Designer Times
Page 2 of 3
By summer’s end I had solved most of the Autopia car design faults, all the while getting a very revealing mechanical design education. We set up two test cars to try everything we could think of to get a better car design. Like a smaller engine, even a foot operated Ball-Lok clutch, Continental and Wisconsin Engines and so on. We called these the Mark II and III which we would drove all nite for testing on the ride for weeks at time. The outcome was a design that would not try to cure the Mark I, but be a whole new mechanical drive package, called the Mark IV.
We rebuilt all the Mark I’s, II’s, and III’s into Mark IV’s which featured a removable drive unit with engine, drive, and axle all in one unit. After trying many engines, the Kohler K7 had the best speed governor, I found that V-belts allowed some slip which reduced the crash shock on the cars. But the big improvement was to make the final drive an enclosed oil-filled cast iron gearbox mounted directly on the rear axle. This was furnished by the Dorris Company, which made automobiles back in the 1920’s.
By 1956, all the Autopia cars were Mk IV’s and were running pretty good. We still tried out many ride operation suggestions on how to improve ride safety. One gizmo was added to the track and cars; a power operated flap embedded in the track at the end of the ride which would make the car brakes apply automatically. This used a mechanism installed on each car which required the ride operator to reset the system on each car that hit the flap. Rather than reduce rear end collisions, it created even more!
But the park never gave up trying to improve the ride. In 1958 a park Autopia operations committee had a list of everything they wanted in a whole new generation of Autopia cars for the expanded original ride and the soon to be added Fantasyland Autopia. This new car became the “1959 committee car” known as the Mk V......but it turned out to be Disney’s own Edsel!.....But that’s a whole ‘nother story.
Some items were so unsuited for Autopia service that we removed them right away, like the Cushman friction drive generators for the headlights. But we were stuck with the wheels which were a simple flat face Gar-Bro wheel with tiny bolts instead of real lug nuts. These forever were coming loose allowing the bolt holes to wear into a kidney shape so you could never keep them tight afterwards.
A lot of the car was just dumb engineering on my part. Like the brake linkage. Instead of a clevis bearing, I used a bent rod sticking in a bearingless hole with just a cotter pin to hold it together. These rods wore out real fast if not oiled every few days. Richfield Oil sponsored the ride and had a 300 pound guy, Tiny Snell, who had this big oil squirt can. When Disneyland accused him of not oiling the cars enough, he went down the line grabbing each car by the side bumper, yanked it up on its side, squirted everything with oil, then slammed them back down. Oil was not the problem, lack of engineering was the problem.
Next month: Steam Freaks - Lingenfelter & Bagley, Ward Kimball Disneyland Locomotive First Steam U
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