My 16ft Millard

[Deleted]

Hi I recently bought a 16ft Millard van cost me $1200 with out rego
not sure on the year but the gas bottle on it is stamped as 6/73 so I reckon its of that year and someone along the line has removed the original vin number but it still has the last rego sticker on the window near the door last regoed in 1980.

Here is a pic of it if you think its another year let me know.

[ForumMod]

Does it say on the rego label what the original chassis number was? It would be the letter 'M' followed by some numbers.

It could be a 1973 Millard...it's often hard to tell just by looking at them. Nothing much changed about them until 1977 when the windows became double louvre instead of triple louvre.

cheers,
Al.

[drylander]

Looks a lot like mine ...maybe a close up of the logo on the front and some inside pics could help. But just looking I would reckon 72'73 easy
Pete

[Deleted]

Aug 8, 2013 23:31:25 GMT 10 drylander said:

Looks a lot like mine ...maybe a close up of the logo on the front and some inside pics could help. But just looking I would reckon 72'73 easy
Pete

Here's a pic of the front decal

[Deleted]

Here is a couple I'd inside shots

[Deleted]

Hi Jimbo,
looks very much 1973 to me going by the colour of the woodwork,green fittings and if I,m very much mistaken the curtains look original too!
Hope this helps you a bit.
Cheers
hughdeani

[Deleted]

Aug 9, 2013 16:08:42 GMT 10 @hughdeani said:

Hi Jimbo,
looks very much 1973 to me going by the colour of the woodwork,green fittings and if I,m very much mistaken the curtains look original too!
Hope this helps you a bit.
Cheers
hughdeani

Thanks just a shame the curtains are missing for 1/2 the windows Im going to take one to spotlight and see if they can match it

[Deleted]

The vin is on the old 1980 rego label M9344

[ForumMod]

Are you sure of that number? I would expect your chassis number to have been a lot higher than 9344, which is the number they were up to in about 1968. I'm thinking your chassis number would have been something starting with a 2 or a 3, and be up in the 20,000 or 30,000 series.

I can see in one of your photos that your doors have a routered groove pattern on the doorface. I think that helps with narrowing down the date of the van, because I don't think Millard was doing this from the start of the 1970s.

cheers,
Al.

[drylander]

well the decal is the same as mine was so in the same timescale I would think though the internal layout is different definitely 70-74 time line but thinking 73 because I vaguely remember the decal changing in late 73 early 74 but Al may be more knowledgeable
Pete

[Deleted]

Well here is the pic of the old rego lable

[Deleted]

 Just did the wheel bearing in her yesterday and I wouldn't be surprised if they were the original bearings.
They had made in Australia stamped into them and the grease had gone hard in the centre
and the brake shoes had plenty of meat left on them  
Anyway I fitted new bearings and greased it all up
I need to get under her with a wire brush and clean the flaky paint of the chassis and repaint it.

[Deleted]

Where can I get the wheel arch trim pice to repace the missing one on my van?

[Deleted]

Cleaned the scaly rust of my wheels and gave them a coat if gloss black now they look like new again
What Tyres do you guys recommend I use for the van?

[Deleted]

Jimbo,go and buy a pair of 8 ply light truck tyres and put them on.
Anything else is false economy IMO.
Dont know if you can buy that wheel arch mould still though,might just have to buy everyday "j" mould.
cheers
hughdeani

[Deleted]

Aug 11, 2013 18:50:27 GMT 10 @hughdeani said:

Jimbo,go and buy a pair of 8 ply light truck tyres and put them on.
Anything else is false economy IMO.
Dont know if you can buy that wheel arch mould still though,might just have to buy everyday "j" mould.
cheers
hughdeani

What tyre size do you recomend

[drylander]

I would go for a similar size to your tow vehicle if you can. It helps to keep things level and better towing.
Pete

[youngdazza]

If I squint at your photo of your tyre i think I can make out the size as "165/75R13 81S"

The "81 S" part means that the tyre is rated for a maximum load of 462kg (see www.bobjane.com.au/info/load-index-speed-symbol). With two wheels this means that the weight of your van (fully laiden) must be no more than 924kg. I'm guessing that your van might be less than that if its empty, but easily over that figure once all the clothes, food and gear are loaded. If you overload your tyres the sidewalls can get very hot and could cause them to leak or even blow out.

Light truck (LT) tyres are usually designed to carry more load per tyre (at the cost of a harsher ride). I agree with hughdeani that new LT tyres would definitely be a sensible idea.

You might consider a 165R13 tyre such as the Bridgestone R623 which has a load rating of 94R, ie 670kg per tyre, or 1340kg in total. The only trouble is its an 80 profile tyre, which has a slightly bigger diameter than your existing tyre (18mm bigger to be exact). So before you buy, just ensure that there will be enough room in your wheel well for the extra diameter. I dont expect this will be an issue because I rekkon the original tyres installed when the van was built were probably 100 profile bias ply tyres, such as a 6.5/13's, which have a much larger diameter. Have a look at the spare tyre just in case its one of the original tyres. That will give you an idea about how big (and hence how large a load rating) you can go.

Cheers

[Deleted]

Thanks for the info, the spare is missing where is it normally located on the van
Also the tow car is a 100 series landcruiser so can't really match the size of that.

[Deleted]

The Millard I had years ago was similar to your van - and it weighed in way over the carrying capacity of the tyres fitted.

The empty weight of the van was more than the maximum capacity of the two 13 inch tyres fitted.

Keep in mind, back then there was no legal requirement for tyres to be rated to be able to carry the weight of the van - even empty, let alone loaded.

I’d suggest you empty the van of everything that’s not part of the van and have it weighed..

Allow for your personal load - say - 300 kg, plus the water tank capacity (1 kg/lt) - then go and find tyres rated to carry that load (probably 14 inch).

You will find it’s best to change to 14 inch rims and use either 185/14 LT - or - 195/14 LT - but certainly get rid of the 13 inch rims that are on the van now.

Jim

[youngdazza]

If you change the rims be sure to check that the offset of the new rim is close to the offset of the original or else you'll find it rubbing against one side or the other.

[Deleted]

Aug 23, 2013 14:16:31 GMT 10 youngdazza said:

If you change the rims be sure to check that the offset of the new rim is close to the offset of the original or else you'll find it rubbing against one side or the other.

I got
New LT Tyres for it yesterday the ones that were suggested to me

[youngdazza]

I think you'll find that if you follow Jim's suggestion - ie weigh the van when empty (should be under 1000kg) then add 300kg and add 60kg for the water, you'll be under the load capacity of the LT tyres that I suggested. Going 14" gives you more options when it comes to tyres, but it isn't required.

Cheers

[drylander]

Early Millard, Viscount etc. didn't have a place for the spare and in a lot of cases never came with one. The idea was to have wheels to match your tow vehicle so the one spare covers both vehicles. A few made a carrier for them but most relied on luck .I travelled from Shep to the sapphire fields to Bowen then to outback SA and never had a puncture but when I pulled it out of the yard for a weekend run I got a flat ...
Pete

[Deleted]

Aug 23, 2013 21:31:16 GMT 10 drylander said:

Early Millard, Viscount etc. didn't have a place for the spare and in a lot of cases never came with one. The idea was to have wheels to match your tow vehicle so the one spare covers both vehicles. A few made a carrier for them but most relied on luck .I travelled from Shep to the sapphire fields to Bowen then to outback SA and never had a puncture but when I pulled it out of the yard for a weekend run I got a flat ...
Pete

Yeah I think Im going to have to make a mount for it on the draw bar