VG Nash & Sons Commercial Vehicle Services

30/03/2026

Back in the lanes!

We found ourselves back in the cart-tracks of the Essex Countyside recently.

This laden truck had some difficulties navigating around some road closures and took a wrong turn resulting in it sliding into a ditch approximately half a mile into a bridleway. Huge trees overhanging and the lane becoming even narrower prevented the truck making it's way out under it's own steam, not to mention the terrain.
Our trusty 4x4 bedford TM, equipped with twin boom dominator, was the only tool for the somewhat confined job!

10/03/2026

Back on our favourite work to kick March off.
This excavator found itself in difficulties working around some deep excavations and a lot of of mud.
Despite being only a reasonably small machine, these can still be tricky and put up a fight when extracting from bogs. Fortunately this one was reasonably straightforward and didn't make the oshkosh sweat too much 😎

20/02/2026

February 2026 🗓
We're back to our features.
For February, We're taking a look at our flagship, our Kenworth T800 ROTATOR.
Despite exempting itself from our "Built not bought" obsession, this truck benefited from quite a bit of refurbishment from ourselves before officially joining the fleet.

The Kenworth is a 2006 model T800 and is a factory 'Miller Spec' truck, meaning that miller industries (the recovery equipment manufacturer who built it) specificied the truck especially for the job right from factory, to ensure it had Dual chassis rails, 9.5 ton front axle, Lift and steer pusher axle to name a few.

She's Fitted with a Miller (century) 1075 rotator and Euro Underlift, complimented by every available extra. Powered by a 15 Litre Cummins engine which is coupled to an 18 speed Fuller transmission.

The truck joined us 5 years ago and underwent a substantial strip and refurbishment followed by a vinyl wrap before going to work.
It's not out on the road all day every day, but when it does go out, it's usually doing something interesting!

24/12/2025

As we wind down for Christmas 2025 and enter a new year, Phil & Sam would like to express their gratitude and best wishes to Customers and suppliers. Here's to a Happy Christmas and prosperous New year.

In other news, for 2026's calendar, we have chosen 'Help For Heros' as our Charity to receive donations raised. We have a limited number of our Custom calendars which we are asking a minimum donation of £5 for. We're hoping to avoid too much postage but please message us if you're a million miles away and are unable to make it into our office to collect your calendar, but otherwise, please feel free to pop in during office hours.

Once again, Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

19/11/2025

We found ourselves back in the slop this week. This time rescuing a smaller excavator but nonetheless, still well stuck. Despite being only an 8 ton machine, the amount of winching effort required to move and salvage a machine like this from it's situation is still substantial. The Oshkosh is an ideal tool for these jobs, it sits on a relatively light footprint over all 8 tyres and with it's central tyre inflation system, it's capable of getting about in the most challenging situations.
This particular job was several hundred meters off the hard standing and across very wet and soft mud. The Oshkosh is equipped with dual 55,000lb hydraulic winches which exit the vehicle fairly high-up at the rear, making recovery of these imobile excavators much easier, owing to it's ability to "steer" them out from side to side using the twin winches.

18/11/2025

In this month's episode of "Built not bought" we share some photos and information on our 4x4 Bedford TM.

We purchased this truck as a direct ex-military vehicle with a whopping 9 thousand kilometres on it's clock. We sourced the equipment, a Bulldog Dominator 25, which is a British-built licenced version of the famous Holmes 750. The Dominator is fully Hydraulic as opposed to mechanical PTO drive like the Holmes. Once adapted to fit, we set about mounting it, making the hydraulics work and installing the additional rear hydraulic stiff-legs. The recovery bodywork required some refurbishment and the cab needed a paint job. With the exception of the making of the additional equipment lockers, the entire project was carried out in-house, from the paintwork to the hydraulic hoses.

The truck has proved itself self time and time again and is definitely worth it's weight in gold in the narrow lanes of the Essex countryside.

22/10/2025

Last month we posted a little feature on our Oshkosh and it's modification journey with us, along with some pictures of it in action.

So, for October, here's another one of our "Built not Bought" trucks. Admittedly not entirely done "in house" and once again, thanks to some help form friends in the industry, take a look at our Scania R620.

The truck started off life as a 150t Heavy Haulage tractor unit. Once purchased, the truck was sent away to have the chassis extended. This isn't as simple as it used to be. One cannot simply chop the chassis and weld a section in. It has to be done correctly and to a Manufacturer's standard, followed by substantial paperwork.

Once extended, the truck went off, along with it's predecessor, a Volvo FH16, to have it's equipment removed, refurbished and mounted. The truck carries Boniface Recoverer equipment with the upgrade of Sidewinder side winching legs.

Attention to detail is everything with the re-mounting of used equipment. The hydraulics were all renewed including all the hydraulic cylinders. Major pins and bushes renewed along and extensive preparation for protective paint in the important places.

Then came the bodywork. The locker body system on this truck is stainless steel, meaning that it's exempt from rust! Substantial modifications were carried out to suit the new truck and a total re-work of the electrics and lighting etc.

Once completed, cosmetic paint work was carried out in-house before the truck went to work.

This truck has been a fantastic asset to our fleet and continues to serve us every day after 8 years of flawless service.

03/10/2025

We were recently tasked with the recovery of this 32t concrete mixer which found itself on it's side and head-first in a ditch.

Concrete mixers are notoriously top heavy and require care and attention when driving. This applies to the recovery of such even more so.

With circa 20 tons of wet sloppy concrete in the drum, the lifting and lowering procedure is quite a responsibility. The concrete usually sets hard in the drum by the time the emergency services have finished doing their bit and recovery is underway, making the counter- weight nobody's friend, not to mention the drum's future!

Our kenworth with it's Miller Industries 1075 Rotator is usually selected for this kind of job and can be seen here working with our Scania. These 2 have worked side-by-side on this kind of job numerous times and we're incredibly proud of both of them.

Note: if you know who's mixer it is, please refrain from telling the whole world on this post, we take great care to keep discretion when it comes to customers' business and misfortune

16/09/2025

We've previously posted some jobs that have favoured the use of our Oshkosh heavy winching unit, which have often brought about quite a lot of interest, so we thought we'd share some information about it and it's transformation.

Our Oshkosh is a year 2000 model 'M1070' and was entirely American built, for the US army. It's constant 8 wheel drive, with fully locking Diffs and features a V8 2- stroke Detroit diesel 500hp engine coupled to an Allison automatic transmission. The truck is fitted with 2x 27 Ton Hydraulic 'DP' winches (again, made in America) originally for the purposes of pulling stricken Tanks onto it's trailer.

Since joining us, with the help of some friends in the industry, we have carried out extensive modifications to adapt the truck to suit the life of Extreme off-road recovery and heavy plant debogging. The frame on the rear is part of another Military vehicle and has been adapted to suit and is demountable. It includes large hydraulic ground anchors to stabilise the vehicle while allowing the winches to be routed to the rear of the truck.

Some further standard features of the Oshkosh include rear axle steering which helps with manoeuvring and Central tyre inflation which allows the operator to automatically set all the tyre pressures from inside the cab to suit the terrain and maintain the best ground pressures.

13/07/2025

We found ourselves helping out with a slightly different form of emergency rescue. When a prom goer was let down last minute, there was only 1 thing for it 😎

20/06/2025