Designer Times
Page 2 of 2
Fast forward to a couple of weeks before WDW opening day in September 1971......the United tractors didn't work! They blew engines, scattered oil and transmission parts all over the canal road, stalled out with gasoline vapor lock. Oh, the CNG clean environment deal went out with the high price Disney tractor. I was then at WDW, having just delivered our first 20,000 Leagues Submarine. WDW VP Dick Nunis was fit to kill. He ordered Carlton and his chief engineer to meet us immediately to plan a fix. THOSE TRACTORS HAVE TO WORK!
I hatched a mad plan to take every engine-driven accessory off the overloaded Ford 351 motor and build a power pak unit and stick it on the back of the United tractor. This rig had a Kohler engine running the big electrical alternator and the brake air compressor. We simulated this configuration with a bare-engine test pulling a huge overload on a hot day up out of the canal tunnel. Mr. Carlton sat sweating in the front row between Dick and I. We just made it......(2) miles an hour at wide open throttle.....whew! Nunis ordered me to design the power pak, get (17) units built in twelve days in the WDW machine shop, while poor Mr. Carlton would have to pay for them.
A month later MAPO was ordered to resume design of the original tractor and build (23) of them ASAP for delivery no later than the following spring. I had a red hot team of drafters, and the MAPO CNG engineers to feed my design layouts to. We built a prototype tractor in a few months and tested it in Florida with a temporary wooden body. It overheated badly with the CNG fuel conversion Ford 534 cid V8. We had a great hot rod type shop manager, Bob Booth, who quickly made the right fix. Then we proceeded with final tooling for the production version of the tractor.
The big Ford engine was hooked to a Ford MT-42 Transmatic driving a Rockwell-Standard T-226 transfer case with RS U-joints and drive shafts into an RS Q-245 axle assembly mounting Goodyear super single 15-19.5 tires. I used 10-16.5 tires in front on a Chevrolet HD van front suspension and steering. I designed a welded steel frame to hold all this mish-mash and the giant CNG tanks, all covered with a fiberglass body. The front cab was sheet metal and had a wide roof......which got the nickname "flying nun". It's by far the ugliest beast I ever designed. But it still lives in a re-engineered version today at Disneyland using a very clean fuel system. But the Disneyland model has no memory of why it's so big and strange.
oOo
Next month: WDW 20,000 Leagues Submarine
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-- Bob Gurr
Bob Gurr began working with Disney in 1954. He retired in 1981 but occassionally consults for the Company. Since Disney he's worked on the sinking ship at Las Vegas' Treasure Island, Universal Studios' King Kong, Godzilla for the film by the same name and much more. Among his proudest accomplishments he lists "making Walt tickled pink that some of the things he wanted to build actually worked. You could tell how proud he was when he would show off things to his friends and the press. Lincoln and the Monorail were two big ones for him."
Designer Times is normally posted the second Wednesday of each month.
The opinions expressed by Bob Gurr, and all of our columnists, do not necessarily represent the feelings of LaughingPlace.com or any of its employees or advertisers. All speculation and rumors about the future of Disneyland and the Walt Disney Company are just that - speculation and rumors - and should be treated as such.
-- Posted February 12, 2003
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