Gears, gears, and more...

After reading the 'Ten Speed Eaton' post and all the talk about two-stick trucks, it occurred to me that many of you will never see some of the more
complicated trucks out there. So ...

Back in the late eighties I came off the road and went back to the oilfield working for a rig moving outfit. I ran a gin truck, a truck with winches and an A-frame that's used for lifting and moving equipment.

These trucks were beasts! KW called them Brutes. Butterfly hood, steel plate fenders, floorboard about chin-high, 320 inch wheelbase, triple frame. With our front bumper of 1/2 plate and drillpipe (which out-weighed most cars) and a bed of the same plate, these weigh 49,000 lbs. Power was Cummins NTC400 with a 15 speed main and 4 speed auxiliary.

For those who don't know, a 15 is a 10 with a low low range (deep reduction). Those low gears were used rarely and carefully as that amount of torque multiplication could easily break things. (normally axles, right at the flange).

Both boxes were 'turned around.' This is old-school overdrive. The gears were rearranged so that the top two gears switched positions. This resulted in an overdrive top gear up and to the right in the shift pattern. This also allowed a truck with 6.88 rears to run almost 70 mph. (I tried not to think about how fast that rather large driveshaft was turning!) in low low low, you could sit and scooch faster than the truck could move!

The other reason for two trannies was pto operation. By driving the ptos (3) off the aux, the main box could be shifted to control pto speed. Except for very high loads, the main was kept in the top 5 gears. Shifting the auxiliary to low and using the lowest high range gear was perfect for moving around location, equivalent to about 3rd in a road truck. One pto was two speed forward, the other 2 single ratio.

Your day was spent sitting sideways in the seat, left arm steering and shifting, right arm out the roll-down back window running the winch controls. The main (#1) winch was controlled by a lever next to the jump seat (worm perch). #2 (the most used) was a lever that pivotted at your elbow about as long as your forearm. Pull for up, away was down. #3, which controlled the guy wire for the gin poles, adjusting their height, had it's lever high and far right side of window (looking from back). on the right vertical frame were to air switches for the winch dogs, which release the drums from the drives. The bottom right side had 2 old style parking brake levers (you know em, snap over center, twist end to adjust tension) which controlled the winch brakes on #1 and #2. #3 used an automatic brake. Just behind cab at bottom of window were the levers for the drum brakes. The trailer brake lever (Johnny bar) was not spring loaded and operated all the brakes.

The main winches were in tandem, #1 forward and higher. #3 was below bed level right front corner. #1 used 1 inch cable and ran to a sheave at the back of the bed, up to another at the top of poles and hang down. #2 was 3/4 inch and ran in a tunnel under bed, then up to pole sheave. #3 was 5/8 inch and tripled for strength.

This beast could lift 50K lbs and move it around. The poles had to be near vertical and steering was iffy with that much, but it could be done.

One of the coolest things about this setup was the ability to grab gears in reverse. I can still back up comfortably at 15 -20 mph. You learn to back a 30' Foot trailer with a 320" tractor, normal equipment is nothing.

By far the most awesome sight with these rigs was two of us side by side pulling an oversize 100K + lbs load up a sandy or muddy hill. We'd get as far as we could away, lay our poles way back, get everything in high gear, and start winching at full throttle. To see two of these monsters with their front ends bouncing between 5 and 10 foot in the air was incredible. And quite a ride if you were in one. Never could get my worm to ride one out, he was scared of heights and from inside the truck, 20 degrees feels like vertical! (it was spooky to look out the side window and feel like you were looking down from atop a trailer). Add in shorty straight pipes and it made quite a show.

I enjoyed that work , but the hours sucked and the pay did too! 2 guys trying to nap in an A cab KW is not a lot of fun. A lot of those guys stick with it for years, but bigger and better things were calling me.

 

Funny you used that word, heyns57, dance. Almost put a paragraph on the dance in that post. And that's what it was. Sitting there last night writing, I could still feel where each control was and how they felt. I drove that truck 20 years ago for not quite a year. Mind you lots of 80 and 100 hour weeks in the there, but 20 years. And I can still feel that dance. Catch the Brownie just here as you release the clutch and she'd drop in neutral. Drop your fingers this far below the wheel to catch the brake as your other arm slips the winch in gear. Like it was yesterday!!!

And old-timers in cranes? You ain't kidding! Had one old man that could move a load in a perfectly straight line, which doesn't sound like any big deal. Except, as it sounds like you know, the boom tip is following a three dimensional arc while he's doing it. He'd stab beams through openings like they were on rollers! They said he was by far the easiest guy to swamp for. No worries of getting jerked around snubbing his load! He was a joy to watch, I know.

 

Hey, Muley! Oilfields booming again, my friend. And I'm bout as tempted to go back as I am to go look up my everybody-but-me-in-her-britches ex-wife!

It was fun. It just wasn't that fun (and that applies to her and the job)

 

When I think back on those days, I wonder how we managed to drink that much liquor while working those hours and getting by on 4 hours of sleep for weeks at a time, and still think we were having a good time?!?! And lived to tell about it!

Can you imagine getting kids now to work a roustabout crew digging ditches? Or unloading a trailer of cottonseed hulls, by hand? My brother and a good friend both run businesses in western OK. They tell me they can't even think of drug testing their help because anybody who can pass a pee test already has a big-dollar oiley job. Seems the days of catching the crew sharing a heater in the doghouse are thankfully long gone. Thanks for sharing your tale of "How'd I get myself in this mess?"