What is the oddest machine you have worked on or operated

[Joel/ak]

Here's one. The drive ran at 6k psi, rollers ran at 2500psi.

 

[MossRoad]

Many oddball pieces of gear. Airports are notorious for weird crap. Whenever our sales rep for TLD would make a visit, I would grab him and ask WTF they were thinking on designing this crap.

Schematics on some were in French (didn't help much).

I definitely hired good fabricators and hydraulic mechanics.

Agreed about the weird stuff. Air start units. Deicing equipment. Tugs. Mobil stairs. Catering trucks.

I posted a video of this a few days ago that I came across. I used to run two of these Wheelhorse Airhorse movers. Great fun. Great machine!

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

Agreed about the weird stuff. Air start units. Deicing equipment. Tugs. Mobil stairs. Catering trucks.

I posted a video of this a few days ago that I came across. I used to run two of these Wheelhorse Airhorse movers. Great fun. Great machine!

I would pay to see a 500+# person riding that...wouldn't you?

 

[Joel/ak]

Agreed about the weird stuff. Air start units. Deicing equipment. Tugs. Mobil stairs. Catering trucks.

I posted a video of this a few days ago that I came across. I used to run two of these Wheelhorse Airhorse movers. Great fun. Great machine!

Wow, would rather have worked on that vs the fmc b1200's and our T750

 

[MossRoad]

I would pay to see a 500+# person riding that...wouldn't you?

It can hold them no problem. That yellow fork is several hundred pounds.

I will say, and you can see it at some point in the video, if you go in reverse (towards the original front of the tractor) and move to forward suddenly, it will lift the small wheels off the ground pretty far. To make tight turns, I used to do that and spin the steering wheel while the little wheels were off the ground. You could swing the rear tires 5-6' to the other side with only 2-3' of rearward movement.

It was the first articulated machine I ever operated. It's why I'm partial to my PowerTrac today.

 

[MossRoad]

Wow, would rather have worked on that vs the fmc b1200's and our T750

WOW! Those are beasts! Had to look them up.

We had a small tug that was a bazillion years old. It was very short and had a roughly casted rear section that was a huge weight and fenders all in one piece. I'd guess the whole thing wasn't 7' long, yet weighed over 10,000#. It had a huge differential. The mechanic said it was something 17 or 27:1 ratio. Can't remember.

The original 4 cylinder engine died. We went to a junkyard and got a Buick V8 and a turbo 350 transmission, and the tilt wheel from the car, too. We jammed it into that tug. He made some custom headers to fit. Top speed in Drive was maybe 8mph.

Biggest thing I ever moved with it was a Fed-X 727.

Most uses were for small jets, turboprops and other private aircraft.

 

[MossRoad]

Thinking about it, a lot of folks would call my PowerTrac PT425 an odd machine.

 

[Joel/ak]

Thinking about it, a lot of folks would call my PowerTrac PT425 an odd machine.

Odd? Yes but functional. I've found that airport mechanics are pretty dang good and creative.

Our tractors were beasts. Alot of airlines would rent our gear. Our b1200's (had 4 of them) were 120,000lbs and the T750 was 150,000lbs. They would move anything.

Airstarts are a whole nother beast. Had a new rheinmetal. Jet engine that spun at 25k rpm. Parts were expensive and crappy fuel mileage. Went through 100 gal of jet A in 2 hours. Yelled at alot of pilots cuz they wanted to dick the dog taking their time for a start

 

[lincmercguy]

I grew up around 4020 tractors and a 105 combine. I've run and worked on both and I'm not that old. We even rebuilt the transmission on that 105 years ago. That one somehow became my project once it was out of the combine. Plenty of 60's and 70's trucks as well. All of it older than I.

 

[MossRoad]

Odd? Yes but functional. I've found that airport mechanics are pretty dang good and creative.

Our tractors were beasts. Alot of airlines would rent our gear. Our b1200's (had 4 of them) were 120,000lbs and the T750 was 150,000lbs. They would move anything.

Airstarts are a whole nother beast. Had a new rheinmetal. Jet engine that spun at 25k rpm. Parts were expensive and crappy fuel mileage. Went through 100 gal of jet A in 2 hours. Yelled at alot of pilots cuz they wanted to dick the dog taking their time for a start

We had two air start units. One was on an early 50's truck chassis. It was a 6 cylinder detroit diesel. The other was on a late 60's truck chassis. It was a v8 detroit.

I do not know why my boss purchased them. In the few years that we had them before I left, I air started exactly one(1) airplane; a Convair 580 for NorthCentral airlines. BEAUTIFUL plane!!! Props the size of barn doors!

As I recall, the air start was in the right wheel well.

The air start units were LOUD, especially the V8.

A few times a year, the mechanic would start it, and drive along slowly and I'd walk behind it and we'd leaf blow the 4 acre ramp off of dirt and stones. The hose was hard to control even with the engine at idle.