Brian Horrell’s 1923 Dennis

The Edendale Crank Up day was a great event. There were mainly tractors and a sprinkling of old trucks as well.

The one that stood out was a 1923 Dennis, which is currently being used as a camper. The back is set up with bed, cooker, etc. and covered with a canvas canopy just to finish it off.

The old Dennis belongs to Brian Horrell and it was his father’s truck. It was sitting under a tree, and he decided to restore it. He said the engine was going at the time but was really tired, so he put a new set of pistons in it and it runs as good as good now. His father put twogearboxes in it and used to have an artic on the back of it that shifted 8 ton International TD9 Bulldozers. That was in the 1930’s when he first started contracting. The two gearboxes gave it 16 forward gears, and the engine would have been around 46hp.

After the truck finished as an artic, they put a tray on it and it carted hay and Lucerne. Brian says the odd bale of hay would fall forward and bend the bonnet.

One of the noticeable things about this truck is the brass hinges around the bonnet and the brass bonnet clips, which make it look quite sharp. He said she’s got a magneto, a self-starter and a wet clutch, which runs in oil, and a vacuum brake system.

It was very modern for its time. Brian says that Bill Richardson told him that the Americans were actually about 10 years behind the Dennis Company in technology. They took one back toAmerica to copy the worm –drive diff as they still used chain-drive right up until 1930.

When his dad put the second gearbox in he just moved the backend back a bit and drilled in extra holes in the chassis to accommodate it. The second gearbox has since been taken out and the diff put back in its original position.

On the top of the radiator there’s a heat gauge. The Lucas lights were factory and were powered by a generator charged battery that was also factory in 1923.

The engine has overhead valves and a lot of aluminium components. The original 4-bladed fan has two of the blades removed. When it pulled bulldozers it used to overheat, taking two blades off stopped it overheating. The gearbox has a little compressor for pumping tyres up, a lot of trucks of the time had that option.

Prior to his father having it, it started life as a fuel carrier and it carried sixteen 44-gallon drums of petrol from Milton to Invercargill, and also 45 cases of petrol (two 4-gallon tins in each case).

In the cab is the petrol tank and the fuel gauge is a long “wire” with a float on the inside end. There’s a speedo that also recorded the miles, but only went up to 99,999. Brian said he didn’t know how many times around the clock it had been, it’s currently sitting on 00,827.

It took Brian 10 years to bring the truck up to its current condition, she still gets a warrant, and she can be seen around the shows in the Southland district. Brian thoroughly enjoys the old girl, and it’s an absolute credit to him.

Taken from an article in theApril 2014 issue of Truck Journal

Sent in by Brian Horrell

[and kindly typed up by Donna North]