Randwick SL31 – My Truck

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• published: 20 Dec 2015
• views: 2343

For almost two years I’ve been working for SITA as a garbo in Randwick City Council, found in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. For the first year I was the floater driver, so I was the everything guy who operated all the trucks and covered all the runs whenever others were off work, which was a valuable experience familiarising me with the contract and council. Basically exactly a year after I started in Randwick, I swapped positions with a co-worker, with him taking my floater status and me jumping into the side loader he was driving. Initially there was an agreement between us for a temporary change, but quickly after we did alter our positions, we were both happy to stay where we were, thus I secured a fulltime spot with my set run and allocated truck. This has been a long awaited opportunity for me, so it has been a milestone locking myself into what I’m doing. When I worked at Watts Waste I had my set truck for almost a year, but that was an old rear loader and was regularly used by other drivers in the daytime. In this situation the truck is of a younger age, a one armer and not something used by other drivers unless I’m not working. In addition, a few more years into waste works I can better appreciate having my own truck given some maturity and the various past experiences. I’ve always wanted to experience the current Randwick contract and get my foot in the door of a big waste company, so there’s a bit more to a milestone I’ve achieved in my trashy career. As for the truck I drive, I jump in the cab of a 2007 Iveco ACCO, with a 22m MacDonald Johnston SPORT GenV body on the back. There is a bit of significance for me with this machine, seeing that SL31 was the first GenV I ever saw and videoed when I popped down on the 6th day of the contract in January 2008. Now almost 8 years later I’m the dedicated driver behind the wheel! Although this truck isn’t as beast as I’m sure it was brand new, it’s still a mean truck to drive with a signature Cummins roar and quick worn in lifter. It has been thrashed over the years and is no doubt used to a hard life, with plenty of wear and tear visible around the truck, but 31 still goes hard and smashes the work out each day. When I originally dived into this position, I was actually driving SL84 (seen in another video) for 5-6 weeks, as I gave SL31 to another driver while his truck was off the road. Once 31 was back, I got into it for about a week, until it was also sent off for a major service and repairs, meaning I was back in 84 until my unit was returned in mid April. Once it finally came back, I was all over it for hours during the first week, getting the junk out of the cab, scrubbing the floors, wiping the dash and controls clean, gathering everything I needed and got everything organised. Then came a primary visit to the washbay where the lifter got an overdue proper clean with some high pressure water. I managed to get the truck’s appearance up to my standards and now just give it a regular interior clean and spray the lifter with an available fire hose. I’ll admit the truck was really testing me out when I first got in it, because the breakdowns and problems were endless for the first month... 3 of 4 actuator cylinders busted, a number of hoses ruptured, a grab arm snapped, grab belt broke, stabiliser arm came loose, the engine randomly stalled, some lights stopped working, the transmission fan died, a coil pack went, then there were two of my favourite GenV system faults repeatedly going off and causing dramas. Mind you 31 performed almost flawlessly for the months following, with only a few inevitable breakdowns occurring, so it has been a pretty reliable truck. It might only be a machine, but I reckon it can still sense a bit of TLC and knows the operator cares, so it returns respect and doesn’t stuff up =] I just loathe the extremely rare occasion I can’t drive it and someone else gets behind the wheel, because it doesn’t seem often a different driver is considerate of another’s truck and it’s condition. Again you may notice this is quite a long video, but note I’ve got a number of camera set-ups so it’s not always the “whole-truck-in-view” shot. If you get bored during the first watch you can always come back another time, but this might prove an easy watch with the content. I took all these clips only recently over about a fortnight, with multiple attempts for some shots and typical me capturing way too much for a single video. I had a few goals to achieve with my angle selections, namely showing a few different sides of the truck, getting some uphill engine roar, of course an in-cab, plenty of the bin lifting and I was especially focused on getting that exhaust sound. Speaking of exhaust sound, included in this video is a shot I’ve been trying to succeed with for a while now, something a Cummins ISC fan like myself should love :P