660b

G'day Dave, How are you? Could have sworn what we cut off the bowls were extras. Talking to purtell the other day. said to say g'day to to DUNLOP...LOL.. CYA. 4D..

I recently came across a surveyor down on Leightons road job at Holbrook who had a very nice pic of a Leighton D10 pushing a Thiess 660 at Berrima bypass. When i enquired he said he had been with these machines also at Condoblin and had a bunch of pics, he ended up scanning all the pics to disc and sending it to me, pretty hard going at Berrima by the looks of them.

Roy Davis from Earthpro in Brisbane purchased 2 660 from Hunter Valley Earthmoving last year to add to the Ex Thiess machines he has, he told me one had burnt and he had 2 working and the other 2 of the 5 were in St George somewhere and available if he wanted them.

Classic old machines and if you want to see pics of big scraper spreads like no other go to www.socalearthmovers.com

Would like to here more stories on these machines as they really are a piece of history in Australian earthmoving.

Hi, Gavin84W.
I worked with Roy Davis on a treated effluent retention basin up in Hervey Bay in 1996/97 where there were 3 of the 5 running, being loaded by a Kummagutsa D455A dozer. When they first arrived on site, they were being loaded by a Cat D8H - slowly. I was running an O&K G350 grader on that job, 42 tons and 380 hp. The grader would load those 660's better than the D8H. I know 'cos I push-loaded one one day right alongside another one being pushed by the D8H. No contest.

I worked with them again in late 1997-early '98 at Rochedale in Brisbane, Again, I was mostly on a grader, a Cat 14G with some 'slight' signs of ARRIVED old age. Again, the 660's started off being loaded by a D8H, then by a D9L and lastly by a D10N.

For a start, we only had one 660 on that job, the other two arriving later. A lot of the time in those early days, the 660 was being bucket-loaded by a Mitsubishi 300 excavator, around 24 buckets per load. The excavator would then load 3 body tippers which had usually piled up waiting while the 660 was being loaded. The scraper on its own carried almost twice what the THREE body trucks carried together.

The 660 and the trucks were dumping clay top cover on a 4 in 1 batter. The 660 was dumping diagonally down the batter with his low side wheels on the previous load to lessen the side slope but we COULD NOT convince the operator that he should not raise his apron right up when dumping. Last load one Wednesday night, he found out the hard way why we advised him to keep his apron low. The high side scraper wheel ran over a lump of clay and the whole scraper was on its side at the bottom of the batter before he could blink. It took an hour with the excavator and the D9L to get it back on its feet and up on top of the batter out of the way - late knock-off that night.

The other two 660's arrived for the start of another section of the job, along with the D10N. They were moving a topsoil stockpile from 'A' to 'B' and the topsoil was nicely 'damp'. The D9L spent a LOT of its time pushing the 660's through the dump area so they could unload.

Those other two 660's arrived on that job 'by road', on their own 6 wheels for the last four miles, from a farm where Roy had had them parked until he was told he had the contract. The traffic was a bit lighter at 6.00am.

Roy and one of his operators once 'roaded' two of them from Rockhampton to Gladstone one Sunday morning, down the highway for about half the journey until the CB radio 'publicity' got a bit too hot, then on the back roads for the rest of the way. The scrapers had to be on a job in Gladstone on the Monday morning and no floats capable of moving them were available. They were there.

At times on the Rochdale job, the loaded 660's had to climb a ramp around 5 in 1. If the water cart had so much as driven past that ramp just before a 660 approached it, they could not get traction to get up the ramp. When this happened, even the old 14G grader was usually enough to get them up, pushing from behind. A Kummagutsa GD825 grader that arrived later would get them up the ramp in fine style.

I did have to laugh one day when one of the 660's ran out of traction on the ramp. A bunch of blokes from a rival contractor on the site watched, laughing, as the bloke on the 14G - not me as I was by then on the GD825 - headed for the ramp and the slipping 660. You could see it on their faces - "What does this clown think he's going to do with that old 14G?" When 'that old 14G' got the 660 up the ramp and on to flat ground, the looks on their faces were worth bottling. I'd say their 'edumackayshun' got enlarged a little that day. Mind you, that old 14G did look like a bit like a bullant trying to push a cow up that ramp.

I haven't seen Roy or the 660's since I left that job in February, 1997.

Per RW's request:

Deas, when i enquired with Roy for some photos of the 660 he had purchased from HVE he sent through a couple and he told me he works in brickyards just out of Brisbane and i was welcome to go out and see the machines working which hopefully i will be up there in early January.

Per RW's request:

Thanks.
R W

In the first post, it states: "the chasis were crystalized". Would someone please explain that. GWH