Can anyone identify this RAAF crane

[JFL]

Thanks for the welcome Rick.
I worked for Rickeys in Ballarat over a period of 11 years,. Besides the CMG crane He had two fwd's ,one was a crane and the other carried a drill rig , a cletrac tug , a dukw, a Mack (e model I think)a k10 international and the pride of the fleet, a 604 federal.All of these were operational and there were many more trucks that were not in use. After the death of Huey Rickey everything was sold at auction , including sheds full of new spares brought from the post war auctions in Darwin. After that I worked for Bob Davies, also in Ballarat, who had a number of Ford blitz cranes. Some time later I was mining in north west NSW and part of my plant was an NH Mack, which is now located in Broken Hill .

[motto]

Back in the 70's there was one of those huge cable operated cranes in a yard out towards where Melbourne airport now is (Tullamarine). I was more interested in the truck it was attached to, a GMC 6x4 which is a rare vehicle in this country. It was originally a hard cab but had the roof cut off similar to the one in the photo. From memory it was all cut up and scrapped where it stood.
There is a similar crane attached laterly to a Studebaker US6 just south of Coober Pedy where a fellow intended quarrying red granite. He was lifting a rock with it that he estimated at about 20 tons when the 4 inch diameter solid steel axle broke off next to the wheel bearing. Strangely enough he had a spare axle assembly for it.
JFL, I have Hue Rickey's M2 Cletrac. He had two in fact. He broke a track on the one he was operating and bought another one with a broken track to get the remaining track from. John Bellfield got that one, I got the one he had been using.
David

[lynx42]

Its about time you joined MLU David.
Welcome, It's good to see your finally part of this great WWW forum. You have plenty to share I'm sure.
regards to Maggie
Rick

[motto]

Thanks Rick.
I'm still battling with the technology so enter with some trepidation. Besides, I've always held that your better to keep your mouth shut and look a fool than open your mouth and prove it. I'm better at listening.
Cheers

[motto]

Having read right through this thread again, it seems that not much is known about these larger airfield cranes be they atached to GMC, FWD or C60X.
I must confess that when I was looking at the one on the GMC 6x4 near Tullamarine I had no idea whether the crane was military or civilian. There was nothing to tell that from. Gradually over the years I became aware that it wasn't just a one off. It would also seem that they don't exist anywhere else on the planet so they must be a home grown product.
The questions remain:- Where were they built? Who built them? Was there more than one manufacturer? How many were built? Is anybody attempting to preserve one? And the fellows that knew these things are dying off fast.
That should be a tasty morsel for an archive excavator to chew on.
David

[JFL]

Motto, Yes I remember there was another cletrac in the symons st yard. In the later years Huey would not let us move the cletrac because he was afraid the cables in the tracks would be rusted and break. As I wrote before I have no idea who built the cranes, But it certainly wasn't Letourneau, They had their own lift and carry crane design which was completely different.There was a Touracrane at Rickeys quarry . One possibility is Garwood, apparently they built a lot of machinery outside their usual fields during the war years.

[Goncalo Mendes]

Other truck mounted crane photo:

source:http://www.allappys.com/Intakes/8trade/RSTT.html

I would like a lot to build a model, anyone has found some more info about them?

G_Mendes