OT: Old Iron - Euclid Dump Truck

Was out today looking for a yard truck for moving trailers around. They had one of these sitting there, thought I'd share it. According to the tag it's a Model 82-D. Google doesn't turn up much on it, but a few references to 82FD trucks.
I found another post about an old Euclid, but no details about it. It's the same exact truck.
Commercialmotor.com - Ancient Euclid dump truck in Pennsylvania. So what can you tell Biglorryblog about it?











More pics to follow.

If anyone has any details on age, etc, please post away. The 1925 on the data tag is the governed engine speed, not the year. Date of mfr was left blank on the tag. 5th gear has an interesting location.

The tachometer looks to be very precise, with 20 rpm graduations.







Vince

That is a classic "Euc". When I began my career as an engineer on powerplant construction, in 1972, the classic "Euc's" were still around, but the more modern "off road dump trucks" were making inroads. The classic "Euc" was what helped build countless heavy construction projects: roads, earth fill dams, powerplants, flood control projects, and many more types of projects where large quantities of overburden or fill materials or rock or aggregates had to be moved.

I recall in 1982, when my wife & I were first married, we rode our motorcycle to the Dutchess County Fair. Along route 199 (?) there used to be an old pan scraper and a Euc parked. Weeds and saplings grew around them, and a weathered "for sale" sign was on them. I had seen them parked there earlier on when I travelled that road for work purposes. It was a blistering hot day and traffic was moving slowly when we left the Fairgrounds. Even before we reached the old Euc and the pan scraper, I smelled the smell that meant the death of old iron. It was the smell of used diesel engine oil and the smell of cutting torches cutting up old steel. We rolled past the old Euc and the pan scraper, and they were being cut up for scrap right where they sat. Sad to see, but the reality for a lot of old heavy construction equipment. Chances are that old Euc and pan scraper had paid for themselves long before, and maybe were doing some occasional work at a gravel bank. When the bank played out, or the owner got too old- both being usual reasons people stop drawing material from a gravel bank- the machinery was parked by the roadside with a "for sale" sign on it. No one came forth to buy the old machinery for re-use, and chances are the scrap value more than covered the costs of cutting it up and hauling it to the scrap buyer's yard.

That was 1982, so we are talking 32 years ago. The Euc in this thread is at least as old. It is surprising it survived as long as it has. Looking at the cab and overall truck, it is not much different than off-road dump trucks used to build the Hoover Dam and similar earth and rock fill dams of the 1930's. Looking at the cab of that Euc, I can also say it had to be a real bear to drive. Hard riding, hot in summer, cold in winter, dusty, noisy, and a non-synchro'd manual transmission (aka "crash box"). Whether the old Euc had power assist on the steering is anyone's guess, and the brake pedal is vintage 1930's- a straight push pedal. Whether it works an airbrake "treadle valve" for the truck's service brakes is something I can't determine. The Euc may use simple hydraulic brakes with no power assist. I can only imagine the physical effort it took to drive the old Euc. On a hot day, pulling around a jobsite, backing up to be loaded, backing up to dump, sitting in a sweatbox of a cab on a hard seat (I doubt that Euc had an "air ride" seat), heaving on the steering wheel to cut the wheels tight to back up, waiting in line to get loaded or unloaded and holding a clutch pedal in while your leg gets cramped,
feeling the truck shake and hearing a noise like being in an empty oil barrel when a load of rip rap or similar hits the box.... A regular old Mack dump truck with a 1960's cab is BAD enough. That Euc was a test of who the real drivers were.

I think of the newer off road dump trucks- air conditioned, sound insulated cabs, air ride seats, ergonomic layout of controls, automatic transmissions (or diesel electric drive on the larger off road dump trucks), 2 way radios, tinted glass, either engine brakes or decelerators or dynamic braking (if diesel-electric), and wet brakes operated by powered hydraulics. A whole new generation of off road truck. Put a driver of one of these new off road dump trucks in that Euc and see what happens. Probably, they will not know how to start the old Euc, let alone be able to drive it. Or, if they do get it going, they will likely park it after the first round trip from the loading to the dumping points and tell you what to go and do with the job and the Euc. Different breed of driver in the days when the Euc was a common word amongst heavy construction people. "Euc" was a generic word years ago, used to mean "heavy off road dump truck", regardless of who made it. It is similar to saying 'Cat, for any tracked tractor or dozer, even if it is a machine made by John Deere or Komatsu. The word "Euc" has faded from the heavy construction vocabulary, much as that old truck sits as a somewhat lone survivor.
Hopefully, it will find its way to some old iron group's "sandbox". There are a few places around the USA where people who collect old construction equipment gather to "play" with their old iron. That old Euc needs to be put to pasture there. No modern contractor, mine, or quarry would use it in regular service.

I think the 82FD is the same as a R15. Its been a few years since I have been around one of these jewels.
If I can find my factory Euclid Salesman book I can give you more info.
You can also try the Historical Construction Equipment Association for more info. Historical Construction Equipment Association - Home

Marshall

What Engine(s) Did Euclid Use?

Would this baby have a Cummins engine ?

That flat-windshield cab has a macho, almost military, look.

JRR

the crushed velvet seat was a rare option...

I wish my father-in-law was still alive. He was in the thick of things at the factory. If that truck is a GM, maybe it's a 671. I know the really old jobs had Waukesha engines.

My guess is the Euc has Detroit Diesel power, maybe an 8V71N (8 cylinders, 71 cu inches per cylinder, vee arrangement, naturally aspirated) or an 8V92N. Those were pretty standard Diesel engines for use in trucks and construction equipment years ago. It all comes down to gearing, and while an 8V71N may not seem like a lot of engine, with enough gearing, it would do the job, albeit slowly.

I drove grain trucks years ago. Those trucks were made from twin screw cab over tractors. Frames were lengthened to take an aluminum dump box. Power was 8V71N engines and 13 speed Road Ranger transmissions. At higher elevations (these were being used on the Western Slope of Colorado), the 8V71N was neither the quickest nor the most powerful thing around. What I soon learned was the Detroit diesels had a narrow power band, about 300 rpm from 1800-2100 rpm was it. It was all in handling those 13 gears. If you were in the right gear, you could get a Detroit diesel on its knees and it would keep pulling as long as you kept the revs up.

Somewhere along the line, I think there was a connection between General Motors and Euclid. In the years that old Euc might have been built, Cummins simply was not fielding anything competitive with Detroit. Cummins had the "old style" 6 cylinder diesels, which were used in some trucks and heavy equipment, but there was a lot more iron for the HP. I've seen the old style 6 cylinder Cummins in cranes, and in one old truck. I think their rated output was about 190 HP, but could be wrong. 'Cat was mainly building engines for construction equipment and stationary use, and really had not entered the truck power market. Detroit diesels were the major player. WWII had propelled Detroit into being the world's most popular diesel engine. The US Government had ordered tens of thousands of Detroit 6-71's for all sorts of uses ranging from powering landing craft and gensets to tanks. Some heavy equipment builders (Allis Chalmers, for one) were running Detroit power in their dozers. Crane OEM's were using Detroit power. The beauty of a Detroit was you could wind them up fast and they could take a pounding. For the time period and application, I'd bet that old Euc has a Detroit in her. Gotta love the throbbing sound and smoke of a Detroit- a REAL Detroit, not what wears the name today. Not sure when the last of the REAL Detroit Diesels was built, but they are history for some years now. Plenty of them still out there working hard, though.

SouthBendModel34 said:

Would this baby have a Cummins engine ?

JRR

Click to expand...

IIRC, Euclid was a division of General Motors, so I imagine this Euclid had a 6V- or 8V- Detroit Diesel. I think Euclid evolved into Terex around 1970 or so. Maybe some of the brethren can comment on this.

My dad spent most of his working life in the cab of a dump truck and some times I got to ride with him on the job. The quarry that Dad hauled out of in the early 60's, Consolidated Rock Co., had a couple of battered Euc's still in service. I think they were tandem-axle jobs, and remember that the sides to the engine compartment were gone, or maybe were never there. There was also a chain-drive AC Mack in the yard, but I never saw it move. Joe M's description of the noises of taking a load were spot on. To the list of harsh conditions I'd add hauling a load of asphalt paving in the summer. It was miserable having a reservoir of 150 degree or so material at your back. Dad's last truck was a '62 GMC "10 wheeler" with a gas V6, 5 speed main, and 4 speed aux. transmissions. It did have power steering and air brakes, but NO air conditioning.

1950

Likely in line 6-71 cause of the dog house , d prefix and the pipe insulation on the gear shift(noise reduction)

Last domestic produced 2 stroke detroit was 95, still made in Mexico.

GM owned Euclid for a number of years. Forced to sell that division by the Government.
In this era of Euc's, there were basically 2 engines you could get. The "Screammmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmming Jimmmmmmmmmmmmmmy", ie 6-71 or a Cummns model 600, I think.
Most smaller R series R10,R18, R22 had a five speed manual transmission. The larger "FFD" 34 ton and "LLD" 50 ton trucks were twin drive axles. Each axle was powered by its own engine and automatic transmission. Once again the 6-71 or the Cummins were engines offered. The engines set side by side. Euclid wanted to build larger trucks and scrapers, but there was a limit on engine HP and manual transmissions that hindered them. When the auto trans were finally robust enough then Euc engineers were given the green light to build larger equipment, equipped with twin engines.

The FFD and LLD were rock trucks, the TC12 was a twin engine crawler, each engine driving one track, the "TS" series of scrapers each had 2 engines, not always the same size, The Detroit "110" series were ear splitting monsters that made a 6-71 seem tame and well behaved.

Actually the "Euc" term hasn't died out since there still used in the open pit mining industry today. The company is now owned by Hitachi I believe. They've change a thing or two since that old one was built, and there a touch bigger though. But all those creature comforts are added today since the mine owners finally realized that a happier and more comfortable driver is a hell of a lot more productive.

Pete

Detroit diesel engines had a lot of not-so-nice nicknames or monikers such as "Screaming Jimmy" (for GM diesel power), Green Leakers (Detroit engines left the factory painted green, and could be counted upon to leak oil all over themselves and anything in close proximity), or "Smoker" amongst other names. We had a cat that was a member of the family, and while his name was "Meerkat", I used to call him "Detroit". When Meerkat was content or laying on my chest in the evenings, his purr had a sound and rhythm like a 6-71 at idle. I used to call him "Detroit" more often than not. Once you've heard a few of the old Detroits, you know the sound. The Detroit diesels were two stroke engines with Uniflow scavenging. A Roots type blower was used to blow the scavenge air. The governors on the Detroits were usually set up with an intentional "hunt" in them at idle. This was to kick up the rpm every few seconds to keep oil going to the Roots blowers. The throb of a Detroit at idle is one thing, but under load, it is quite a unique sound.

Call me nuts or worse. I was once asked to witness a load test on a new diesel genset, since the owners wanted a Professional Engineer to sign off. The genset engine was a GM Electromotive (or "EMD") 16-645, turbocharged. GM knew a good thing, and stuck with it- a two stroke diesel engine with unit injectors. This basic design was applied over GM's entire range of diesel engines, from the smallest (53 cubic inches per cylinder) to the EMD locomotive class engines.
Anyhow, the load test on this new genset was at the genset assembly/dealer's plant. The plant sat in the middle of a residential neighborhood that had grown around it, and one end of the plant property backed against the mainline passenger track between Washington,DC and Philadelphia, PA. That track was up on a high fill (embankment). The dealer was like a used car salesman, so had scheduled the load test for 6 AM on a summer Saturday morning, knowing the air would be cooler and the engine would make load and then some with the cooler air. In addition, they did not mount the mufflers- telling the owners of the genset that it would take structural steel to carry the mufflers, did they really want the paint burned off the mufflers, etc. Truth was, they knew with no mufflers, that engine would make more than rated load.

The test began with the genset wired thru a transformer bank (it generated 2300 volt current) to step down to 480 volts, and then into a forest of load banks- cast iron grid resistors with powerful cooling fans. We got the engine started and idling, and after a few minutes, started picking up load. I had earplugs in, and was wearing ************ type hearing protection on top of that. I had my pad to write readings, and was running around taking readings and checking and feeling different parts of the engine and generator. Pretty soon, we were at full load. The ground under my feet seemed to be shaking, and the air was vibrating from the roar of that unmuffled engine barking at full load. We went to 10% overload. All readings looked good, and I felt that engine through the soles of my boots and in the air around me, no other way to describe it. I was LOVING it !!!! The hair on my arms stood on end, it was a real rush for me.

About that time, a local cop car pulled into the plant's yard. One of the plant owners, a real arrogant rich man's son with a nasty temper, ran over to the copmobile and shoved his head in their faces. The cop car left the yard and we kept running balls to the wall. All of a sudden, there was a bang like a 10 gauge shotgun or louder and I heard the engine winding up fast. I dived onto the ground on my stomach, not knowing what let go, but figuring if the engine ran away, there'd be engine parts shooting every which way. Before I hit the ground, it got deathly quiet with the only sounds being the fans on the load banks and a diesel fuel forwarding pump. As I lay on the ground wondering what the hell had let go, I found myself wet with diesel fuel- an overflow of the day tank. Turns out the radiator fan shaft had snapped. Improperly designed, it was about 2 1/2" diameter or a bit larger, and some numbnuts had it made out of cold rolled steel with a continuous keyway over its length, and a reduction in diameter with a sharp-corner at the shoulder. The fan had eight blades and absorbed about 120 HP. The genset dealer left it up to a vee belt salesman and the cooling fan salesman to design the fan and drive based on what the radiator salesman proposed, and the radiator salesman took his cue from GM EMD information about pipe sizes, gpm coolant flow and how much heat the engine would reject at rated overload.
In short, there never was any real engineering on that fan shaft. I got asked to redesign the fan shaft once we figured out where we were. We had a repeat of the load test with the new fan shaft, and made load and rated overload, running 2 full hours. No computers in those days, so it meant writing readings on a clipboard. Once again, the hair stood up on my arms when that 16-645 snorted and barked. Call me nuts, but the sound of a big engine pulling full load will do it for me.

I've been around gensets with 8-268A Clevelands (an early "Winton" division of GM/EMD engine built for WWII), and some 12 and 16- 278's (also the old Cleveland division of GM, before it all went to EMD). Great old engines, for sure.

We have a LOT of GM Detroit diesels on our maintenance of way equipment on our shortline railroad. We know how to work on Detroits, and we have the tools and even an injection test stand. Seems like the old Detroits were all over the place for many years. Also seems like you can't kill them.

There are only 2 known ways to kill a Detroit.

1. Put a gazillion hours on them at full load with no maintenance. or

2. Baby them

For anyone who has never heard a Detroit run, here's 2 6-71s in a TC-12

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVGXPMdvEm4

Marshall:

There is a third way to kill a Detroit, as this story will show-

My buddy Ron was a sergeant in the USMC during the Vietnam era. His MOS was something like fuel injection specialist. Because Ron is small of build and a dead-eye shot, he spent his time in 'Nam as a tunnel rat and scout-sniper and was a platoon sergeant on his second tour there. Ron got to know his way around the USMC, and at some point, was stationed on Okinawa and finally assigned to work that was his actual specialty. One day, his commanding officer called him in and ordered him to go to another outfit, a transportation company, for a few days to help them out. The transportation company had received a delivery of some kind of all-wheel drive trucks powered with 6V53 Detroits. The trucks had been unloaded and were sitting dead on the pier. The mechanics in the transportation company had tried for several days to get the trucks started, but could not get them to run, even on ether. The CO of the transportation company was about to bust his motor pool sergeant, and called Ron's outfit to ask if they had a diesel mechanic. Ron's CO sent Ron over to the transportation company. Ron got to looking over the first truck, made one quick move and told the Marines there to start it up. It fired right up. Ron got the Marines in that outfit and brought them up to speed. It seemed the Detroit Diesel engines in those vehicles had been prepared for ocean shipment by having the "emergency shutter" tripped in the closed position. The emergency shutter is one way to kill a Detroit- smother it. Detroits will run away with oil getting past the piston rings, and the overspeed trip will not stop the engine as it closes the fuel racks. There is an emergency shutter which chokes off all air going into the engine. It is spring loaded, and there is a trip handle for it. It has to be manually reset on the engine. Ron knew this, and it took him no time to figure out that was the problem and show the other Marines and teach them the idiosyncracies of Detroits. Possibly, the only diesels they had seen up to that point were the Continental multi fuel engines in the 6 x 6 trucks, which are normal 4 stroke engines.

Anyhow, the CO of the transportation company called Ron in. He commended him, thanked him, and was going to bust his own sergeant. Ron spoke up for that sergeant and saved his stripes. The CO knew Ron had seen combat in Vietnam and been decorated for some things he did there. He said as much to Ron, and asked if he had civilian clothes. Ron said he did. The CO gave Ron a weekend pass and told him where to meet off base in civilian clothes. The CO took Ron to a fancy whorehouse where the officers went. That CO picked up the tab for the whole weekend- whatever Ron wanted, and the CO made sure Ron had a memorable, relaxing and fun weekend. All for knowing what killed those Detroits.

Add "Smother them" as a third way to kill a Detroit if whomever has charge of the engine does not know about the emergency shutdown shutter.

Joe Michaels said:

Once again, the hair stood up on my arms when that 16-645 snorted and barked. Call me nuts, but the sound of a big engine pulling full load will do it for me.

Click to expand...

I know the feeling. Nothing better than having an EMD SD40-2, 16-645E3, in run 8 and about 1400 amps, pulling a cut of cars. I didn't care if it was -40 outside, I had my cab window and the door behind my seat open. Never forget the sound and feel.

Josh

I went to the place of a collector to see about some Fordson tractor parts and he had a building full of restored machines. One was a Euclid TC-12. If I remember right he said a construction company brought it to Maine to build some of the Maine Turnpike. They started in the south and worked north. When they were finished they didn't want to pay to haul it so they left it. He has quite a collection.

Euclid TC-12

I can remember these units being used a huge sand and gravel operation around 1963 Cat brought in a 769 ore truck , small by today's standards, and ran a demonstration in the pit. The Euclids were gone in no time. It was the brakes. The Euclids had drum brakes while the Cats had hydraulically operated discs packs much like a motorcycle clutch pack. The Euclids could not stop when rushed.

The emergency shutter will stop them and let them live again. When they trip.
Kill to me in a Detroit is "Hand Grenade" time. Cast Iron chunks everywhere and in everything.
When they are done coming apart it can be tough to tell they were an engine just a mere 10 minutes ago. It takes about 10 minutes to clean yourself up and get the heart rate down below 200 BPM and see what body parts have medical needs. And then you look to see what went "*%(%(W$(Q)_E^Q%)!)#)!#)&*&%!"!!!!!!