Two decades ago, Lyndon Reynolds moved to Adelaide and started building his first custom tow truck. Little did he know then that he was about to change the face of trucking in the South Australian capital. This story is about the man who immortalises superheroes on his lavish custom-built Kenworth wreckers.
Article and images supplied by Peter & Di Schlenk
The T659 with the Century 1150 Rotator Wrecker is my baby,” Lyndon smiled. It has a lifting capacity of 50-tonne with full 360-degree rotation.
It was probably inevitable that Lyndon Reynolds would one day end up owning one of Australia’s leading heavy vehicle repair facilities. After all, he’d spent the better part of his youth kicking around his father Russell’s repair shop in southern Tasmania. But venturing into the world of custom tow truck manufacturing wasn’t on the cards in the early days; that came later.
Today, Lyndon and business partner Sharon Reynolds operate Truckworks Transport and Crash repair facility conveniently located in Adelaide’s trucking hub of Wingfield. However, before opening Truckworks in Adelaide, they ran Reynolds’ Bodytech in Hobart.
Speaking with Lyndon at Truckworks in Adelaide, you quickly become enthralled with his passion for big tow trucks, particularly his love of Kenworth trucks.
20 Log Trucks
“My grandfather Ken, had 20 odd log trucks running around the island when I was kid,” Lyndon recalled. “I spent most of my spare time with him, riding in his old Holden EH ute, heading up the bush to check out how the trucks were running. So, I suppose you could say the trucking side of things was bred into me at a very early age. Both my father and uncle had log trucks as well. However, my father was a panel beater by trade. He was always repairing my grandfather’s trucks. Back in those early days of logging, they carried massive logs compared to the sticks they carry today. Often only fitting one big log per load! Single-riders, they were called. The old fellas recall some massive ones weighing up to 60 tonnes. It was real trucking on private roads where drivers had exceptional skills to handle the big loads. But, the downside to those big loads was the equipment failures. It would be nothing for them to break a diff housing clean in half.” Lyndon recalled with a chuckle.
“Eventually, Dad started a towing business,” he continued. “He had an old V8 Superliner tow truck. That thing really cracked! I loved the adrenaline rush of going to rescue trucks. That’s probably when I really got interested in tow trucks.”
All the tools are stowed in locker boxes along the side of the truck.
But times were changing in Tasmania. The Green party was starting to get their foot in the door of state politics. Like many Tasmanian truck operators, Lyndon was concerned about the sustainability of logging in the state and how that would impact their transport repair business.
“It was one of those life-changing decisions whether to go hard or go home,” Lyndon recalled. “I decided to ‘go hard’ and head over to the big smoke. I explored the major capitals on the east coast, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, but those places already had big truck repairers with extensive facilities. But, back in 1989, Adelaide, on the other hand, was more or less a one-horse town in terms of transport repair shops with no heavy under-lift trucks. So, we thought we would stick our toe in and see how the under-lift would be accepted. After 12 months, we put a second under-lift to work.
“At the time, I told the guy I’d earmarked to come over and run the Adelaide operation that he could have any truck he wanted if he’d take on the job.”
“We headed over to America in search of a heavy towing machine capable of meeting our needs,” Lyndon explained. “We returned home with a nice looking Peterbilt complete with a Miller-made Century Wrecker on the back.
“The work kept growing, and we just kept getting bigger and bigger. So eventually, I decided to bite the bullet and build a workshop here,” Lyndon smiled.
“We continued to operate our Tasmanian repair shop for a few years in conjunction with the new Adelaide premises,” Lyndon said. “But as the Greens’ stranglehold on the island state grew, the demise of the logging industry as we knew was inevitable. Consequently, we sold our Tasmanian operation and focused our efforts on our Adelaide operation.”
Interestingly, Truckworks were the first heavy truck crash repairer in Australia to install the Josam chassis straightening system.
“It was revolutionary back in 2000 being able to straighten trucks without removing the cab or pulling the engine out,” Lyndon said.
Holmes Wrecker
In 2004, Truckworks were appointed the Australian distributor of Miller Industries products. Miller is the world’s largest towing equipment manufacturer and descendants of the original ‘Holmes Wrecker” in Chattanooga, USA.
Today the modern Truckworks repair and manufacturing centre includes a low bake spray booth with multi colours straight out of the gun.
But lessons learned from those early days working with log trucks in Tasmania undoubtedly started to pay dividends when Lyndon commenced manufacturing tow trucks.
It’s not only the astatically pleasing good looks of a Kenworth that Lyndon loves, he’s more interested in what’s behind the badge. Operating a complete crash repair business, like Truckworks, means Lyndon sees first-hand what’s behind the cabin skin and under deck plates.
“You get to see how trucks are put together and what holds them together,” Lyndon explained. “Everyone thinks their truck is a piece of gold, so we must treat it accordingly. However, we have particular truck brands coming through the door, and our guys are excited to work on them and the others; we look at the truck and each other all with the same thought, ‘oh no! what a piece of junk’. But truth be told, I would much rather work on a Kenworth any day of the week.”
“Kenworth trucks are not complicated for complications’ sake,” Lyndon explained. However, take some European trucks with five different functions to achieve one result. We get to see all the makes and models here. They’ve all been on the back of one of our tow trucks at one point. Some of the computer sensors in European trucks make them extremely hard for our tow truck operators to tow. For instance, when we pick up the front, the computer dumps the air in the rear suspension rather than letting the ride height valve do its job. It adds unnecessary cost to the tow as we must pay our guys extra time to chock these suspensions to tow the stricken vehicle.”
“I love my Kenworths,” Lyndon smiled as he looked at his gleaming T659 parked outside his office window. “At the end of the day, Kenworth here in Australia have the right mix of technology in all the new models while still retaining their familiar foundation.”
“A great example of Kenworth’s evolution is the T610 models,” Lyndon revealed. As turn-key tow truck manufacturer and agent for Miller Industries, we work closely with OEM truck manufacturers, fitting out and servicing tow trucks.”
“We’ve already delivered seven specialised T610s wreckers to our customers and have a new 8×4 currently getting fitted out,” Lyndon added.
For an assembly line-built truck that meets all ADR compliance with a turning circle of 25 meters from a chassis with a 7.3-metre wheelbase is pretty good going in my book. Consequently, that has become my preferred spec platform for building our tow trucks. It’s also an easy spec to work with, as no additional chassis modification is required, like running drive axles back to extend wheelbase length.”
In saying that, Lyndon clarifies that he appreciates and acknowledges that he has direct access to Kenworth engineering as a bodybuilder, which is very important.
“We have an excellent relationship with CMV here in Adelaide, but I appreciate I have direct access to engineering at the head office in Bayswater,” Lyndon said. “They listen to me when I ask a question like, why can’t we do this? Kenworth engineers go away and think about my question then come back with a solution. You can’t do that with any other truck manufacturer. For instance, placing an AdBlue tank or a fuel tank in a peculiar place or air tanks in strange places can add to the fit-up cost for customers. Because building tow trucks is a real balancing act with respect to weight distribution,” explained Lyndon.
Road-Going Trucks
“Tow trucks are different to road-going trucks. Road-going trucks carry their load over the drive axles, and their weight is distributed over the steer axles correctly by the relationship of the distance of the kingpin in front or behind the drive wheels. On a tow truck, the load hangs off the back. Consequently, it takes weight away from the steer axle. It’s a bit like a seesaw. The truck will wheel stand if you’re too light over the steer. If you’re too heavy over the drive wheels, you’re overloaded even before you pick something up.”
“It’s a real balancing act. You need the right wheelbase and the right chassis length. The under-lift physically tries to break the truck in half when you load it up. But thankfully, Kenworth has it down pat. It’s very demanding on the chassis because you need a 7-meter plus wheelbase merely to mount the under-lift. Consequently a long wheelbase means there is a flex area in the middle of the truck. Kenworth gives us a good solid platform to work with, and then it’s our job to ensure the wrecker is up to the task when we’ve finished our bit,” he stated.
Truckworks exports tow trucks to New Zealand and supplies the local market.
