old-iron-habit
Senior Member
- Joined
- Nov 22, 2012
- Messages
- 4,233
- Location
- Moose Lake, MN
- Occupation
- Retired Cons't. Supt./Hospitals
Yair . . . .
I never heard of that Clawed Backster .
That was common back in the day to tow the back wheels on the highway when moving the 660s. Never seen anything but DW-20s and 660s moved that way. Nothing had to be done to the steering as the 4 tractor wheels were on the lowbed and the pan floated on the pin anyway. It may have a different story if hauling a 4 wheel articulate machine that way. Turns were certainly not sharp with a 90 ft plus rig. Not sure why, maybe oiling issues but the twin engine 666s I was around were hauled with a lowbed and tandem axle 16 wheel, 12 ft wide jeep. The axles were spaced about 6 ft apart with a egg shaped bowl for the tires to nestle between them. Blocks or spare tires were placed under the front of the bowl so the down pressure would lift the wheels of the pan high enough to push the jeep under. Tie the jeep to the rear of the scraper and the front would be driven up over the back of the lowbed and chained down. Next you had to fasten the bowl at a position about 3 inches above the street, disconnect the linkage for the gate ram and lower the cylinder all the way down. You could get close to only 15 ft high this way. I just got a cool refresher course helping unload and set up the 660 that was brought to the Santa Margarita show a month ago. It came in the same way we hauled them 35 years ago. I think it was because of all the work to load, haul, and set back up that it was a reasonable decision to decide to road them some respectable distances.
Trying to get my head around the steering, would they need a cross over valve between the rams to allow the bowl to track?
Cheers.
Hope this made sense. Somehow I wrote my relpy in the middle of your quote. Must be bedtime.