Available Manufacturing Company

td25c

Well-known member
I've worked around a bunch of Waukesha 145 OHV engines on Bucyrus-Erie cable tool drill rigs with 3' straight pipes, They do the chug, chug thing too. The only time they get revved up is pulling out of the hole. I think that is 1800 Rpm. Those things last forever.
That's exactly how the Waukesha's act in the Insley crane RZ .

I reckon they were designed to make power & pull hard at low RPM's .

The crane is actually pretty fast on winch line speed . If we are picking / lifting with it you pull the lever to lift and step on the band brake on the drum to pull the engine down to a slow " chug " :)

Sounds like 250 RPM's . LOL !
 
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td25c

Well-known member
Nice... When are you going draggin' ?
LOL RZ , good one bro !

We got the grudge match setup in two weeks . Will be " Old Roy " up against a mud filled pond of the same vintage .

Gonna be close I reckon , that pond is pretty mean but we got " Old Roy " tuned up fine & dialed in :)


Currently moved in one of the Grove rigs on a grain elevator job . Farmer called & we hauled .

Might be there for 7 to 10 day's .

Summer is gettin away from us . These cats are going to start shelling corn first of August .
 

td25c

Well-known member
Power Divider

One other interesting thing about the truck is ...... No power divider .

Nope ....... Front & rear differentials are locked all the time .

No wonder we leave black marks all over the road . LOL :D

I could actually pick up a little road speed if I yanked an axil shaft out as it's always in a bind .

That's just how they did it back then , old school Rockwell " Top Loader " rears .
 

rzucker

Well-known member
One other interesting thing about the truck is ...... No power divider .

Nope ....... Front & rear differentials are locked all the time .

No wonder we leave black marks all over the road . LOL :D

I could actually pick up a little road speed if I yanked an axil shaft out as it's always in a bind .

That's just how they did it back then , old school Rockwell " Top Loader " rears .
Are those rears double reduction (probably) or true worm drive? When I was 14 I drove this old ex logger KW water truck that was 9' across the duals... A '48 I think, it had actual worm drive Timken rears. It was plenty "scrubby" on gravel roads. Had a 220 and a 4x3 setup... I was in heaven. LOL.
Oh, It was painted Orange and still had the Crown Zellerbach lettering on the doors. Had some really old Williams charge valves for the log trailer that it pulled in an earlier life, no maxi's on the drives, just a huge Johnson bar that ran a disc brake on the rear of the aux trans. And power steering... Not.
 
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td25c

Well-known member
They are double reduction rears like you thought RZ . Just no provision for a " Power Divider " .

I'm just guessing ? ....... But I reckon a lot of trucks & Iron of that vintage was built out of leftover World War Two surplus & ideas .

I can understand that . If you were mass manufacturing something & wanted to keep it simple & trouble free .

I could see an engineer sayin back then " No need for a power divider air circuit as we just done away with the power divider " . :)


That's pretty interesting about The KW with the worm drive axils !
 

td25c

Well-known member
I'll do my best to keep him on the " High & dry " Steve . :)

Will get some mud & muck splatter off the cables but nothing a power washer wont fix .

We will have the dozer & excavator at the site as well . Two ponds to work on and some field tile to repair .


My plan is first take the dozer & cut a flat causeway around the pond so the crane has good footing to roll on .

Drag line out what the excavator wont reach , cast off & let the dozer move it out of the way .

Then finish out around the edges with the excavator .

That's plan A . It's all subject to change :D

We could do the job with just the dozer & excavator buy cutting the dam & shoving the slop out the center but that's allot of work and I don't like getting my shiny Fiat - Allis all muddy . LOL!


These pond cleanout jobs are kind of a " catch 22 " as the first thing I tell a customer is I can build a new pond on anther location for the same price as cleaning the old one out .

Customer likes the old pond and gave us the go to dip it out .

I think the Drag line will make a great equalizer for jobs like this as he loves dippin slop & tossing it out the back .:cowboy
 
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td25c

Well-known member
Yeah , very cool aircraft ! Just regret I did not get a photo the low pass he made .

We could hear it coming over the trees then all the sudden all we saw was it's belly .

Yep , they had several military variants over the years of service .

The Old Man made the comment after the fly buy " I aint seen that sense Cambodia 1970 " .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_AC-47_Spooky

Pretty wild setup with the 3 mini guns out the side !

Old Man said it was just a load " Roar " when those cats were in the air & tracers all the way to the ground .
 

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td25c

Well-known member
Oil changes in the morning for both Waukesha engines in the truck crane .

Engines use cartridge style filter , thank god the old filter had a part number on it and surprisingly parts store had them in stock !

Gonna try out some Car Quest 30 wt oil , they were running a sale on it at 2.29 a quart . I could not pass it up .:)

https://shop.advanceautoparts.com/p/carquest-oil-fluids-30w-conventional-motor-oil-1-quart-cq530/8130002-P?searchTerm=30+wt+motor+oil

Replaced all fuel lines from tank to carburetor on both engines & installed in line filters .

Pretty much winding down on the work . Time to fuel " Roy " up & head to the Drag strip / Pond . LOL !
 
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td25c

Well-known member
History

This machine has been part of the family sense the Eisenhower administration .

Uncle Howard ran it from day one when it was new until the mid 70's .

Howard was a sharp cat & had countless stories about his adventures with the truck crane .


To many to list .......

I unloaded a bell helicopter at the local airport that came in for maintenance . Snapped a few photos & showed it to Howard .

Uncle Howard said " That's pretty cool " . Then he mentioned " He got a call back in the early 70's to go up to Mitchel Indiana & off load the Gemini mission capsule at the Gus Grissom Memorial Museum " .

Pretty wild ! I aint topped that one yet .:)

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/9780

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_3

Very cool place to stay & visit when in south Indiana if ya like flying or just kicking back to enjoy the setting .

One of the few places I can go to & just take it all in and unwind a little . :)
 
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rzucker

Well-known member
Yeah , very cool aircraft ! Just regret I did not get a photo the low pass he made .

We could hear it coming over the trees then all the sudden all we saw was it's belly .

Yep , they had several military variants over the years of service .

The Old Man made the comment after the fly buy " I aint seen that sense Cambodia 1970 " .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_AC-47_Spooky

Pretty wild setup with the 3 mini guns out the side !

Old Man said it was just a load " Roar " when those cats were in the air & tracers all the way to the ground .
Years back locally we had a guy that had a B-25 that he kept on the ramp at the airport. I happened to be out there one day when he was lighting the engines off to keep them up to snuff. I got to tour every inch of that baby and gained a whole new perspective of how things were for my Grandfather in WW2. He was a flight engineer/top gunner in a B-25 in Europe. Wounded twice and shot down once, when his tour was over he re-upped as an instructor in Louisiana.
Another local we had was a C-97 transport (think B-29 with a double stack fuselage) that belonged to some "skunk works" air freight outfit, 28 cylinder radial engines... Pretty cool watching it start up and take off.
Oh... One of the ground guys told that thing burned 2.5 gallons per engine per minute on take off.
 
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td25c

Well-known member
That would have been pretty cool looking those planes over !

I love that stuff .

That's an amazing story about your Grandfather and his accomplishment's RZ . I reckon that's why they called them " The Greatest Generation " .:salute :usa

Willie59's Father also served flying in WW2 , Burma Indo / China theater . I want to say he was in a B 25 ?

Willie will pop on & set me strait if not .
 

td25c

Well-known member
Got allot done today on the rig .

Engine oil changed up and down & changed oil in the chain drive in the crane .


Replaced the shifter knob .

Piano hinge on the butterfly hood was froze tight, hood was busted loose from the hinge . We just dropped in some " hood pins " & forgot about the hinge . :)

It's handier anyway in case I got to make an adjustment quick fast . LOL !
 

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