I was searching for some more old T truck pictures and ran across this one that I thought was really slick. Very clear picture of a T touring at the pump with a Garford tanker sitting to the side. I thought some of my old truck buddies here might appreciate the Garford tidbits and a couple other pictures I found. The old logger was taken in Washington state and that is a cedar log on the back. One ugly little truck but I think I could make room for such an interesting rig.
Don't recall ever hearing of a Garford, but the man that started the company was the inventor of the padded bicycle seat. Interesting that someone had to "invent" that, but apparently he was and sold over a million of the "Garford Saddles". He started the Garford Automobile Company in 1893 in Ohio to supply parts, and worked for quite a few years with Studebaker. There was even a Garford-Studebaker, which from what I understand was a Studebaker-bodied Garford chassis. After the partnership dissolved with Studebaker, they went on to make the heavy trucks like the ones below. You can see the full picture here: http://www.shorpy.com/node/4058?size=_original
Also some more information here, including a 9-ton Russian armored vehicle built on a Garford chassis. http://plowshareforge.blogspot.com/2008/03/blog-post.html
Diff on the gas station pic, but the tree hauler is chain drive? Daaang.
Oh, I looked again, the chain it hooked onto the diff, then to the rear wheels, must be to lengthen for hauling the trees. huh
No, that logger is just an older one and also a heavier truck. The tanker looks like maybe a 1.5 ton, and also later. The tanker isn't chain drive though.
THe older heavy trucks used the chain drive in order to have the weight of the vehicle supported on a heavier shaft and not the shaft that was actually the driving axle. In other words, it was just a big shaft with a spindle on each end, capable of supporting immense weight, so the chain was necessary to transmit power to that wheel until the floating axle came along. The floating and semi-floating axle solved the problem of supporting the weight of the vehicle on the actual shaft. Some truck makers held on longer than others, I think Mack being one that stayed with the chain drive well into the later 20's.
My youngest uncle hauled logs out of Ashland, Oregon, with a '36 Ford that had been modified with chain drive by an outfit in Klamath Falls. It had a 3:2 ratio, I believe, which helped in the mountains, as well as the safety of not having the wheels fall off when an axle broke.
We could hear it going down the hiway 1/4 mile away, and knew it was him, as it was the only one around. He probably drove it until new ones were available after the war.
That's him riding shotgun, back in '01.
rdr
Look up Sterling trucks.I think they held onto chain drive till the early 50's.
neat pictures for sure.