Bonney Mack Truck "S" wrench

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Bonney Mack Truck "S" wrench

Post by Wingnutt » Tue Oct 24, 2017 4:20 am

I acquired this S-shaped DOE (1/2 x 7/16) wrench recently. It was made by Bonney in 1942 ("IT" date code), with the BONNEY logo on a face, a model number on the opposite face, the sizes on the flip side, traces of black baked enamel finish, and polished faces. All consistent with a carbon steel wartime wrench.

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As you can see, it also has a wonderful "Mack" logo embossed in the center of the shank.

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Bonney made a line of S-shaped 22-1/2* angle wrenches in a model number 75 series for many years, but this particular number (75J) and size combination cannot be found in any of the prewar, wartime, or post-war manuals. Only a 75, 75A, 75B, and 75C. That makes me think this is special order, and that it could belong to one of the on-board toolkits on one of the many (I counted twelve (12) different G designators) trucks that Mack built for the Army in WWII.

If anyone has any toolkit information on any of those trucks, or on this wrench in particular, I would greatly appreciate it.
Last edited by Wingnutt on Tue Oct 24, 2017 7:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Bonney Mack Truck "S" wrench

Post by mudbox » Tue Oct 24, 2017 5:12 am

You've been acquiring some pretty cool stuff recently.
That Bonney/Mack wrench is really neat!
-Jason

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Re: Bonney Mack Truck "S" wrench

Post by gpw_42 » Tue Oct 24, 2017 6:06 am

Not only is it cool stuff, it's know how/where to start researching it which amazes me...to me, that makes the items 10x cooler, when the research is done.

Good find, and best of luck running it down!

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Re: Bonney Mack Truck "S" wrench

Post by Wingnutt » Tue Oct 24, 2017 7:29 am

Thanks, guys. Right place right time on this one, but it is funny how everything is coming up Esses and for oddball applications! :lol: Even more coincidental since AZ Jeff and a few others guys have been looking for specific S wrenches of late. Gotta go find those threads to see what sizes and such. I doubt it was an Indian motorcycle or Mack truck though!
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Re: Bonney Mack Truck "S" wrench

Post by daveus6 » Tue Oct 24, 2017 10:44 pm

Hi Greg,

You know I can't resist a Bonney wrench.

I might yet have the answer to your Bonney/ Mack mystery wrench. In the emptiness that followed the completion of my Studebaker US6, I was on the rebound (so to speak) and purchased a Mack NM5 (yes it was the 1942 version) as a new project. There were 86 Mack NM that came to Asutralia in WW2 and used to haul 3.7" heavy AA guns and the one regiment outfitted with the 155mm Long Tom artillery pieces.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. But once I got it home (or what there was of it) it dawned on me just how enourmous those things were. To give you an idea, the average trailer tractor (prime mover in our terms) is around the 8.5 to 9 metric tonnes. The NM weighs in close to 10.5 metric tonnes and you can add the better part of another 1/2 a tonne of fuel. I have a 1994 T900 Kenworth with a double wrap chassis and rated for 115 tonne road trains and it doesn't weigh that much even with 1500L of fuel on board!

Anyway, in the Mack fever that ensued, I got the repair manual and the parts manual. The on board tool kit photo includes the S shaped wrenches you mentioned. The books are buried somewhere in my shed in a sealed box. But if you like, I'll find it and post the details of the kit and the photos.

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Re: Bonney Mack Truck "S" wrench

Post by Wingnutt » Wed Oct 25, 2017 2:32 am

daveus6 wrote:
Tue Oct 24, 2017 10:44 pm
...in the Mack fever that ensued, I got the repair manual and the parts manual. The on board tool kit photo includes the S shaped wrenches you mentioned. The books are buried somewhere in my shed in a sealed box. But if you like, I'll find it and post the details of the kit and the photos.
:mrgreen: Like it? I'd love it! I just posted a WTK ad on the Manuals board for that very purpose! See here.

This is a funny hobby.

I just got that wrench (from California!) because of its sentimental value to me. I've mentioned before here several times about growing up near Allentown, the home of both Bonney and Mack. Together with Bethlehem steel, the many machine shops dotting the countryside surrounding Allentown, the old breweries ("independent" and anything but "micro" before that became a marketing term in the resurgence here), and the coal mines in Carbon County, where my hometown was located, it defined manhood in that area, and of course, boyhood, in turn. You can imagine the thrill it was seeing the Bonney and Mack names on the same danged wrench! It didn't dawn on me that Bonny was Mack's wartime supplier until I saw that wrench, but of course it makes perfect sense. They were only a few miles apart.

And yet now I'm trying to resist thinking the inevitable: that it might have an even better home 'down under'. Your truck is like the homing beacon in the breastplate of the dismembered robot at the end of Iron Giant, lodged in the snow in the arctic, calling all the other pieces home. :)

I know you didn't ask, but I'll have to think about that.

Did you know Bonney supplied the wrenches to the toolkit? Do you have any of the other tools?

I also have to admit I'm trying to imagine the size of your property, Dave. By my count, the Dodge repair truck, the Studie, the Mack, and a modern Kenworth, at least. Do you have any "family" shots of the trucks you own?

(By the way, the Mack history site says that NM series was a G535 6-ton 6 x 6, and that the NR series was a G528 10-ton 6 x 4. Do they have their own data wrong?)
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Re: Bonney Mack Truck "S" wrench

Post by daveus6 » Wed Oct 25, 2017 3:45 pm

In all honesty (and I am embarressed to say) had no idea Bonney existed until I started collecting the tool kit for the WC-41. When I saw the Mack tool kit photos, I thought I would have no chance of finding those tools.

I would love to say that the NM is a proud (and very big) part of my collection, but marital harmony came before military vehicles (I know that is hard for many to comprehend). So the Mack went north to a fellow who lives near Gatton in Queensland. He was trying to make one good one out of three and my truck had a complete gasloine 707 cu in model EY Thermodyne (that was what was on the brass plates on the rocker covers) engine and a good drive train. It was one of those "what might have been" moments as it went out the driveway.

The Mack NM was indeed a 6ton rated 6x6 in the same class as the White and the Corbitt. But like the Studebaker 2.5t 6x6, the NM was set aside for export to allied forces. So it would be a rare sight in the USA. Out here the NMs were sold off in the 50s and were mostly bought by Electrical Power Transmission and Transfield who were the major contractors for the installation of the high voltage east coast power grid. They threw away the EY engines and replaced them with GM671 diesels. They mounted either earth augers for boring the transmission tower foundations or huge hydraulic winches for pulling the conductors in through the bush.

The NR was a 10t rated 6x4 with a Mack Lanova diesel engine and again saw service with foreign forces. There are plenty of photos of them in British service in North Africa. But they really made their fame out here in the gurelling track across the Northern Territory in Australia from Alice Springs to Darwin. This was nearly 1000 miles of dirt track in the desert where temperatures typically went above 113 degrees F in the day. They were so tough, that many pioneering outback road hauliers used them for years after the war pulling road trains behind them!

The Macks you would be more familiar with is the Mack NO 7.5t gun tractor. It was the standard heavy 6x6 in the US Army.

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Re: Bonney Mack Truck "S" wrench

Post by Wingnutt » Wed Oct 25, 2017 3:57 pm

daveus6 wrote:
Wed Oct 25, 2017 3:45 pm
I would love to say that the NM is a proud (and very big) part of my collection, but marital harmony came before military vehicles (I know that is hard for many to comprehend). So the Mack went north to a fellow who lives near Gatton in Queensland.
Praise be to God! Because I really want to keep this wrench - and I sure ain't sendin' it to somebody I don't even know! :)

PLEASE send me some photos of every toolkit page in the manuals when you can!
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Re: Bonney Mack Truck "S" wrench

Post by daveus6 » Tue Oct 31, 2017 12:59 pm

Hi Greg,

I found the Mack manuals I was after. I have the repair and parts manuals for the NM, but in the deal I also got the parts manuals for the Mack NR and EH models as well. In reviewing the tool kits, it turns out my memory was flawed. The S shaped wrenches belonged to the NR (10 ton 6x4). The NM and EH models both shared the same tool kit which had standard 15 degree DOE wrenches of exactly the same spec sizes as the MB/GPW.

So below you will see the kit and listing from the NR parts list. AND you will see your beloved little S shaped 1/2" and 7/16" pictured there. Mystery solved.

The quality of the pics isn't great - the hosting site just doesn't seem to bring them across well at all.

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Re: Bonney Mack Truck "S" wrench

Post by Wingnutt » Tue Oct 31, 2017 4:55 pm

Thanks, Dave! I really appreciate your extra effort on my behalf. Looks like the figure stops at 2306-22, but the list includes 2306-23 through 2306-35. Was there another figure showing those tools? If so, and if you don't mind, please post it. ( 'I just may try to see if I can find the others,' I say, sotto voce.)

I posted this in my Early Bird thread, but I definitely should've posted it here, too. As if prompted by the S-wrench, this hammer turned up at one of my two flea market stops last Friday! :) have never found another Mack tool in all my hunting, now, suddenly, I have two! Now I wonder if it's 24 ozs. I thought it might be 32 ozs, but I never did weigh it. I'll report back on that when I get back home.

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Re: Bonney Mack Truck "S" wrench

Post by daveus6 » Mon Nov 13, 2017 11:50 am

Hi Greg,
Wingnutt wrote:
Tue Oct 31, 2017 4:55 pm
Looks like the figure stops at 2306-22, but the list includes 2306-23 through 2306-35. Was there another figure showing those tools? If so, and if you don't mind, please post it.
There isn't another image of the rest of the tools mentioned. I'll check the NM and EH parts manuals as they may be pictured there.

You may just have to get the NR Mack to house the S wrench and hammer. I'm sure your other half would understand the need.

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Re: Bonney Mack Truck "S" wrench

Post by Wingnutt » Mon Nov 13, 2017 1:58 pm

daveus6 wrote:
Mon Nov 13, 2017 11:50 am
You may just have to get the NR Mack to house the S wrench and hammer. I'm sure your other half would understand the need.
I'd be sleeping in the truck! :lol:
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Re: Bonney Mack Truck "S" wrench

Post by Wingnutt » Sat Nov 18, 2017 12:11 pm

Well, Dave, All, believe it or not - I found another one! :lol:

See that pile of S wrenches in the center front of the table?


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I pulled this Williams "79S" (5/8 x 9/16) out of that pile.

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It's plain steel finish, it has the wartime underline script logo and FORGED <W> USA marking and dead center shank, just like the Bonney, it has the Mack brand.

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It matches wrench 2306-7, 12711, #302 "S" from the NR series toolkit list. No idea if it was really issued to the NR series truck kits any more than the Bonney, but it seems highly probable. If you look at the Williams 1942 catalog there is a big red "DISCONTINUED" notice on the page, so it wasn't made for civilians.

Here they are together...

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Re: Bonney Mack Truck "S" wrench

Post by daveus6 » Tue Nov 21, 2017 11:58 am

That is pretty amazing as I would have thought wartime Mack tools from truck kits would be something of a rarity in the USA seeing as Mack trucks seemed to be so heavily biased towards export to foreign armies or went overseas with the US military forces (lots of photos of them in the ETO particularly).

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Re: Bonney Mack Truck "S" wrench

Post by Tin Medic » Mon Nov 27, 2017 6:20 pm

Here is the newest wrench.
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