wouldn’t carry the hoses we use anyway!)

When the place lost the contract and I was to be out of a job, I upgraded to MC, figured if I am gonna drive a truck might as well drive the biggest trucks!

There was only one place I could do it at close enough to me, and they were booked out for a couple of months.
Already had the road ranger manual license, and in QLD they let you upgrade to an MC doing the test in an auto. Lucky as they only had an auto on the road at the time when I went for the course and test! But, I can and will drive anything. Did a few runs in a road ranger hauler for good experience. You don’t appreciate how long they are until you need to change lanes! :rofl:

Then… I landed the same job with the new contracted company for a good deal due to my experience, so back in the twin steer auto! But it is good to have options at least.

3834

For sure, I’ve driven them as well but not full time. I get Fuel tankers, those big hoses, just get on the passenger side, but I got the quick connect so they can plug in and pump straight in to my tank.

They are pretty awesome. No charge for on farm delivery. Have a couple mishaps with a new driver, thinks he’s on bitumen, doesen’t lock the split diffs in, 100psi in tyres, turns too sharp on dirt. Leaves it in Auto.

Oi, stop, you’ll bury it. Your front wheels are at 90 degrees and don’t plant it.

That button on the dash, push it. Oh bugger I don’t know about that. I said it’s ok mate, I’m you’re only hope or you are walking. He laughed, said yep, got no phone reception so can’t even call the boss got 20kltrs on board for more deliveries.

Just chill, engage, manual first gear while I hook up my tractor, I said listen, I’ll take tension, then I’ll floor it before you bury it. Just gentle acceleration do not floor your truck otherwise we are fucked LOL

I did a fully loaded B double T909 a solid one day. I picked up 4t of concrete water troughs in my little banger. It kinda tops out around 100klm/hr.

I was tootling down the 2 lane highway on way home from local pickup in a 110klm/hr section. See the T909 b dub creep up behind me. Hmm I gotta let him get in front of me he’s doing line haul.

Was bit of a bendy section so I sped up so he could keep momentum as I knew the straight stretch was coming up. Then I moved over a foot, checked all clear in front no oncoming and floored my old truck so he could spool up. As soon as he moved out level. I dropped back to 80klm/hr so he could overtake me quicker.

Got the blinker thank you. I didn’t have UHF on board, just gave him a thumbs up.

Bit of thinking and courtesy, things go the right way instead of being ignorant and crashing.

Without trucks, Australia stops. They have right of way as long as they have been trained properly.

Gov sold off the train lines out my way over a decade ago so everything has to be by Truck. I mean everything.

3835

Fitted a micro toggle switch to the Ashton basement beater… turns the neck pick up on independant of the five position blade switch… the Gilmour wiring mod. Adds an extra two tones, making seven all up. :+1:Let’s see you do that on your Les Paul. :wink:

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Found out the bridge 'bucker was wound out of phase with the other two, so a quick bit of resoldering at the switch fixed that. No more out of phase reedy tones.

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This is fast becoming one of my go-to noodle guitars… definitely worth upgrading the pick up and pots down the track, but the neck and body contours seem to be bang on for me. :+1:

1 Like
3836

Loving that Racing Stripe mate! :blush:

3837

Awesome. One of my friends has just offered my Dad to buy his Fender he’s not really using anymore as much, plus he has others.

Special edition can’t remember exactly what it is as not my forte` but I bought it for his birthday quite some time ago.

3838

Yeah my mate has a lot of contacts in the industry and was mainly referring to shifting enclosed trailers, none of that flat deck stuff.:+1:

I originally started way back in 1991/1992 with twin steer UD Tankers/18 Speed RR Manual and worked through to my C class license in the years follow driving multiple combination Prime Movers in the Farming/Cattle industry.

The Government changed the licensing system all those years ago to the current MR/HR etc system, but the Mail failed to reach me as I was out in the middle of nowhere when that all happened, so my licence was demoted to HR without me even knowing.:face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

Yeah @RokSolid , a few companies around that do Automatic licensing, but I wanted to keep everything to my current Manual open class, as that’s what all the employers around WA are chasing.:+1:

3839

Mmmhmm Auto is fine as long as you know how to drive it. As they are still a road ranger mostly depending on model.

You don’t just put it in drive and forget about it.

Even new tractors like dear johns I’ve driven. They have the auto button so it’s supposed to do it itself. Doesn’t go good at all when you got to charge up a dirt big hill it will shit itself. Ask me how I know.

Manual overide, spool up to max engine hp revs, keep that gear, diff locks engaged, then you make it. Then on the downside you keep that gear so it doesen’t upshift and runaway on you with a 60ft twin disc plow chasing you down :rofl: :v:

Use the engine braking, hold the gear. The modern tractor computer shit can’t seem to figure it out and just fly through gears and look out fence. Bloody 450HP Stieger going sideways over a big arse hill.

Fuck that, manual overide.

Then oops got to pull up in another situation. Wheel fell off the plow. Hmm problem boss. Wheel Bearing shit the bed. :rofl: fun and games. Why are you fucking stopped, wheel fell off, ah ffs. I said calm down get a new wheel bearing in and I’ll fit it no worries. Or you really will be cross if I drag this wheel less fucking thing around the paddock haha

Another time the whole district lost power for a couple days. Turns out a worker seeding in a big dear john 600hp tractor fell asleep as had auto steer gps on.

Went straight through a concrete and steel power stobie pole in the middle of the paddock.

Hmm, that’ll do it :roll_eyes:

Another time a farmer friend was chopper chaining. Called me up, c’mon jump in the Ford New Holland dicky seat for a spin 600HP. Ok, auto steer, GPS. 120ft chopper chain on behind. I was looking back.

Hey mate there’s a 3ft strip it’s not lining up. Oh shit you are right too. Pulls up trying to reset the GPS. No go. He said fuck this shit after an hour of trying to get the GPS auto steer going again, I’ll drive by hand manual. There we go that’s better. :+1:

When the crop gets going have a bit of a laugh later, big strip through the paddock. What happened there. That’s the runway to land the plane doing crop inspections :rofl:

3840

Not sure how the WA vs QLD rules are, but since I had a manual HR, doing the MC in an auto still retained the manual side of it. But then, I think QLD is also the only state that lets you do any truck license in an unloaded truck, which is a bit stupid as you will likely only be driving a truck unloaded either half the time or rarely depending on the work

3841

Interesting and state differences, when doing my MR manual I have to be near fully loaded.

So up to 10t load I’m licensed to do, had 8t of concrete blocks on the training truck so you get a feel for the weight, slower take off, extra braking distance etc you know what I mean.

But in the MR class I can do twin axle, you do manual which I did and it covers auto.

Otherwise if you just do Auto, you can’t drive a manual. Not allowed. Illegal. I needed manual as that is my truck is manual. Only 6 speed synchro. As it’s bit old International 5T flatbed same as the UD Nissan when they did a collab.

I thought about doing MC for a bit when things were getting grim, which is still an option for sure. But you have to train on b dubs here and do a hill start on manual RR with 2 full trailers loaded with concrete blocks to get the weight effect.

The farm dump truck, good luck trying to find a gear in that! I love driving it through the paddocks on private property. Old Commer 354 perkins 6. 10t tipper, it hauls ass in a big cloud of black smoke. Goes near anywhere. Cab’s fucked on it, windscreen fell out hit me on the head one day but what do you want for $1200.

That Commer is hilarious to drive, sink the slipper in to it and go roaring over a hill in a cloud of black smoke with 10t of grain on board. Always puts a smile on my dial. :rofl: :+1:

Took my ex girlfriend for a spin in it, she was giggling her head off. Let’s go check the sheep in a 10t dump truck haha