|
j John Klinac has always admired Mack Ultraliners so when he had a chance to purchase one he didn't hesitate. In fact, he likes them so much that he just wanted one - irrespective of whether it worked or not! Since that day he has made remarkable changes to his Mack setting in motion a transformation from when it started its working life. XT caught up with John on a wet autumn night to see this elusive Mack for ourselves. |
 |
 |
 |
XT: So John, can you tell us how you came about owning this truck and a little on it's transformation after you purchased it?
JJ: "I had my eye on the truck for a couple of years, one because I new the first owner -Mike Moselen who had passed away with cancer and the other it looked a nice unit on the road when Bonney’s owned it. When the opportunity came up I thought it would be a great unit to put my own touch to. So in winter when things weren’t so busy I managed to do most in the shed at home so it is nice to have it looking okay in respect to Mike.
When the truck was new it originally had a 300 VMac motor and was a fuel tanker in Whangarei. I purchased the truck off LW Bonney and Sons in May 09 as cab and chassis. The truck runs a Series 60 450 with 18 speed Mack box. This was put in for Bonney's by Transmission & Diesel in Auckland, they did a beautiful job.
I stripped the cab completely and redid the upholstery inside. Remounted exhaust and air cleaner and proceeded to sandblast the chassis. From there decided to shorten into a 8 wheeler tractor unit, sliding back bogey up to 5.5 wheelbase, this gave it the right measurement for quad trailers.
The gearbox had been rebuilt just before purchase so checked out diffs to make sure everything was good. Went through past records supplied by Bonney’s to find main call out was for lack of air to start, so decided to get rid of the air start and go with electric starter and has fixed the problem.
After painting the cab and chassis I looked around for guards and turntable and found everything I wanted at Cavanagh’s Truck Wreckers in Te Puke. Bill Cavanagh was excellent to deal with and we managed to get guards, tanks, turntable and mounting bracket from him in excellent condition.
Graphic artist Brad Walters from Whangarei did the bulldog graphics on the cab doors. The process then was to get everything fitted and looking right. Fitted a set of off-centre rims to front, still running the same tyres, which set if off. I then put it to work in March ’10 pulling a quad wine tanker for Fluidex Transport doing runs to the South Island in the grape season. Other than doing a turbo on the first trip, it ran faultless after that.
After the wine season I came up with the idea of adding a sleeper box. We took a mould off a MH sleeper cab that was sitting unused in a yard up here, leaving out the rear window, side vents and making the locker doors slightly smaller. Put the existing grab handle off the slimline onto the side of the box which I think looks better.
Painted the sleeper to match and got Brad to do the eagle on the back and then glued it to the existing cab. Have used the rear window of the cab as access into sleeper. This addition has improved riding 100%
and also reduced road noise. Also very handy during the 2011 wine season. Tare weight of the unit now is 9300kg."
A special thanks to John and Shelley Klinac for sharing their story and providing photos of the truck's build in progress. Thanks also to Simon Vincent for his photos.
Collage photos and tanker photo provided by: John Klinac
Day photos: Simon Vincent
Night photos: Dominic Teahan
