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TO HAUL 20-TON LOADS IN THE CONGO.

24th January 1928
Page 44
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Page 44, 24th January 1928 — TO HAUL 20-TON LOADS IN THE CONGO.
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The New Powerful Pipe Tractor Which is Arranged to Run on Producer-gas.

IN our report on the commercial motors exhibited at the Salon de Bruxelles, brief mention was made of a powerful new tractor'manufactured by Messrs. Pipe. We are now able to give further details of this machine, which appears , to be a very interesting production. We

understand that ten of these tractors have just been ordered by t h e Kilomoto Mining Co. for service in the Belgian Congo territory, and are now under construction.

The tractor can run on liquid fuel, but, as described by. us, is arranged for charcoal fuel, and the design was arrived at after exhaustive experiments covering several years with gas-driven Pipe lorries and tractors in -tropical Africa.

The six-cylindered engine has

a bore of 120 mm. and a piston stroke of 160 mill. The cylinders are cast in pairs and have overhead valves operated from a single camshaft. T h e four -bearing, one-piece, balanced crank-. shaft is machined our from the solid, and the cOnnecting rods are tubular forgings. Splash as well as pressure lubrication is provided, so that even in the event of a breakdown in the pressure system, big-ends, cylinder walls and main bearings will still receive a supply of oil.

A compressed-air engine starter is provided. The radiator is a n20 The four-bear the camshaft, c leaf with forg multiple-purpose unit combining the ordinary water radiator for the engine, a special radiator for the circulating water used in the scrubber, a gas cooler and it heat radiator for the lubricating oil. The engine radiator is of very large capacity, in view of the tropical conditions under which the machine is intended to work. The ensemble is cooled by a large-diameter fan.

Themultiple-disc, dry-plate clutch, with its casing, forms a completely independent unit, which niay be removed from the chassis and replaced without disturbing anything else.

Incidentally, the removal and replacement of parts have been particularly studied in the Pipe tractor, and both engine and gearbox are provided with hoisting rings fitted into the wide flanges which serve as bearers.

The gearbox provides five forward speeds and a reverse, the speeds being operated by three selectors from an ordinary gate. From the gearbox a very short propeller shaft conveys the drive to the rear axle. The latter is built On the same massive lines as the rest of the chassis. It incorporates a triple reduction gear, ivith exceedingly widetoothed pinions and a final bevel drive with differential. From the lower part of the triplereduction gear casing two universally jointed radius rods extend upwards to the ends of a substantial compensating yoke. The latter is mounted centrally in bearings between twin arched crossmembers of the frame.

The frame is straight-sided and the chassis has a high clearance, thus suiting it for colonial roads.

Five brakes arq provided—that is to say, ordinary four-wheel braking and a transmission brake in rear of the gearbox. Spherical universal joints are used for the propeller shaft and large-diameter Hardy joints for the short shaft between the clutch and gearbox. • Suspension, both front and rear, Is by substantial half-elliptic springs. A feature of these springs is the fact that the bearings for the .pins at the ends of the master leaf are forged from the solid and not simply rolled round, as is usually the case.

The tractor is mounted on 1,025

mm. by 185 ram. Englebert pneumatic tyres, twins at the rear.

The charcoal-gas generator, which is of the standard Pipe design, is mounted on a.rear extension of the frame. This generator, with its special gas-cooling and scrubbing system, has already been fully described in these columns. The two particular features of the Pipe gas system are constant water circulation by pump and the introdnction of water vapour into the as by means of a fine jet directed into the hottest part of the furnace. Water is fed through a float-feed appliance. This new Pipe tractor is designed for hauling loads of 20 tops. , It is a machine which should be of very considerable service -in certain British overseas dominions and colonies. A tractor of this type, even employing producer gas, might conceivably be used in such a difficult region as Kenya Colony, in spite of the latter's high altitude, as the reserve of power provided by the engine is exceptional. Inquiries • with, regard to the new Pipe tractor should be addressed to Les Usines Pipe, 31, Rue Felix Vandezande, Bruxelles.

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Organisations: US Federal Reserve
Locations: Bruxelles

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