Thursday, August 24, 2017

Finally a good new photo of this WW2 COE, built for the military to haul bomber parts


The engine was on a slide out rack because they hadn't worked out how to make the car tilt forward


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/9428316-post35886.html
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/9431906-post35915.html
http://georgedennis.blogspot.com/2009/11/rare-ford-coe-twin-engine.html

Lloyd Lawson returned to E and L Transport Company in Dearborn, Michigan. The company designed the twin engine Ford truck tractors, using 2-100 horse powered Ford truck engines driving 4-speed Warner transmissions and Timken differentials. Each engine had it's own, ignition switch, gauges, radiator, Transmission drive shaft and rear end. This was basically two-one and a half ton trucks in one chassis using standard off-the-shelf cabover engine Ford truck parts. Some parts were modified, but all were Ford. The drawing board and blue prints consisted of the plans being drawn on the concrete floor with soap stone. The engineers consisted of the men working in the shop.

designed to pull a 60-foot-long “supertrailer” in which 34 complete tail cone assemblies could be carried. The tail cones were for the B-24 bomber of which Ford was one of several builders. The assemblies were carried between several manufacturing plants according to contemporary sources, involveing runs between California and Texas, Willow Run, Michigan, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Fort Worth, Texas, and between Loudonville, Ohio, and Buffalo, New York. Two Mercury V-8s were used, driving into synchronized transmissions.

Crismon also noted that the tractor was rated at 10 tons and that the trailer was loaded from the top by overhead cranes. About 70 of the trucks were built, and the twin engines were accessed by pulling them as a unit out the front of the tractor. Crismon provides evidence that, although Ford was often mentioned as the builder of the trucks, a company named Thorco Dual Motors built them – Thorco being a trademark for the Thornton Acle Company. However, James Wagner, the author of “Ford Trucks Since 1905,” wrote that about 100 tractors were built by E and L Transport of Dearborn, and the corresponding trailers were built by Mechanical Handling Systems."


1 comment:

  1. I saw one of these at a truck show in Milwaukee Wisconsin about 10-15 years ago. A very interesting vehicle for sure.

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