Deals on Wheels #464

Jarrod (yellow vest) may
be camera shy but he loves
getting out to work. Here he
watches a massive log loaded
onto his T900. The log can
now be seen at the bottom of
the Gibraltar Range as a sign
post, welcoming drivers
A big part of the Burgundy
workload is now carting away
the mulch. Here one of the
T909s is seen in the back
blocks of Coffs Harbour, off to
pick up a load
under the then rules for towing his six-row
platform. In order to have diff locks and cross
locks fitted the axle centre spacings were out
to 1,500mm, but the job could be done.
The final decision was bunk size though. Up
until this point in Burgundy Heights’ history
their trucks had all been day cabs. There
wasn’t a need for sleepers with the work
they undertook. The 509 was coming with a
50-inch (127cm) bunk, but before everything
started Jarrod went and checked out a couple
of other C509s that were sporting imported
60-inch (152cm) bunks.
“I looked in and looked to the back and
thought: ‘Oh yeah, that’s a good size bunk.’”
He added in that it makes sense to have a
big bunk, if you’re going to live in it you want to
have a decent sleeper.
“Also with a tri-drive truck you’ve got a lot
of room between the back of the cab and the
turntable; hell, you could have an 80-inch
(203kW) bunk.”
So a quick price check and “hell yeah,
might as well stick the 60 on then” was the
comment to his salesman. Sadly though, it
wasn’t that easy.
The factory rang Jarrod to inform him that
with the chassis length they couldn’t mount
the suspension correctly for the 60-incher.
Being the creative engineering whiz that he
is, his response was: “Well, send up the bunk,
send up the truck and I’ll fit it.”
He didn’t, though I’m sure he could have.
Instead he contacted the guys at TruckArt in
Wagga Wagga and had a chat. They actually
offered to build and fit a whole bunk for him,
so the day cab tri-drive monster went from
the factory to Wagga Wagga looking like one
of the ugliest trucks around. However I’m still
hunting for photographic evidence.
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