Call for help from Australians.

I have just started to restore this Dodge D60L. Issued to Australian forces in Middle East 1942. Originally with single 10.50X16 wheels. About 1,500 of another order were issued with dual 7.50X20 wheels. I have the option of either but will be going for the duals as I want to make it a semi trailer prime mover.

I need information on the wherabouts of a WW2 semi, preferably the round nose type but square would be OK. Any condition. Trying to get it ready for the big Military Jeep Club weekend at Canungra in October.

Three photos attached. 1. The Dodge as it is now. 2. WW2 photo of same vehicle with square trailer 3. WW2 photo of a Ford attached to my preferred option round nose trailer.

Lang

Dodge and Ford

Trailer wanted
 

Lang I have this one. Unfortunately at 1/35 scale it may be a bit small for your Dodge :D

Cheers
Cliff :)

PS> fully scratchbuilt by me last year including the Ford prime mover.

What a wonderful model Cliff. Will have to get the Carryall kit to you!

Lang

Lang, just out of interest, could you please (re-)post photo #2.

Thanks,
Hanno

P.S.: didn't John Belfield have a trailer of this type? I vaguely recall seeing a picture.

z

Lang is there any chance you could email me a high res copy of the Dodge semi photo please?

Cheers
Cliff :)

Cliff,

Lost your email address from my address book and it does not seem possible to attach a photo to a private email using the MLU personal profile link.

Email me and I will reply. Have two (via Keith Webb) really nice sharp, big photos of the Dodge D60L semi - one from the side and one from the rear. if anyone else wants them let me know.

Lang

Here are the pics - click here for a larger size scan.

http://www.surfacezero.com/g503/data..._semi_side.jpg

http://www.surfacezero.com/g503/data...mi_rear_1_.jpg

http://www.surfacezero.com/g503/data...i_round_1_.jpg

Well, this thread took off like a rocket but lost steam before it reached the moon. OK lets see if we can get abit more movement here is a comparison shot of the 40 ton Rogers and the MK2 Dyson 40 tonner

OK guys i need a bit of help with this photo of a generator trailer, the info i have states it is captured from the Italians in Libiya, taking a second look at it is it a generator and what are those air bottles at each end maybe its some type of dry air charging unit. Note the fexible exhaust on the frame lets see what you can come up with
cheers
Les

For those that like the smaller stuff heres a photo of a 1 ton gas welding trailer built by Dashwood in the UK

Les,

I will take a punt on the Italian trailer.

Looks like a power unit for a workshop or headquarters complex. Probably had a tent system to attach to it, hence the flexible exhaust to position the gas away from the boys according to the wind. Most likely an air force unit because of the spark arrestor on the exhaust.

The tanks could be a. Welding gas b. Nitrogen for aircraft landing gear c. Air for an air start motor (but why so much?) d. General use compressed air. Welding gas or general use air seems most likely as the tanks don't look very high pressure.

Then again it might be a power unit for a canteen and the tanks contain CO2 for the beer taps!

Lang

Could it be an oxygen recharging unit with the Italian airforce?

Cheers
Cliff :)

Cliff,

Oxygen has to be made in a large plant and can not be produced in the field. Actually it can now (medical home breathing units for instance, but they are not high pressure to fill tanks) but they did not have that technology widely available then. Aircraft breathing oxygen tanks would have been topped up from banks of cylinders filled at the factory. Those 4 tanks would not have enough in them to fill more than a squadron of planes.

Lang

Lang according to my information the Reo tractor unit I showed in the Federal thread towed an oxygen generation plant for the purposes of recharging aircraft cylinders. I also have other photos with the same type of trailer labled as oxygen generation plants & this is why I thought perhaps the Italian trailer may be one of those.

Mind you these were semi trailers and not the smaller trailer as Les has shown & would be a neat model to make one day :D

cheers
Cliff :)

You are dead right there and I am wrong about in-field oxygen generation plants, but as you say, at that time they were extremely large.

The Italian trailer still has me tossed. The thing I find interesting is the strange rack. Looks like a bank of fittings or taps?

On a good look the fairly small engine seems to be driving a compressor as it is a big square arrangement unlike generators which tend to be round and smaller than the engine. The radiator seems hugely excessive for such a small engine, maybe it had a water-cooled compressor? If you look closely it could be a radiator at each end - one for the engine and one for the compressor?

Lang

I just happen to have an original print of this photo of the Italian trailer, it is from the IWM library.

From close examination with a magnifiying glass, the power unit is at the drawbar end of the trailer, it drives a considerably large compressor, probably a single cylinder and water cooled, it is as high as its radiator. My feeling is that it is for recuperator charging, high pressure air, for guns, tanks, etc., hence the cylinders stowed. Cannot work out the three rows of fittings on the side, unless, they are for charging smaller cylinders and those stowed are acting as reservoirs.

Richard

Richard,

We are really down to micro observations on this one.

It seems to be a compressor by popular vote. It must be a multi cylinder operation to justify such a huge cooling radiator. The heat generated from a single compression (unlikely to be any more than 150psi) couldn't justify it. Also, if it was a low pressure unit, something that size would fill those 4 tanks in 30 seconds. Unless it was a sandblasting unit not very likely.

I think you are on the right track about it being a high pressure unit for ??. If it was a 3 or 4 compound cylinder compressor it could push it up to 3,000psi ie lots of heat requiring cooling. The 4 small tanks would seem indicate something pretty powerful in small volumes not just air for tyres.

Lang

Lang,

The engine does not appear to be of great size, but the compressor (?) is quite large, from the web photo details may not be clear but the lower part (crankcase maybe?) is not large, denote relatively short stroke, but the upper part is as high as the radiator and large in diameter, part of this is probably the water jacket.

Richard

Lang,

I have now scanned my photo which was printed from original negative. Enlargement of the actual engine / compressor reveals more details. I am certain now that the compressor is a twin cylinder, and note the large flywheel.

Richard

Richard,

I now do believe we have a field oxygen generator as mentioned by Cliff. It seems pretty clear the rack on the side is a set of quick release gas fittings with a capability to fill numerous bottles at a time.

The flexible exhaust would be what you see on SCUBA compressors to enable the fumes to be positioned downwind to avoid sucking in to the system.

Lang

Lang,

Thanks for that, it is amazing how, when a few heads get together how we can interpret some of these old photos.

Richard

Another interesting conversion for the RAF is this 20 ton SMT multiwheel low loader for use as a parachute drying van

Is parachute drying an especially heavy task? a 20 Ton Trailer? :confused

If it was a self contained mobile unit it probably had a decent generator to power a heater (or might even have been petrol or diesel fired). Then it would need a lot of fan power.

If they put the peak of the parachutes on the ends of the beams and pulled them out tight (probably had ropes through the holes so they could haul them up and down), with a couple of chutes on each beam about 24 could be run through in a sitting.

With stakes for stretching the chutes and a huge tarpaulin to go over the top (no good drying out in the rain!) and maybe a big stack of folding packing tables, I don't thnk it would take long to get to 20 tons. It might even have had a big circus tent to go over the lot creating an efficient huge drying oven.

Lang

Most aircraft of the day carried bottles of compressed air for a one time emergency actuation of landing gear and flaps after loss of hydraulic power. Les is absolutely correct when he says DRY air charging unit as moisture is anathema to pneumatic systems, especially ones that experience extreme variations in temperature in a single mission. I would assume the large unit at the right of the trailer is some sort of air dryer.

Derek,

I still think the unit is an oxygen generator. There does not appear to be sufficient pumping and particularly storage capacity for a simple air compressor.

I do not know what the Italian aircraft had in them but I think you will find not a lot of allied aircraft had actuating air bottles in them. The most common system was an accumulator (a sophisticated beach ball principle) which was compressed by the hydraulic oil and retained the line pressure for instantaneous use to save delays in pump operation in normal service.

Some aircraft might have been lucky enough to retain sufficient pressure in the accumulator for an emergency extension (no good if the lines were shot away) but I think most were just gravity free-fall drop down. Of course aircraft with screw-jack operation don't come into this.

Caravan and boat water pumps have this same accumulator deal for instant pressure.

For an aircraft with an emergency air bottle I think the water traps in a normal compressor system would be more than sufficient for drying purposes. An aircraft with an all-air system (normally just flaps and brakes - a number of aircraft had air starters as well - unusually undercarriage) is continuously pumping air and would have water traps built in.

If all the air bottle was used for was one emergency extension I don't think it would matter if it was pure water. Black steel is not used for hydraulic rams, they are either chromed or stainless and water is not a big deal for short periods. A system flush just takes a couple of cycles.

You might be right but I vote breathing oxygen generator.

Lang

Air Intake
 

Hi Lang et al.

My bet is that the bit you are referring to as an exhaust is actually the intake with a filter vice a spark arrestor on the end. You need it flexible so you can station it upwind of the exhaust and up above road dust etc.

This would point to the air compressor being for breathing air as an actuator cylinder wouldn't care if the air was contaminated with a bit of hydrocarbon contaminated gas... human lungs get most upset at hydrocarbons under pressure and develop lipoid pneumonia... treatable but not curable.

Perhaps the big cylinders are for oxygen and the operator(s) would mix the breathing air into the smaller aircraft cylinders much the way we mix nitrox today; so I'm with Lang, sort of... a breathing air compressor with onboard oxygen to do the mixing.

Cheers! Mike
(Professional Association of Diving Instructors 202,398)
:cheers:

Mike,

Aircraft don't have "breathing air" they carry pure oxygen which is distributed either by a demand system or constant flow. The demand system allows oxygen to enter the mask at a predetermined rate (according to altitude) when the crewman breathes in. This system has a lot of similarities to a scuba regulator.

As you would know from your SCUBA it is the partial pressure of oxygen in the lungs that matters. Unlike under the sea when oxygen becomes toxic if the partial pressure of O2 increases too much (frogmen with pure oxygen rebreathers will die if they go too deep) - airmen have the opposite problem - not enough.

Over 40,000' in an unpressurised aircraft the pilot must use a pressure mask to keep his lungs pressurised enough to pass O2 through the lung walls into the blood. Breathing is very difficult as you relax to breathe in (forced by the pressure system) and force to breathe out - the opposite to what you do on the ground. Thats why you often hear fighter pilots on the radio labouring to talk.

Your reference to mixed gasses has to do with replacing slow dissipating nitrogen with more human friendly gasses such as helium at depth - pilots don't have enough not too much like divers.

Constant flow is a cheap wasteful system for emergency use (drop down masks in airlines) normally found in small general aviation aircraft and not military. Usually a flimsy, ill-fitting, mask or a couple of tubes (cannula) stuffed up your nose with oxygen flowing direct from the bottle.

Got off the track. Yes the flexible tube is either an exhaust with a spark arrester (used around aircraft) or an intake with an air cleaner. Either way, as you said, it is to use the wind to stop carbon monoxide getting in the system.

I think after all this erudite discussion someone will come up with absolute proof that the trailer is an Italian Army Mark IIIa Pasta Maker.

Lang