<These pics are not from PHPaul's shop. Ours is way more messy. >

I've been meaning to post pics of us re-powering one of our steer cars at work. These are semi trucks that have been cut down to steer the rear of really long loads, mainly pre-fabricated bridge girders. Ours are unique because they are powered. They are legally licensed trucks that can go down the road independently, although we don't like to do that very often.

Most of these pics are of the 1961 GMC built steer car. Both of our steer cars are built from early 60s era GMC trucks. Both were powered with DD6v92 engines. Last summer, one of them began using a gallon of oil every 50 miles, began overheating, and barely made it to delivery. It was slobbering so much oil from the "slobber tube" that we were catching it at the bottom and dumping it back in the top. If you've every dealt with a two stroke Detroit, you know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, here's a few pics of the engine swap.

Here it is before we start. You can barely see almost dead DD6v92.


Here's a pic on its last trip. RIP, little faithful Detroit Diesel.


Here's its sister steer car. Its engine is a-ok.


I found a Cummins L10 in Iowa and had it shipped out. This came from a 1985 trash truck. We had to fabricate new motor mounts to fit the four-stroke.


We had to convert the L10 from a small bell housing to a large one. Found a new-old stock. Also installed a new clutch.


Here it is, all together and ready to go! We got this done for a little less than $8,000 out-the-door.




Here's a view of the newly powered steer car in action. Pardon the video quality. One of our drivers took it, and then just filmed his computer. His daughter is watching a little Disney in the background.

First time I’ve heard of a steercar and don’t think I’ve ever seen one before.

You can learn a lot on SIGforum.

Kickass.

That is pretty awesome. Thanks for sharing.

Seems an unnerving job to draw the short straw & have to pilot that thing.

Looks quite interesting, almost like a carshow custom job from the side in the first pic.

That is very cool. I enjoyed your post immensely.

Very cool

quote:

Originally posted by P250UA5:

Seems an unnerving job to draw the short straw & have to pilot that thing.

Looks quite interesting, almost like a carshow custom job from the side in the first pic.

That was my thought. Going down the road under that much concrete doesn't sound appealing.

Really cool project, though.

Those DD 2 strokes were used EVERYWHERE! Very common in marine applications.

I ran out of time last night to post pics of our new steer car build. Most nights when they close a freeway, they want to set three girders per closure. We only have two steer cars, so we sometimes loose business. We decided to build a third.

The truck is a 1987 International.


The old cab is off, the engine is lowered, and the new cab is fabricated. Fenders were taken from a Peterbilt 359.


Inside the new cab. We scavenged the steering column and clutch mechanism from an old Oshkosh cement mixer.


Here is the working, custom steering and clutch linkage. This truck will be a beast (for a steer car) with that Cummins 855 big cam. I'm guessing we should be able to rock a 200,000 lb girder up a 6% at 30-35mph with a 600hp pull truck and this steer car.


Our new gauge cluster. All these gauges were taken from the same Peterbilt 359 where we got the fenders.



I'll post some more pics as the build progresses. We hope to be done by July.

That’s pretty awesome. I dig the video of the turn at the stoplight. Wow!

I have run dump trucks, hauled heavy construction equipment, rock crushing equipment, ect. That steer car job looks like it would have been right up my alley. When I was younger...

Way cool!

I've seen these, very infrequently, but did not know what they were called. Sort of thought this thread might have cattle in it, coming in.

Very interesting. How far do you usually transport the girders? Also, does your company build the girders, or is mostly a transporter?

Thanks for the photos, $8000 seems like a bargain.

I've seen a lot of things truck related, but I've never seen one of those.

Around here they use non-powered dollies that can be steered.

This is interesting stuff, crazysig7.

I had an uncle that owned a quarry in Illinois. Periodically, he would search for used engines for some of his equipment. He only bought Cummins engines; hated DDs. Never found out why.

That first picture it looked like you were building a mega rat rod truck, lowered, cut cab,

With a little patina paint that could be right out of Steve Darnells weld r up show...

....talk about fun hobbies.....

That is nice, you need some cragars for that thing, and OH yea a roll cage as well.

quote:

Originally posted by c1steve:
Very interesting. How far do you usually transport the girders? Also, does your company build the girders, or is mostly a transporter?

We only transport them. The concrete fabricator used to do some of their own with unpowered steer cars. All you had was a steering wheel. They rolled one last fall and killed the rear driver, so they completely shut down their own transportation, so we do it all now for them. Ours are safer because the rear truck has his own brakes, and ours have seatbelts.