Well it was built as an incomplete ROLLER in England, put on temporary wheels to slip through Australian customs masquerading as a tractor, to then be finished off as a ROLLER in Sydney. Then it was sent out to the council that used it all it's working life as a ROLLER. Then kids played on it in a park as a ROLLER. Then it was bought for preservation as a ROLLER in Sydney. Then sold as a ROLLER to the UK.
Sound pretty much like a ROLLER. If you have convinced yourself that the Aveling works built it as a proper tractor then you are kidding yourself. If the customer wanted a tractor it would have been built properly in the works as a tractor in the first place. I am not sure if I have seen much Aveling literature spruiking their D Type tractors. Each engine would have spent maybe 3 months in fake form while being shipped out, and would never have worked a day in their life as tractor.
How you restore it is your business and it looks like you are doing a nice job. I just don't like to see Australian engine history re-written to suit oneself. I would have thought there would be some Aveling Roller parts available over there.
I would guess all these mocked up engines had a bolt on temporary perch bracket and other arrangement for a quick completion as a Roller. You would assume the wheels were shipped back to Rochester as Noyes Bros wouldn't need a pile of hundreds of wheels, with approx. 80 DT and FT rollers sent here.
I suppose my dad should throw away the rolls from his FT and put it back to works spec as well? And all the other people with DT/FTs. They will be pumped to know they have had a proper tractor all this time!
Anyway is an interesting side line to the history of rollers built by Aveling and shows what was done to get around import duties.
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4th August 2014, 03:55 AM
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