Cleary Bros. has a long history dating back to 1916 when company founders John (Jack) Cleary and his two brothers established a timber-getting transport business with a significant presence along the New South Wales South Coast.

Under Jack’s leadership, Cleary Bros. (Bombo) Pty Ltd, as it was known, evolved to offer project management and services to the civil construction industry. And when Jack passed away in 1958 his four children, John, Jill, Denis and Brian took over the reins and continued to drive its growth.

Today Cleary Bros. is overseen by Denis as its Chairman. Many third and fourth generation family members remain involved in the business at various levels. Despite being a major player in the construction industry, Cleary Bros. maintains its family values approach, delivering quality service with first-class equipment to every client.

Sadly, Denis’ brothers and sister Jill have now gone – Jill in 1985, John in 2003 aged 71, and Brian (Denis’ twin) seven years later in 2010 aged 70.

Brian’s son Brett is a director and executive manager, responsible for overseeing the Group’s day-to-day operations, and for the development and improvement of the systems that the Cleary Group has in place to deliver its products and services. He works closely with the Divisional Management team to ensure client’s needs are achieved.

Jill’s daughter, Denise, is also a director and executive manager, with responsibilities as chief information officer.

Workin’ the dog

Denis Cleary says Mack has been an integral part of the Cleary operation since 1947, when his father Jack purchased as new, an ex-army spec NR with a canvas roof. It has been restored in-house and these days rests hued in company CB Yellow, and in pride of place at Cleary’s private museum.

A young Bill Simpson went to work for Jack Cleary in December 1950 when the company had just five employees and the truck fleet consisted of a couple of Internationals and NR Macks. He then worked for Cleary’s in total for 22 years, having a couple of breaks at other jobs in between. He initially drove an NR, which had a 6-71 GM and a five-by-two transmission, and says, “it thrived on heavy work”.

In 1964 Cleary’s purchased a brand-new B61 Mack, and Denis tells us it was the only B61 they ever owned. “We bought it for heavy float work, in particular moving ’dozers to different work sites.” He continues, “It did a lot of work in a lot of places and back then it was the only decent truck to buy for our type of heavy-duty operation”. 

We were also able to track down the ‘young’ Bill Simpson who had just celebrated his 93rd birthday, and he came along with his wife Jean, for the photo shoot of the recently restored B model, and to tell us first-hand about ‘his’ B61 Mack.

He was as sharp as a tack, with a sense of humour to boot. He also brought along the glasses’ case containing the very sunglasses he wore on that day in mid-1964 when picking up the B61. He asked Denis Cleary if it would be okay to leave them in the glovebox of the truck – Denis smiled and said, “of course”.

He says he was delighted when in mid-1964 he got the job of picking up ‘his’ brand-new bogie-drive, naturally aspirated 711cu.in. (11.6L) 210hp prime mover, with a five-by-four two-stick Quadraplex transmission, from Sydney’s Mack dealer, Truck Sales and Service in the southern suburb of Taren Point.

He now had to master the B model’s two gearsticks, the NR had two also, but it was much simpler with only (five-by-two) 10 forward ratios. He now had to shuffle more ratios – five-by-four, but using only 18 of the 20 slots in precise progression, but not necessarily in the exact numerical order. Bill was a natural and enjoyed the mastery of the challenge, but says he thought it a great way to give up cigarettes if you rolled your own – saying, “In order to make your gear selections clean, the engine revs had to be precisely at 1700rpm – so when climbing Mount Ousley out of Wollongong when fully loaded, and the engine spinning at 2300rpm, I’d be rubbing tobacco between my palms and have a cigarette paper glued to my bottom lip, then the bloody revs would start dropping with the tacho-needle heading towards 1700, and I knew if I didn’t make the shift at that point, I’d be in trouble, so the only course of action was to drop the tobacco on the floor and grab hold of a gearstick – I soon opted to tailor-mades.

“The B-model with its air-starter was a real ‘hit’ in my street in the Wollongong suburb of Coniston, when I’d start work in the early hours of the morning. To appease the neighbours and keep the peace, I fitted a silencer to it, which must have helped somewhat, as the neighbours would then wave and give me a smile”.

As the driver of a B61 Mack back in the 1960s you were ‘King of the Road’ – it was a sort of status lift to be sitting in the light-green hued cab interior with two gear-levers sticking up out of the floor, and looking along the bonnet at the backside of a chrome-plated bulldog, on this burly North American-built thoroughbred from Allentown in Pennsylvania. 

Bill tells us, “The top speed was 53mph (85km/h) flat out, and if travelling to Brisbane from the Illawarra I would stop overnight at Willow Tree and get as far as Tenterfield for an overnighter on the second day, then into Brisbane on day three”.

He says he treated it like his own, driving it for six years, until the company moved him to a position in the office.

The B-model you see on these pages is that very same truck, which was decommissioned in its final days working as a water cart in 1990, and then had stood for some 26 years, before finally being restored over a part-time three-year period by Cleary’s talented paint and panel workshop team at Bombo, under the leadership of foreman John Caruana, a Cleary employee of 32 years.

The B-model is red in colour because the fleet was basically that colour back in those days. They progressively changed to yellow during the late 1960s when the company became involved in the concrete business and wanted a colour for its agitators that would give them greater profile in the industry and stand out from the crowd. In line with that decision the entire fleet was rebranded in CB Yellow, which is its own colour, not Caterpillar Highway Yellow. However, the B61 remained its original red for sentimental reasons. 

The mechanical side of the restoration was carried out by the other crack Cleary team at its Albion Park workshop, with a reconditioned replacement engine fitted as well as
a meticulous inspection of worn brakes and running gear that were either replaced or reconditioned. Having written about and photographed a couple of other Cleary rebuilds over the years that have appeared in this publication, I’ve got to say, the care taken and the quality of the workmanship by both of Cleary Bros.’ workshops is nothing short of first-class, these guys are true craftsmen and a credit to the company.

Cleary Bros. (CB) has traditionally been a user of Mack trucks from its early days operating utilitarian NR models, to the B model, R model, the CH, Vision and Trident models in tipper guise, Value-Liners, Metro-Liners and 8x4 MCR in the diverse agitator fleet – using Titans for heavy haulage work. It currently has a total of some 120 trucks in its fleet ­– the Bulldog motif riding on about 40 per cent, with the balance a mix of Western Star, International, KW, Sterling and Volvo.

Cats on the prowl

Denis and his twin Brian, cut their teeth in the field, learning the business from the ground up, by operating heavy earthmoving equipment – in Cleary speak that translates to Highway Yellow Caterpillars. 

Doin’ the two-stick shuffle

Whilst the writer never drove a B-model Mack, I did have a deal of experience driving an International F1800D, when I wore a young man’s clothes. This model Inter had a two-stroke GM diesel – when on full noise the high-pitched vibrato was but music to my ears (ay what did ya say) and would make an angel weep.

The transmission was a five-speed main box backed up by a three-speed auxiliary (joey) box, both non-synchro the same as a Mack. Although that calculates to 15, there were only 10 usable progressive selections, to climb through in a smooth and orderly fashion.

Unlike a Mack Quadraplex which has the two gear leavers sitting basically side by side out of the box, this enabled a good operator to make a couple of compound shifts using one hand to palm both levers at the same time, but the majority of compound shifts were transitioned using both hands. The Inter however had two separate boxes, so the two levers were not as close together, therefore you used the left-hand to shift the main box and the right for the joey on a compound shift, while steadying the steering wheel with your right arm near the elbow. 

Remembering both trucks didn’t have synchromesh boxes, so the revs had to be spot-on in order to make a clean shift – a dry double clutch when going up in ratio in either main or joey and a blip of the throttle to harmonise the input and output shafts in either box when choosing a lower ratio. For the uninitiated, neutralising both boxes at once was a complete no-no, as there was no way you could then engage a gear unless you stopped the truck.

The D7 Cat sitting on the float behind the then Cleary’s red fleet coloured B61, was operated by Denis when brand-new in 1957 – he was only 17-years-old. It was the first model with hydraulic controlled track tensioning. He says, “I’d been behind the controls of earlier model Cats, but this was something else, I really enjoyed its ease of operation and response”. He continues, “The new hydraulic track tensioning system was a boon, as it was much easier to adjust than the earlier type, which required the operator to swing off the end of a long bar in order to manually adjust the tension (loosen). When operating in sand for instance, it would give the tracks greater adhesion, such as you would lower the pressure in rubber tyres when operating on soft, loose ground. Then to re-tension the tracks for better traction-control on hard and rocky surfaces, you’d have to swing off the bar again, but this time to tighten the tracks. With the new system you’d pump grease into a grease nipple that in-turn actuates the hydraulics in order to increase the track tension and when decreasing the tension, you just had to loosen off a bolt so as to decrease the pressure for soft ground work”.

*Jim Gibson

Check out our Cleary Bros. Museum  footage here: https://bit.ly/clearybros