Some crawler tractor oddballs - Greenmount Press

1 Arly crawler tractors , along with allother types of vehicles, had theirshare of the unconventional, thebizarre, the freakish the oddball! Someof these idiosyncratic machines performedas capably as their more orthodox counter-parts, and indeed sometimes better. Otherswere simply engineering ineptitudes,remembered only for their E27N ROADLESSR oadless Traction Ltd. of Middlesex(UK) commenced producing add-oncrawler tracks for agricultural tractors , backin the early 1920s. Bristol, Ransome andRushton tractors each were equipped withfull length Roadless tracks. In the 1940svarious British and European tractor man-ufacturers offered the option of Roadlesshalf tracks fitted in lieu of rear every Aussie tourist to Wales soondiscovers, it always rains in the WelshUplands (well, nearly always). In responseto a particular problem experienced by thelocal hill farmers in such districts asLlanfihangel-yng-Ngwynfa and Pentre-llyn-cymmer (try pronouncing these!)

2 The FordMotor Co. of Dagenham, Essex, equippeda number of Fordson E27N Major tractorswith Roadless half wet clay soil commonly encoun-tered in these areas, made it difficult forwheeled tractors to obtain traction. Few ofthe farmers were in a position to afford therelatively high costs of a conventionalcrawler such as a Fowler VF or aCaterpillar D4. The Fordson Roadless pro-vided the answer. It was priced right, avail-able and could pull a plough across thesteep sticky soil without loss of handful of these Fordson half tracksfound their way to Australia, where theyexcelled in opening up scrub country thatwas notorious for puncturing rear exhibited at classic tractor rallies,it is interesting to note the double takes from passers by as they discover a FordsonRoadless, and then home-in for a closeinspection.

3 THE BEARCATN othing could be more freakish than acrawler tractor having an Oregon timberchassis. Yet that is precisely what heldtogether the Bearcat tractor , manufacturedby the Bearcat Company of South Bend,Indiana in the 1920s and distributed byYuba Products Company of San Francisco,California. (There was no connectionbetween this firm and the Yuba Ball Treadtractor). The strange looking Bearcat was pow-ered by a model T Ford engine (what else?)and utilised assorted Ford transmissioncomponents. One could be forgiven for68 THE AUSTRALIAN COTTONGROWEROCTOBER NOVEMBER, 2003 CLASSIC tractor TALESSome crawler tractor oddballsBy Ian M. Johnston, The tractor HistorianEA 1949 Fordson/Roadless half track restored by the author. The four cylinder side valvepetrol/kero engine of 4,380 cc delivered belt hp and on half tracks produced a6,000 lb drawbar pull at mph.

4 The unit was equipped with a three forward andone reverse gearbox. The operating controls were identical to that of the wheeledversion.(Photo )This 1923 Bearcat, owned by Lou Hanslow of Tasmania, spent its entire working life inQueensland. The wooden chassis is clearly evident. (Photo )betheinassuming this strange concoction of wood-en planks and Model T hardware added upto a homemade bitzer. But not from the prestigiousSmithsonian Institute and the Chicagobased Model T Ford Club confirm that thisoddball was commercially produced. In fact,it seems around 600 were Bearcat featured in the accompany-ing photo is owned by Tasmanian tractorcollector Lou Hanslow, who has traced itshistory in Australia to Queensland, where itwas used very effectively for hauling logsout of steep forest 130 Resembling a Wehrmacht reject, theDemag bulldozer of the 1950s proved thata capable track machine did not necessari-ly have to look beautiful although to behonest, a brief acquaintance with one ofthe Massey Harris or John Deere stylistswould not have gone 12 tonne Demag was manufac-tured by Deutsche Maschinenbau AG at itsDuisberg factory in West Germany.

5 Inaddition to its grim pillbox aesthetics, it wasalso unconventional in its design in the driving seat was like ridingupstairs at the front of a double decker what an excellent idea! From this loftyperch the operator enjoyed an uninterruptedview of the world around him, including pre-cisely what was occurring within the bowl ofhis dozer-shovel. No guess work here! The engine and gearbox, plus all theother transmission bits, were behind there was no necessity to peer along abonnet or be subjected to engine heatblasting back into the buyer of the Demag 130 was offereda choice of power units. The most popularwas the six cylinder 150 hp Berlin builtKamper litre diesel. The alternativeengine was the four cylinder 140 hpModag two stroke diesel of a litre capacity. The gearbox providedfour forward and a single reverse was then transmitted by a bevelledgear to the front located drive hydraulically controlled wet disc steer-ing clutches were operated by a track design was similar to the openlink style favoured by Soviet and Chinesemanufacturers.

6 Although antiquated inappearance, the long tracks of the Demagproved durable and had excellent selfcleaning capabilities. CITREON KEGRESSEA round 1916 the CEO of the Russianroyal family (the Tza, Nicholas II) had avexing problem. Not the one about his sub-jects dying in huge numbers from starva-tion. No, the other inconvenience. HisRolls Royce kept getting bogged in thesnow!Adolphe Kegresse, a French engineerwas summoned to the Imperial garage tosolve this tiresome problem. Simple! Heswopped the rear wheels of the Roller forhis specially designed half Kegresse half tracks consisted of adriver, an idler and in between sometrack rollers. But the clever part was thematerial used for the actual tracks. A rub-berised fabric was stretched between thedriver and idler, resulting in the rubberisedtracks being driven by friction engage-ment.

7 Not that the technicalities of the fixfor the Rolls Royce were of much interestto the Tzar. By this time, his loyal adoringsubjects had dragged him from his limou-sine for the unhappy purpose of carryingout his returned to France where hejoined car magnate Andre Citreon. By1920, special Citreon vehicles were beingequipped with Kegresse half built Alpine cars had skis in placeof front wheels and half tracks at the first motor vehicle to cross the Saharawas a Citreon Kegresse in 1922 23. Ayear later a similar vehicle was driven fromAlgeria, on the Mediterranean, to TheCape of Good 1934 four Polar Citreon Kegressetractors were shipped to Alberta inCanada, with the aim of being driven over-OCTOBER NOVEMBER, 2003 THE AUSTRALIAN COTTONGROWER 69 The Demag was surprisingly capable bulldozer, with no pretensions of lookingbeautiful.

8 The big 12 ft dozer blade was operated by sensitive hydraulic controls,rendering it ideal for shaving or grading operations, demanding a high degree ofaccuracy. (Photo archives.)In this photo the length of the tracks can be gauged. Note the front located drivingsprocket. This design of track gear was used on early military tanks.(Photo )70land to the North Pole. The severe coldand the ice crevasses proved insurmount-able for the vehicles and the expeditionwas aborted. The Kegresse principle of rubberisedtracks being driven by friction engagement,has been resurrected in recent years andincorporated in the Caterpillar Challengerseries and John Deere T BARFORD CALF DOZERIt is difficult to imagine a world withouthydraulic excavators, but such a world didexist prior to the 1960s. Cable excavatorswith winches driven first by steam and laterby big slow revving diesel engines were theorder of the day.

9 Compared with theirhydraulic successors, the cable machinescould apply only limited down pressure tobreak open new ground and they were fair-ly hopeless at back filling. Every trenchopened has to be back filled!Aveling Barford Ltd. was Britain'slargest producer of cable excavators, andin the 1940s saw the need for a mini bull-dozer aimed primarily at back filling andlevelling work-sites. When the prototypewas assembled and ready for trials, thedesign engineers were not amused to notethe smirks on the faces of their factory col-leagues. How could such a wee contrap-tion claim to be a bulldozer? So it waschristened on the spot the AvelingBarford diminutive crawler tractor was com-pact in the extreme, having a length of amere 188 cm, a tiny width of 136 cm andan overall height of the same. It would fit inthe rear of a small panel van except forits weight, a substantial engine used was a custom designedDorman 800 cc single cylinder four strokepetrol engine delivering nine hp.

10 Animpulse magneto provided the necessarysparks. Twin massively proportioned gear-boxes were provided with an inbuilt over-centre plate clutch. The tractor could becontra rotated around its own axis. Thetracks had cast grousers with free floatingtrack pins. Top speed was a rattling , providing there was no head wind!Only one problem! Where to locate theoperator? Stick him out the front, immedi-ately above the angle tilt blade, and hopehe doesn't fall off! Or worse, don't let thecalf dozer tumble into the trench beingback filled! So tell him to hang on like grim death tothe clutch control handles (the only othercontrols being the throttle and the lever forraising or lowering the blade). Forget aboutthe foot pedal for the brake it neverworked. But the heat from the radiator athis back will certainly keep him warm inwinter.