Re: Re: weight of detroit 4-71

Posted by john d on June 23, 2001 at 23:12:10 from (152.163.197.82):

In Reply to: Re: weight of detroit 4-71 posted by Burrhead on June 23, 2001 at 20:27:21:

Thanks for the post; I've wondered for over 30 years what one of those beasties weighed! When I got my first industrial arts teaching job in Northern Indiana, I was supposed to have two classes a day that consisted of a VERY general approach to auto mechanics. I told the administrators that I didn't think much of trying to do this in a facility that had a few tools and an overhead door, but class periods of 50 minutes or so. About all you could do was pull a car in, raise the hood, look around for a few minutes and then back it out before the next class came in to use the lab for something else!

About all I got from the higher-ups were dumb looks. So....I asked if there was any objection to me trying to get some stuff donated that could be worked on without being driven. They said "No problem!" I got the local wrecking yard to give me some engines and transmissions, I got a local company to donate some steel for stands, and pretty soon we had some things to work on. Then I started writing letters, and got a Mercury stern drive unit with engine, some stuff from Ford, GM, and Chrysler, etc.

I still didn't have a diesel of any sort, so I went on the search for a benefactor..... Eventually, after a bunch of correspondence, I got a note from GM that a distributor in TEXAS was going to contact me about donating a diesel engine. I was overjoyed when this company wrote me a note telling me that our school would receive not one, but TWO (2) GM 4-71 engines "not guaranteed to be in working condition...." Furthermore, they said they would arrange for shipping!

About a month later.....my principal appeared at the door to the lab and said "Did you order an engine from Texas?" I said "Somebody in Texas is supposed to be donating one to us, but I don't know when." He then said, "Well there's semi parked in front of the building with an engine on it that's about half the size of this room...and he says he's in a hurry to unload!"

When the semi backed around to our corner of the building, my heart sank....when the truck stopped and I got a good look, that sinking feeling turned to a feeling of total shock. What we had received was two engines, alright, but bolted together in a configuration that allowed them to drive through one big transfer case to a transmission for a bus!

This monster was nearly 8' wide, about 6' long, and on the angle iron stand to which it was bolted for shipping, it stood about 5' high!

Getting it off the truck took most of the morning, as we had to beg a local company to send its biggest forklift across town (they demanded a police escort to do that) and get very creative about how to block the thing onto the forklift so the truck could drive away. The assembly weighed far more than the forklift should have been trying to move. The driver carried it about 4" off the ground, and had to set it down inside the overhead door and leave it there because every time he tried to go over the little lip of concrete at the door, the rear wheels would come up!

It took us weeks to get that thing separated into two engines and get them set up so kids could work on them. What an adventure!

Follow Ups:

• Re: Re: Re: weight of detroit 4-71 Burrhead 20:04:05 06/24/01 (2)
  • Re: Re: Re: Re: weight of detroit 4-71 mike jenezon 22:18:31 06/24/01 (1)
    • Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: weight of detroit 4-71 Burrhead 09:56:07 06/25/01 (0)

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