Well, td25c asked me to post a couple of pics. So here ya go bro. :waving My dad ran his own company since i was a little runt up until he passed away. All manner of work related to the building trades. In the late 70's, he purchased a used boom truck. 1962 White 4000 with a C160 Cummins, Fuller 5 speed main box and 4 sp auxilliary, 15 ton Scott/Midland boom. Set a bunch of trusses with this rig. Believe it or not, that truck was such a long wheelbase, and with the flotation tires...it road like a dream. This was at McGhee-Tyson airbase. A local door company sold the door, but they didn't have anyone who could do this installation, so they contracted us to do it, as commercial doors was our primary business. This was a hanger for refueling planes, designed for the old prop engine refuelers. When the Air Force switched to the KC-135 refueler, uh, tail wouldn't allow them to go into hanger. Solution? Cut a notch in hanger and install a door with the bottom of door about 30 feet off of ground. Piece of cake! The boom lifts were loaned to us by the Air Natl Gaurd to do project. This is another the same company sold the door, but couldn't install it. It was a steel supplier that had rail tracks going into building at an extreme angle. The door was 30 feet high, and to obtain the proper clearance for a rail car with tracks coming into building at an angle the door had to be 50 ft wide. To my knowledge, this is the largest single rolling door in this area. That was one of my brothers on the scafflold and dad standing next to crane. This one we purchase in the early 80's. Bucyrus-Erie 45C Series II, 30 ton. 100 ft of main boom, 30 ft jib. Detroit 6-71 lower and 6V-53 upper engine. The exhaust system on the lower engine was perfect. That 6-71 would sing when you were grading a hill with it pegged on the governor. This is one of the smoothest operating cranes I have ever ran. This project was a pre-fab steel structure we installed over hazardous material tanks at a waste incinerator in Oak Ridge TN. This was a large church that grew weary of painting the steeple base. So they hired a contractor to install vinyl siding. The contractor called us to lift their crew in a man basket. That blue and white '85 F-150 is my daily driver still today. I love that old truck.
Cool man ..Wish I could find a picture of the ol' 1972 P&H T750 Is started on ..Detroits top and bottom, 2stick shift 5&4... I hear ya ..Good Times ..good memories :drinkup
LoL...I've operated an early '70s T-750 liebherr. Double Detroits and 5 x 4 as well. Those were STOUT old cranes.
better belive it brother ..Pick and Pick all day long
We use a Link Belt from out of town whenever we need a crane, which isn't very often. One deal was kind of intresting. We bought a 4 or 5 front loader concrete trucks and removed the drums before sending them back to the factory to make glider kits out of them. The intresting thing was before they got repoed the owner filled the drums up full of concrete. Needless to say we double strapped them when we pulled them off.
Filled them with concrete! LoL!
Thats pretty cool ATCO.Love the 45c crane!
I'm glad they did ATCO. Those guys at the auction who owned concrete plants said they wouldn't get the concrete out of the trucks if they give them away. We was going to cut the drums off of them anyway so we could put the trucks on a step deck to ship em. All them Ole Boys with the concrete done was made us a lot of money that day
Cool pictures and story dude! I wish of I had photos of the old '49 home built hand cranked boom truck! LOL It spit in your face from the place where the floorboards used to be when driving in the rain. No floorboards made it cold in the winter time, but, easier to change U-Joints!
Very nice pick-tures, ATCO... Actually, quite reasonable... :thumbsup I wonder if there was at least one "head scratcher", entertaining the notion of... "cutting the tail off"... lol OCR... PS: I see by the picture; your full name must be: ATCO Willis, Huh?...
nice pix Atco......... I thought OCR would have thought to dig a channel for the running gear to run in instead of raising the door, but to his defense he concluded the tail was too tall and not that the wheels were to big! Lol Atco those pictures of your pops are priceless.
LoL...ahh the good old days, eh?
Thats what I like most about crane work,you never know what the next job will be or where you will be setting up.Almost like wrecker work,allways interesting.Excellent pictures & story ATCO.I like the white 4000 boom truck.Is that a sleeper on the rear of the cab?
Ha...cut the tail off a KC135? Funny! ATCO Willis? Ya dang knothead, you knows what my name is Owl Creek! :tong :lmao :falldownlaugh :duh
Thanks 25c. I know it's hard to tell in those old grainy pics, but that was actually 2 fiberglass man buckets that mounted on end of the boom. They stowed on the headboard at front of bed. That little boom also had an A-frame jib. You can spot it stowed under the main boom.
I see.Thats a good idea.We have talked about adding a man bucket that would mount to the grove boom,it would be handy at times.
Yep, we did several jobs where someone needed a lift to work on things like parking lot lights, things like that. The buckets were handy. That little boom truck was actually a pretty nice setup. Worse thing about that rig was Scott/Midland didn't use power beyond control valves on it. It didn't like working one operation, then try and feather in another function. Also, the Braden winch it had on it was way too slow. Aside from this, it was a nice little unit.
There was a military plane that was designed to fold the tail to get it in a hanger but I cannot remember which one it was.I think it was the B29.Ron G
That's an interesting concept Ron, haven't heard of that. Makes sense though. Prior to the B-29, I suppose hangers were made to accomodate current planes, which were either tail draggers or just not that large. The B-29 was a giant leap in size compared to other current planes of it's era. I can easily see a B-29 not being able to fit in hangers of it's day. :cool2
That B&E 45-C looks like a stout unit ATCO.Looks like it has a manual "fly section" as well.I found one similiar to yours at www.machinerytrader.com/listingsdetail/detail.aspx?OHID=6989660
The B-50 had a folding tail on it. Most of the military aircraft that had any folding parts tended to be naval aircraft for space on a carrier.
The B-50 had a folding tail on it. Most of the military aircraft that had any folding parts tended to be naval aircraft for space on a carrier. The wings folded about at the halfway point, examples of this are the Dauntless, the Avenger, the E-2 Hawkeye, and the F-18 Hornet.
Close, 25c, but it's not a series II, I can't seem to find a pic of one on the internet. I think the standard 45C had 85' of main boom, the series II had 100' of main boom. It also had an additional 10,000 lb counterweight on the back of it since it had a longer boom. Both machines had a manual tip section. If you look closely at the pics of the link you posted, you'll notice two pointed plates sticking down at the bottom of the boom head. You simply extended the boom, removed the large retaining pin in the fly section, stab the boom head points into the ground, and retract main boom. This would extend the fly. Took only a matter of moments to do it. The one you linked to is on a CCC carrier, our rig was mounted on a Considated Dynamics carrier. They were built slightly heavier than the CCC frame. The fly section had some flex to it, but the main boom was a stout design. Overall, it had good lifting capacity throughout the chart range. I placed some 2,000 lb concrete burial vaults once, a couple of the placements had me over the side, 100 ft boom, 15 degree angle. Didn't even lift the opposite side outriggers. It was a heck of a machine pouring concrete as well as it was a free swinging swing design with hand brake. Very fast and smooth for a 100 ft boom.
Wow, I figured this rig was long gone. Was out in Racoon Valley last week, about 20 miles NW of me, low and behold there was our old boom truck. We purchased this rig back in 1976, had fresh paint on it at the time, was decked out sharp. I've set a pile of iron and trusses with that old truck. The old girl is showing signs of age now, but hey, so am I, and she's 3 yrs younger than me. :tong
Pretty cool to see it still together and not rotting in a fence row or run through a crusher .
she looks like she could use some love but still could put in one hell of a days work
A lot of memories for me behind that steering wheel shifting those twin sticks.
Didn't you wanna take her home wid ya?
Heck, I'd love to see that old truck restored grandpa. Sadly, my wallet ain't got enough fat back in it.
I passed that boom truck on my way to USA Aggregates. There is some cool old iron poking out of the bushes on that road.
Welcome to HEF willyum79. :drinkup If you're talking about that stone quarry at Racoon Valley Rd and I-75, that's just about 10 miles north of my work.