Bedford OY's in Australia
 

Could anybody please tell me the difference between a Bedford OYC and OYD. With two provisos, I can only use the cab chassis to look for the difference i.e. there is no tray, petrol tanker etc on the chassis, AND I only have an engine number to work off, there is no chassis number I can find (have been told that these were under the step on the drivers side). So I think it comes down to possibilities like extra holes in the chassis at certain points etc will be the only way to tell. Oh yes I'm new to Bedford OY's so any help would be gratefully appreciated.

Hi, and welcome Mlombard! Do you have a name? and which part of Australia are you in? (It helps other people to open up and be more helpful to you) This is probably the most easy going friendly forum (of this type) that you could join. Enjoy!

Hi,
The OYD was the standard GS Cargo body version. The OYC was supplied as chassis cab for contractors to fit special bodies to, such as tankers, etc.
The chassis number is normally stamped on the side of the chassis on passenger side, normally behind the step or towards back of cab. Best not ot use a sander as stamping is not very deep quite often.

G'day, Matthew - welcome to the forum.

Mike

Hi All
Thanks for the welcome, my name is Matthew Lombard and live in Birdwood, South Australia, the Bedford is my latest interest, had other vehicles previously but this one was something that really interested me. I'm appealed with the history possibly surrounding this vehicle,, but at the moment just really want to know what it was i.e. OYC Petrol tanker or OYD GS Truck. Mike Cecil has been most helpful in trying to unravel the vehicles past, which is still 'up in the air'. So at the moment I'm trying to work the other way round and work out what it is.

Hi Richard
I've had some help from a chap in the UK with an OYD who told me to look under the step,, which I did, and yes I did have to sand the paint back, but nothing. I'll have another look, can you tell me if it at the top or bottom of the chassis side rail, The closer I get to where it should be the lighter I'll sand it. Thanks for the info though.

Drivers handbook no help
 

Unfortunately, the DHB is no help in the ID - they are simply marked 'Model OY', so were universal to all the OY configurations. :bang:

Matt, I unearthed a copy the other day while doing an inventory of the smaller books and booklets in the reference collection. I'll scan a copy & send via Wetransfer eventually.

Mike

The numbers are always on the passenger side (you mentioned drivers side originally) and on the vertical face of chassis member, might be back slightly from the step. Are there any other plates in the cab or engine side of bulkhead? A small plate with the words Contract No. and Cat. Ref. can be of great help if you have them. There is a chap in one of the South Australian military vehicle clubs with an OY, he is called Richmond Gregory, he might be able to help you.

regards, Richard

Hi Richard

It's Richmond's truck I have purchased, he had a quite modern tray on it which was sold off first, so I'm looking to replace it with an original style ? . Mike tells me that the references he has do list a tanker but as he said it is all very sketchy. Yes your right I did say drivers side, but I also checked the passengers side but as i is definitely the passengers side now I go back and re-examine that even closer. Thanks for the verification on this.

Thanks Mike I sincerely appreciate all your help with this, great history this :thup2:

Hi Matt,
If you have not got it, this is a 'must have' book for a Bedford enthusiast. A wealth of very good information in it and good photos.
http://www.abebooks.com/book-search/isbn/0723228752/

cheers Richard

Welcome to MLU Matt. The Bedford was mine, I obtained it from a farmer just up the road from me and passed it on to Tony L. who sold it to Richmond G. The farmer used it for a general farm truck until there was a malfunction of some sort and then they towed it around the paddocks with a tractor for carting hay. The tray which was on it was not the original but was on it when they first acquired it.

Tony L. cut a lot of rust out of the chassis, hopefully not where the chassis no. should be, but I can't remember. The Cabin also required a lot of repairs but Tony was right up his street with that.

As you know, I still have the engine here and if you haven't picked it up before July, I may be able to bring it to Adelaide. That depends on my health which is not the best at the moment.

Attachment 82407

Had a look at the engine number today it is:- OY73076

Regards Rick.

Thanks Richard, thought I knew most of the books Bart wrote/edited but this one has escaped me, yes a copy is on my list. I wonder if there is a Bedford OY register.

Hi Rick

Yes I hope to be over to collect the engine, will keep in touch. Mike did some digging for me and identified that there was a Bedford OY at Sale RAAF base in the 1940's which was listed as a tanker. I also found a list in the Victorian Police Register of motor vehicles for Bedford OY, which is interesting, but no more detail than that. Yet all the other books I have looked at such a REPCO replacement parts catalogues do not list the OY, only the K, M, and O series (this being OB and OL) and sometimes the QL. Further digging seems to indicate that several vehicles came into Freemantle and possibly Sydney on the MV empire Star as well as other refugee ships from Singapore,, some of who had vehicles loaded in the UK for RAF units sent to Malaya. And finally to the best of my (and Mike's of course) knowledge no Bedford OY's were issued to Australian forces in Australia, only in Malaya, Middle East and UK. So the mystery deepens.

Hi Matt,
It is quite possible your OY came in after the war. The weapons testing in SA brought a number of British Army vehicles to Australia and some still appear over there, both 40's and 50's types. The OY remained in British army service right up until late 50's and possibly longer as I recollect in the mid 70's in the army workshops I worked in we had a batch of OY engines to rebuild.

Bedford OY in Aust
 

Hi Matt,

I think we got our wires crossed a little: I remember letting you know that I have record of OYs in RAAF service in Australia during WW2, which is consistent with your comment that some may have been landed as refugee cargo from the 'Empire Star'. Many of the 'Refugee cargo' vehicles were absorbed by the services, and an orphan like the OY would most likely have gone to the RAAF or RAN, given their small numbers, and given that the RAAF already had a small fleet of Bedfords, that service would seem to be the logical recipient.

Mike

Mike, Thoughts loaded with scepticism flow freely in my head :)

Agreed, and there is an indication that the one(s) at Sale may have been tankers, so OYC not OYD possibly, unless the vehicles were converted locally to tankers from GS trucks, which could have been possible.

Hi Lynn your right, there is apparently some archival material in Canberra on the refugee cargo that Australian authorities initially impounded then disposed of, via a committee set up to deal with wartime shipping. It would seem that in the days and weeks following the fall of Singapore, ships were turning up all over Australia, but mainly Fremantle not only with human cargo, but their holds still full of war materials, which needed to be offloaded, and I assume replaced with food stuffs, before being sent back to, mainly the UK. So given the situation the authorities found themselves in and the desperate need for war materials in Australia, they requisitioned them and then passed them out to the various services such as the RAN and RAAF. It is known that the MV Empire Star arrived at Singapore with RAF ground units but was unable to unload fully, and by this stage Singapore was the only Allied position with reports that it's streets were awash with vehicles used in the retreat from Malaya, so possibly the priority would have been other cargo, food and ammo unloaded first. There is a photo on the net of the MV Empire Star sailing to Batavia or Australia still with trucks as deck cargo. Yes I agree that there is a degree of threading the story together, but it is pretty certain this Bedford OY is a mid 1941 production as it lacks certain features of the later OY's such as roof hatch etc, but has other features which indicate it is not early production either such as hubs for split rims on the front and the handbrake mechanism is not the early one. It all interesting stuff this.

Sorry my mistake, you did not say Sale, but there is a possibility that, give that the truck came from the Gippsland area, that it had served at Sale with the RAAF

Hi Matt,
I think you will find that roof hatch, or cupola was not added until late 1943. Does it have sling plates on the wheel hubs? The engine number that Rick C quoted sounds like a 43/44 build, also noted it appears to be painted black, in the event that it had never been overhauled this could be the original factory finish.

Bedfor Production chronology?
 

That late production would be interesting, Richard, and would throw a whole different perspective into the deliberations.

There are a couple of OY vehicles on my list with chassis numbers in the OY76XXX range which were undoubtedly acquired during the war (not post-war), but there are also are a bunch of OYD in the OY50XXX range that are certainly earlier acquisitions. Where does OY50XXX come in the production chronology? Might not be relevant to Matt's truck, but interesting from the perspective of the 'Empire Star' and possible refugee cargo.

Mike

Hi Richard, no there are no sling plates on the front hubs. Not sure about the engine, but think that Rick Cove would be the man to ask,

Hi here's some additional information I got from a chap in the UK, called Peter Mason who has a OYD and seems to know a thing or two about OY's

Early Bedford OY's
Civilian type front hubs with thin rims and tyres
Different Bush Bar
Cast Hand Brake lever
Different dash
Different instruments
Bellows type air cleaner

Late Bedford OY's
Roof Ring
Lifting Rings on Hubs

He quoted chassis no.'s 59680 to 77820 were 1941 production and this would put mine if it was chassis no. 73076 as mid to late 1941, but remember this is only going off the engine no. which rick has given, so the question is did chassis and engine no's line up, this may or may not be the case. I guess the key is to know the chassis no which I'll have another look for, and then to know the production sequence.

Hi Matt,
Not quite as cut and dried as all that. There would be very few OY Bedfords around with the civilian type wheels with twins on rear. Most were lost in France and Dunkirk in 1940. The bellows air cleaner could be found on later OY's. The year of your chassis number, assuming 73076 is correct would be 1943 as production that year was chassis numbers 68618 to 79852 (according to Bart V and he was a stickler for accuracy of facts). The cab cupola was introduced at chassis no. 78696 and another feature worth checking is to see if the top half of the cab was removable, as this feature came in to production with Chassis no. 43522.
On the dashboard, if you have a large round lighting and ignition switch in between speedo and combined gauge, then that feature came in on ch. no. 43522 (1941), this carried through to end of production.

regards, Richard

Thank you very much Richard,, this is exactly the detail I'm looking for, the more I can find out the closer I can narrow down the year of manufacture, and whether it is a refugee from Malaya or a vehicle brought in later.

Hi Mike what you have said is interesting in light of what Richard wrote later OY76XXX would appear to be 1943 production whilst OY50XXX would appear to be around 1942, and these would still be too late for refugee cargo, I think. I'm trying to source a copy of Bart's book on Bedfords which I assume is the one Richard is quoting from. I know some oddball vehicles such a Morris 15cwt came back with the AIF from the Middle East, but after that I assume all war material came from the USA or Canada, not really the UK, and half a dozen or so OY's would seem odd to ship here unless they had something special mounted on them. However if these OY's (both OY50XXX) and OY76XXX) were WWII veteran brought out for use a Maralinga and Woomera then yes that makes sense. Maybe I should run a gigarcounter over the truck!

No, Matt - the OY's I've quoted were all received in Australia during the war, so are not later Brit vehicles brought over for the Maralinga tests, and besides, the Maralinga vehicles were not migrated to the Australian register as far as I can tell.

Mike

oh ok, was Australia still receiving much British war material in the 1942-43 period, I thought most of it was American / Canadian sourced by then.

This is a good thread irrespective of any outcome for me I'd like to see if we tease out an answer to the Bedford OY's in Australia.

Hello M. Lombard,

It seems that Rick is the only person who has complied to an informal MLU rule throughout this thread. In that, photographs act just like pictures ... they paint a thousand words. :)

Could you please post up some photographs of your vehicle?

Kind Regards
Lionel