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euclid equipment?

S

swindave

Member
anyone have, or had any experiences with the old euclid brand construction equipment?
i ran a dozer for a couple days, years ago, 1980s, time frame
i believe gm owned euclid company at one time

it had the radiator mounted behind the seat, odd design, detriot motor,
it was very loud, and struggled to keep up the a d6 cat,
any one know what happened to euclid company?
thanks
 


It was bought by GM in 1953 then much later sold to Hitachi. I remember that in the 1960s it seemed that most "rock trucks" were "Eucs", to the point that "Euc" was used instead of "Rock truck" as they are called today.
 
I drove roll off garbage trucks in the mid 80's, the landfill had a couple Euclid dozers. The operators said in the winter time, they would turn the fan blades around to blow the heat on the operator.
 
GM had to dissolve ownership and it was sold to White in
1968. GM then formed Terex and continued on. Euclid was
later owned by Daimler-Benz who sold it to Clark who joined it
with Volvo who merged with Hitachi who dropped the name in
2004.
 
I remember an old uncle, long dead now, telling me stories of his job driving a Euclid dump truck.

Said he hated every minute of it, rough and hard to drive! Worst job he ever had.

Something happened that caused the front to come up off the ground then fall back down. I think he quit or got fired over it...
 
Like db4600 said Volvo now owns what was Euclid. Volvo Mining Equipment (VME badge). Komatsu makes a dozer now with the radiator behind the seat. Not as loud as the old Euclid with the Detroit engine. I never knew what was the reason for it in the rear. What was LeTourneau in Longview Texas is now owned by Komatsu. LeTourneau built the largest loaders in the world. Same equipment with Komatsu name.
 
I grew up a short distance from the Euclid plant in Euclid, Ohio where the dumps were assembled and remember the yard where close to 100 would be parked waiting for shipment. It was founded and owned by a local family until the Diamler-Benz takeover. GM closed the two buildings and built the Terex plant in Hudson, Oh. Lincoln Electric was right next door and acquired one building then later the second for their motor and robotic divisions. I worked in the motor division for a time until it was sold to Marathon and that building was remodeled.
 
Now thats a shade of green that NOBODY liked!
cvphoto93460.jpg


Yesterday, the latest issue of Equipment Echoes from the Historical Construction Equipment Association (H.C.E.A.) arrived and the cover story is about Euclid BV self-loading scrapers.
 
When I was in the Air Force on a SAC Base we had 2 Euclid Tow Vehicles to tow B-52's and KC-135's with. They were 4 wheel drive and had cross-crab steering in back, they had big weights on them and had Detroit engines. Gene
 
(quoted from post at 07:33:18 06/30/21) I drove roll off garbage trucks in the mid 80's, the landfill had a couple Euclid dozers. The operators said in the winter time, they would turn the fan blades around to blow the heat on the operator.
Click to expand...
omebody was talking 'bull', as 'turning blades around' will not reverse air flow.
 
Not a flame-- Some fan hubs have rotating blade features that twist the flat blade to reverse it. It does work. Jim
 
LeSueur County Pioneer Power has a Euclid scraper and maybe a dozer - I've somewhat forgot. I've been at that show when the Eucs were running and they seem to literally scream.
 
GM bought Euclid back in the fifties, but was forced to sell it in 1968 due to an antitrust suit. GM then formed Terex, and continued to produce many of the Euclid products under the Terex name.

My dad had a Terex/Euclid TTS-14 tandem scraper. These are relatively rare machines based on the popular TS-14 twin-engine scraper. The TTS-14 had two scraper bowls, one behind the other. The resulting 70 foot long machine had three 4-71 Detroit engines driving six tires through three six speed Allison transmissions. It was ideally suited for the sandhills of northeastern Colorado, as it could load itself without help from a push-cat. The TTS-14 could do the work of two 14 yard scrapers and a push-cat, yet only needed a single operator. The transmissions and rear engines were operated through air controls, so the rear engines only had two throttle settings: idle and wide-open. The front engine had a mechanical throttle, but since its pedal was right next to the air throttle you always ran all three engines WOT.
 
Back in the day in my part of the country, Euc was used interchangeably with pan for twin engine scrapers regardless of color.

I marveled watching them work when I was 10 or so. Most that I saw had a 471 in the front and a 453 in the rear, both equipped with torque converters. Sometimes, when loading shale, a large (twin engine?)
Euclid dozer would rip the shale before loading with the pans. I had never seen such machines. These days, most such work is done with track hoes and trucks, on road or off.

Knowing that I am in the minority, I still love those screaming Jimmys.

Dean
 
Though long a Euclid fan, I must admit that the person responsible for choosing paint color at Euclid, might have been better suited for another task.

Dean
 
I have had my fair share of working on those jeezless pieces of junk. The B-70s, and the conventional haul trucks as well. The B-70s we finally turned into decent equipment when we converted them from the 2 stroke to a 60 series and gave them a transmission upgrade. The early 2000s model end dumps had a Cummins in them that would run about 1500 hours between cylinder heads. When one came by and you smelled that sweet smell coming from the bed, we knew we would be putting a head on the next day. We always joked that the emblem with the Indian on it was pointing and saying take it to the shop. That Caterpillar equipment we had would wear that green stuff out. I was one proud person the day we parked all the green units along with the Northwest and Manitowak draglines.
 
Fascinating, Mark.

I was a design engineer at GM for years and worked with other, older folks who had stories to tell about past projects.

One of my closest friends, elderly but still extant, and the most well respected engineer than I have ever encountered, (from Jackson, MI, I might ad) worked for Delco Products in Dayton, Ohio for many years.

At the time, Delco Products Division designed the traction motors and generators for EMD locomotives (don't know whether Delco or EMD manufactured them). In the early 60s Delco decided to design a push-pull self loading DE scraper using a single 6V71 or 8V71 (or 92 series) in the front driving a DC generator and using an electrical transmission with 250 HP EMD traction motors F $ R (not sure how steering was accommodated). A single prototype was build by modifying a current design twin engine scraper but the design was never commercialized because the end of the interstate highway system was on the horizon and marketing decided that resources could be better spent elsewhere.

Dean
 
Volvo Mining Equipment? The VME stands for Volvo Michagan Euclid.
The VME Group (Volvo-Michigan-Euclid) was a 50-50 Joint venture between Volvo and Clark Equipment Company formed in 1985 after Clark bought the Euclid ..

Beagle
 
C
You must not have been around much heavy equipment. The Huber fan was a very poplar option. Units
had a small hole in the area adjacent to the fan. One took a tool that looked like a socket with a
slot in it on an extension. Stick it thru the hole and push in on the fan blade give it a quarter
turn and do the next one. And yes it did reverse the air flow. In dust working it was advised to do
it ever day to clean the radiator air flow but as others have pointed sure would warm the operator
when blowing on him.
 
The airline I retired from had one of those big towing machines. It was bought in the 60s and used to move all the big ones at that time(707 series, CV880/990, etc)and later the 747s. Steering was neat, normal front 2ws, 4wheel crab where all wheels turned the same direction allowing movement to the side at nearly 45deg and 4 wheel coordinated where the wheels turned opposite directions. That mode allowed a really tight turn, not ZTR but close.
 
When I was a young pup I drove a dump truck at the building of the Chrysler stamping plant in Twinsburg Ohio around 1975 or so. I remember the GM plant was only a few miles from there. I would see them (GM) bring in dozers to test them. I wasn't familiar with that stuff at that time, but the one thing that caught my eye was to turn, the left track would go forward and the right track would go back word, kind of like a bobcat does and the operator sat in front just behind the push blade, ahead of the motor !! Anybody remember that ? Jim in N.M.
 
I ran a Euclid twin-engine scraper back in 1975. I think it was a 16TDT, two Detroit 6-71s. It had a non-powered steering axle in front, unlike later models that were only driving axles with articulated steering. Rear engine had electric shift and air-controlled throttle. Allison transmissions with 3 speeds connected to the engine-mounted torque converter via a cardan shaft. Built most of a ski run with the machine, hauling dirt uphill 20 yards at a trip.

The rig was supposedly bought used from ConEd in Detroit where it moved coal around. It was supposedly roaded to Merrimac, WI across Lake Michigan via ferry.
 
> Delco decided to design a push-pull self loading DE scraper using a single 6V71 or 8V71 (or 92 series) in the front driving a DC generator and using an electrical transmission with 250 HP EMD traction motors F $ R (not sure how steering was accommodated). A single prototype was build by modifying a current design twin engine scraper but the design was never commercialized because the end of the interstate highway system was on the horizon and marketing decided that resources could be better spent elsewhere.

Dean, most scrapers use articulated steering, although some have come out with steerable front ends. John Deere made a few that way, I know.

I wonder if there are any diesel-electric scrapers in production. It looks like Caterpillar uses mechanical drivetrains for all their models, including the big 44 yard 657. Scrapers can't really use the high torque a D-E drive can provide, because they'll just spin their tires. You try to keep your speed up and take a small cut to avoid spinout. In the scrapers I used, first gear didn't get much use.

LeTourneau had an interesting take; their machines used electric motors, not for propulsion but for steering and operating the elevator. We had a C-pull, which was horribly unreliable; another nearby contractor had a pair of the larger B-pull scrapers, which I suspect were even worse. Instead of steering wheels, the LeTourneau scrapers just had a toggle switch on the dashboard to steer. There was a bar across the dash to hang onto so you didn't fall off. The pipes for the screaming 8V71 Detroit were right next to the operator; if you weren't already deaf when you started work, you would be at the end of the day.
 
I drove my father's LeT. D after school, on weekends and all summer for a few years and got real familiar with that grab bar and toggle switch steering! You never realize how many tiny steering corrections you make with a wheel until you have to constantly bat that switch back-and-forth and listen to the clickety-clack of the solenoids and relays behind and under you, combined with that pedal-to-the-metal Jimmy screaming as you wallow through a rutted muddy trail to dump a heaping load of muck.

The only way it coulda got any better was having your brother ram into you at full speed with a D4D cat when you drove into the cut, dropped the pan and came to a full stop!
LeTournea
 
When I was in the Navy at NAS Barbers Point we had a Letourneau crash crane that had to be test driven on each shift change. It had a gear transmission and electric hoist kind of fun to drive. This was Crash/Fire department 1965.
 
Back in the 1960s if you saw a road building outfit at work, chances are they were "Eucs" as they were the most common. Here is a 1956 ad I have scanned from a magazine.
mvphoto77752.jpg
 
> I drove my father's LeT. D after school, on weekends and all summer for a few years and got real familiar with that grab bar and toggle switch steering! You never realize how many tiny steering corrections you make with a wheel until you have to constantly bat that switch back-and-forth and listen to the clickety-clack of the solenoids and relays behind and under you, combined with that pedal-to-the-metal Jimmy screaming as you wallow through a rutted muddy trail to dump a heaping load of muck.

That's a real interesting video. The D-pull is a cute little scraper; it would look like a toy next to a B- or C-pull. What, about six yards?

Our C-pull had a Hancock elevating scraper bowl, so it had hydraulic controls for the bowl rather than the cable/electric controls on that D-pull. It retained electric power for the elevator and, of course, steering. I never operated the Tournapull myself, but I'm sure it was a handful. Dad bought the machine down in the Texas panhandle and opted to drive it all the way home up US 385, some 400 miles. Outside of Hereford, his employee, who was just getting the hang of it, ran the machine off the road and hundred yards down into a ravine.

> The only way it coulda got any better was having your brother ram into you at full speed with a D4D cat when you drove into the cut, dropped the pan and came to a full stop!

Ah yes, the push-cat. My memories were of our D8-14A with my sister at the controls. Usually she was pretty good, but every so often she would misjudge and the impact would knock me clean out of the seat! This was with IH 55 Payscrapers. All in all, it was great fun operating big, primitive machines.
 
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