Feature Truck for Spring 2003

 

 

1955 KENWORTH

by Terry Klenske

 

This 1955 Kenworth truck ended its work career hauling an aluminum tanker body working as a truck and trailer for Ventura Transfer.  During its entire life as a top loading tanker, it pulled a 2-axle pull trailer with a combined diesel capacity of 7500 gallons or a gasoline capacity of 8400 gallons. 

 

It originally had a 220-Cummins, 8000-series 5 & 3, and SQW rear-ends.  Today, except for an NHRS 320-HP engine and Jacobs brake, the specs remain the same.  The aluminum frame rails do not have a single weld or repair to them.  The rear-ends have been rebuilt and ratios changed from 5.23s to 4.88s in order to increase road speed.  Top legal speed in California in 1955 was 45-mph.  This truck was then geared for 55-mph, but now travels at 60-mph in 4th-over at 1900-RPM.  This allows it to run with the balance of our restored antiques.

 

A unique feature of this truck is its torsion bar suspension.  It provides a very smooth ride and was popular with tankers.  On the other hand, this suspension was scary to drive with high-profile loads, such as vans loaded with lettuce.  The 19-foot flatbed is the same length as the original 4,000-gallon tanker body.  In hay-hauling service, it could legally pull up to a 32’ three-axle pull trailer.

 

This truck drives and rides like a car.  If it had an automatic transmission and power steering, you would easily forget where you were.  I drove a truck as a tanker identical to the "before" version of this truck.  #74 belonged to V.B. Morgan of Paramount, California (located near Long Beach).  I worked it out of the Cal-Nev pipeline terminal at Colton, California on a volume tender (lease) to the Union Oil Company of California (now Tosco, previously Unocal).

 

Morgan hauled all the Mojave Desert Pump-off deliveries to aboveground storage tanks.  These also included many of the Union’s older, smaller, and slower-to-pump-off bulk plants, including Barstow, Coachella, Corona, Elsinore, Hemet (a good one), Ludlow (on Route 66) and Needles.  Needles was a 442-mile round trip, mostly on old Route 66.  Hard running for a 220 to make in 12 hours, including 1.5 hours pumping-off.  But it was just a typical shift’s work for me or my partner Gale English.  We nearly always completed our dispatch in exactly 12 hours so the other driver could have his turn.

 

 

Now a little bit about the truck’s owner, Terry Klenske,  by Don Hays.

 

Terry Klenske is the owner of Dalton Trucking, located in Fontana California.  Dalton is a large successful company that operates oversize equipment over the western states.  The company also runs many bottom dump trailers and flatbed equipment. 

 

Terry currently serves as President of the Hays Antique Truck Museum and as a Board Member for the American Truck Historical Society.  He is also the major force behind the ATHS national convention being held at the Fontana Raceway on May 27-29, 2004.

 

 

 

 

 

Feature Truck Archive  |  Top