Re: SER1 60th Anniversary

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From: Allan Harding
Subject: Re: SER1 60th Anniversary
Date: 02:31 on 16 Dec 2004

    G'Day Diana and Murray,
    Cannot let a couple of comments go as they are not quite factual. No 
offence guys.
    The first land Rovers imported into Australia were not for the Snowy 
project. At that time, each of the states had a Rover agent, Grenville 
Motors in NSW, annand & Thompson Qld. Regent Motors Vic. etc. The first 
Land Rover here (R860004) went to the Western Australian  importer and 
was sold to Great Boulder Mines. It is still in existance and going 
great guns, having recently tackled the Canning stock Route. Similarly, 
the first batches to NSW and Victoria went to non government buyers.
    The Snowy scheme was indeed the largest Land Rover fleet operator in 
the world for quite a time. There was a Rover engineer posted to the 
headquarters workshop in Cooma to evaluate performance and advise on 
modifications etc. a number of Land Rover of service bulletins eminated 
from this source. I am not certain that brake mods were one of them. It 
is true that in some cases the brakes wore very quickly because the 
vehicles were often operating in deep mud and water. The parent rock for 
this material was very hard and abrasive (the main reason for the snowy 
Mountains still being in existance). The problem was not confined to 
there (or to Land Rovers) as an aquaintance of mine was in charge of  
maintenace at the Yallorn brown coal mines in Victoria and they had the 
same problem with all of the vehicles in the pit, much of the time there 
was up to 6" of water in the floor of the pit.
    Range Rovers even suffer from the same problem when driven in mud or 
on very muddy roads all day. It has happened to me on two occasions that 
the brake pads have totally worn out in a day, and also to another 
friend who used to drive CSIRO vehicles in lots of mud (that part wasn't 
what he was researching). I will let you guess the make but they were 
generally no Rover products.
    Let us hope that the 60th ends up being in Cooma as it is the 
"spiritual" home of land Rovers in Australia.
    Cheers
    Allan



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