The purchase of an International ACCO 3070 a few years back as a project truck saw the wheel turn full circle for Terry Heffer from West Wyalong in New South Wales.
Having started out on the road a tick over 40 years ago behind the wheel of a 3070, he now has one in his possession at the end of his time running up and down the highway.
Better known to all and sundry as ‘Hef’, he has been in the process of overhauling and maintaining the second-generation 1979 3070/B, which has spent all of its years in the Riverina region of NSW.
“I was looking for a 3070, and I found this one in Marrar, a little place not far from here. I went to look at a 3070 Eagle which had a bit of history behind it, but it was knackered, then this one caught my eye, it was sitting in the corner a bit sad looking with a sump full of water.
I had a yarn to the bloke and made a deal with him and that was that,” he explained.
With its last working phase around the Wagga Wagga area, the truck had been parked up with the previous owner not having the time to do it up, and purchasing a replacement vehicle.
Hef soon had the Cummins VT903 humming again once he got it home. “We put a rebuild kit in it and away we went – all we really have done externally is polish it up a bit – it’s still in its working clothes,” he said.
Terry ‘Hef’ Heffer with his International in Temora.As is often the case with trucks of the era, the 3070 has been modified over the years and today presents quite differently as to when it left the International Harvester plant in Dandenong in the late 1970s. Having been somewhat of a ‘local’ area truck, Hef has been able to track down the ACCO’s history back to its original owner.
“It’s always been a Riverina truck. I found the original owner in Deniliquin. It was a single drive but he carted grain and stretched it to put a bogie drive on it,” he said.
“They have also put S-Cams all right through it and a 15-overdrive in it also. When they rebuilt the motor they put a turbo on it and now she goes real well. The speedo starts with a ‘nine’ but how many times it has been around I wouldn’t know.”
Having run the truck bobtail to a few local shows, Hef soon sorted out the rough ride somewhat with the addition of a fridge van trailer with the aim of converting it into sleeping quarters for weekends away.
“After getting out of everything in recent years with a smoother ride with airbags and so forth you get in this and think, ‘I don’t really miss this!’ So we found the old van and got that sorted for a bit of a camp for when we go away,” he said.
To those familiar with transport companies, particularly livestock transporters of the past, the ‘Bond Brothers Cobram’ nomenclature on the trailer’s nosecone would be familiar to some, with Hef doing a bit of re-purposing when working on the trailer.
“We have recycled the nosecone. It came off one of their stock crates. A mate of mine bought a few of their crates when they finished up and took the nosecones off. We took the motor off the front of the van and plugged it up.
“I was talking to him one day and he said what are you going to do with the front of the trailer?’ I said I need a nosecone. He said, ‘Go out and take your pick’.”
Externally the ACCO is still in pretty good nick and Hef is looking at keeping the truck authentic to the period without putting too much stainless or chrome on it or loading the truck up with LED lights and so forth.
“It’s starting to get a few rust spots in all the places ACCOs get them so we will get it doctored up before it gets too bad – we will keep that paint scheme but just get it tidied up a bit.
“You can throw a lot of money at them but I wanted to keep the old-school look about this one. Our local auto-electrician in town found a heap of the old lights and lenses which replaced the ones we had which had faded. They all help keep the look genuine as to how they were back in the day,” he said.
Having put the highway days behind him and now working locally around West Wyalong, Hef will have more time to fettle the International and get the Cummins fired up more often to take to heritage shows and events, and he reckoned the trip to Wagga a few years back and the financial outlay on the 3070 was well worth it.
“Good ones are getting few and far between. There are probably a lot of them on farms either buggered or rusted out. I kept my eyes out for around 10 years and got one. My first drive was in one of these, so this is a bit of a hobby and all in all just good fun.”
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