Mounting large engine on Truck

I bought a 1955 IH R150 ten wheeler this week incredibly cheep and in very good road ready condition. My thought is to mount my 55-100HP Diesel Bessemer on this. The engine weights apprx. 13,500lbs with two 6ft flywheels. The engine setup also has a Bessemer air compressor/engine combo with two large air tanks. I thought I would mount the works on the truck. I have never seen this kind of setup, but it seems the easiest to me. What are your thoughts and concerns? The picture of the engine is on the link below. Thanks


Heavy Iron Page

Hi,

Ive seen this done but on a low loader where the wheels where hyrdralically unattached from the load loader so the loader was sitting flat on the ground the engine involed It was a huge Hornsby owned by the Melbourne Traction Engine Socitiey i think.

Adam

Thanks to everyone that emailed and posted a response!

Mounting something this big on a rubber tired truck makes me think that to run it, I'd consider installing self leveling jacks like a large crane truck has, to stabilize the chassis. And some type of brake lock mechanism so the transmission doesn't carry the load while the big diesel is running. john.

I watched a rather large engine running on a good sized flatbed truck at the Threashing Bee at Toledo Washington a couple years ago. The truck was just parked with no auxiliary support such as jacks. When the engine was running the whole truck was bouncing up and down and back and forth. It was sort of like agentle carnival ride.

As others have suggested, some sort of additional support in the form of jacks, or some other sort of a support, might be in order to protect the trucks suspension system and drive line from damage.

The last thing you need, is to discover some incapacitating damage to the truck's running gear at the end of a show, leaving you stranded in the middle of a big hay field at the edge of town.

I had that once. I just finished a full restoration of a 1-1/2 hp IHC M on skids. I did not want it on the floor so I lashed it down to a small 4 wheel running gear type trailer with ballon turf tires. NO GOOD! I had not considered the flywheels have counter weights to offset the reciprocating action of the piston. Well when they can they will also throw their weight up and down. when that thing came up to speed it was like it was on basketballs. My wife hasn't laughed like that since I had to change a diaper on our first born. Now that it is over it was fun. Al

This is kinda off subject but.. have you fellows seen the hoist system that allows the whole truck bed to be off loaded and sit on the ground. i always wanted to copy one for my F600 but could never lay my eyes on one locally. Company names are Swaploader and Marvel (i think). allows one truck to have several bodies and really makes it easy to load heavy loads since the flat bed body is just a few inches high when sitting on the ground.

Hey, that swap loader is a very cool thought, and not out of the relm of my dad and myself. He owns and operates a truck shop and is always fabricating this kind of stuff. Thanks for the thought!!! Mike

How about mounting it to a big heavy skid. and getting something like a truck mounted haystack mover to load and off load it. but 13K thats a lot of weight...john

They use this type of system on "rolloff" garbage trucks. It works great and will do about any load Al

Hubba Hubba . Thats one nice ride . That would have to work for a living around here ! see clink


MACK ROLLOFF

I have a Kohler 1 1/2 Kw generator that I was going to mount on a cart with balloon tires. Maybe I should think about that some more even though it is a four cylinder engine and should be smoother running than a single cylinder engine.

I typed a missprint on the truck model, it is a R190. It used to have a well drilling rig on it, so the hydraulics are there but the stabilizer legs are not. I will get some and use them to raise the truck off its suspension. I still like that roll-off set up the best, I just don't have a lot of time to put into the rig right now. Thanks again for all the help! Mike


Mike's Tractors and Engines

I hate to decomplicate anything, but why not just get 4 road trailer landing gears, and mount them to the truck chassi independantly, and prefferably at an angle, like the outriggers on a bucket truck. You can power them up and down with a half inch slow speed electric drill, and if you set them up independantly, accomodate sloped ground conditions. Add in a set of 4 2 foot square landing pads made from 4x4 lumber, and you can pick the whole truck off the ground. Whole setup ought to cost less than $300 with used landing gear.

I went to the previous owners of the truck and they gave me the outriggers that were originally there. The back two are mounted on the truck at angles and there is one in the middle of the front bumper. They also gave me all the valving for independently adjusting and leveling the truck. I think this will work good, thanks for all the advise! Mike


Mike's Tractors and Engines

Sounds like you got a winner. Now the only thing you need are wood outrigger pads, and you can make them out of 4x4s and all thread rod. Has that truck got a double frame on it, or is it fishplated?

It has a double frame. The mounting holes on the Bessemer line up over the center of each frame rail, so we are going to direct mount the engine to the frame. This should help keep the center of gravity lower too. Thanks


Mike's Tractors and Engines