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Author Topic: Garrett Steam Tractor  (Read 1181 times)

John Besley

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Garrett Steam Tractor
« on: July 22, 2019, 03:36:45 pm »
This is my current project

Garrett Truck Project
History
The original Garrett Suffolk Punch Haulage Tractor was built in 1929 and 1930 (not to be confused with the well-known Suffolk Punch Steam Agricultural Tractors that where built in 1912) the gem of this project went back into the early 1920’s when an idea was mooted at Garret’s to produce a steam tractor for the export market primarily aiming at a growing sector in Africa.
The first idea was to build a three axle tractor running on continuous tracks (caterpillar) with vertical boiler mounted forward of the front axle similar to the already well established under type trucks – design calculations showed this to be front axle heavy so the boiler was moved to behind the driver with water tanks mounted either side of the boiler, a winch was fitted above the front axle and the engine mounted vertically just forward of the driver.
Design work was started in around March 1926 and the first tractor was built in 1929 following an enquiry from the AGE representative (Agricultural and General Engineering) in South Africa this was built as a traditional drive using roller chain to the rear twin bogie, as the thought of tracks had been dropped by now.
Tractor No 35320 was completed in July 1929 and trialled in and around the works yard, and various improvements carried out before she was ready to be used as a works demonstrator – loaned out to R A Dagnall Ltd of Canterbury, before being taken around county shows on the Garrett sales stand
35332 was built in late 1929 and packed up and sent to South Africa 19th February 1930 to the Randfontein Estates Co Ltd along with a large collection of spares, she must have been of use as a request for a replacement boiler was sent in 1950 which was declined.

35412 was built alongside 35332 but despite interest didn’t sell, by 1930 Garrett’s where facing hard times as sales of steam wagons was in decline with diesel trucks taking the market. The receiver sold the two tractors 35320 and 35412 to John Sadd & Sons Ltd timber merchants from Maldon Essex for £525.00 for the pair where they lasted until 1937 when they were both scrapped

The Project
The first I knew of the Tractor was spotting a sales poster at The Long Shop museum in July 2017, for the next year the thought crossed my mind that this might be an interesting machine to build as a reasonably decent size boiler could be housed in the rear section.
Early July 2018 a second visit and emails to the museum curator turned up further information along with a copy of Garrett Wagons Part 2 Undertypes – this was invaluable as by working from a scale drawing of a standard six wheeler and one or two known dimensions it was possible to create a basic working drawing, covering a side elevation and plan view, a drawing was also created for the front wheel (this was produced as a CNC turning by David Firth)
End of July saw a 150mm length of 63mm dia. round bar of aluminium purchased to turn up the rear wheels as a starting point allowing the sub assembly of the rear bogie to be built and trialled first, at the same time the front spring hanger mounts where produced as templates for profile milling along with a side profile for the windscreen hinge pivots.
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John Besley

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Re: Garrett Steam Tractor
« Reply #1 on: July 22, 2019, 03:46:29 pm »
July 30th – August 3rd
Cut the wheel blank out with a hacksaw and the lathe slightly oversize so they can be turned faced off to finished width afterwards

Facing off the blank ready to be shaped on the outer side and reduced on the inner face will need to turn up a brass bearing and Loctite this in place before drilling out the axle centre exactly true.
Also made contact with Western Steam Ltd and discussed the process to designing a boiler, will need to get this signed off and approved by a qualified designer, contacted Sandy who helped me with the Wilesco Mamod traction engine rebuild back in 2015/16. Contacted Forest Classics to discuss the production of the road tyres as this had a bearing on the finished width of the wheels.

Around the same time I built a plywood mock up to trial the setup for the boiler and engine
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John Besley

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Re: Garrett Steam Tractor
« Reply #2 on: July 22, 2019, 03:51:30 pm »
This more or less brings this project up to date, I have now profile milled a section of brass curtain rail for the chassis rails and made the patterns for the cast chassis angles
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txlabman

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Re: Garrett Steam Tractor
« Reply #3 on: July 23, 2019, 06:34:51 am »
Looks like a great project John.

I am looking forward to following your build.

Good luck!

Roscoe

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Re: Garrett Steam Tractor
« Reply #4 on: July 23, 2019, 08:17:42 am »
Can’t wait to see what you do with this one John.
John

John Besley

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Re: Garrett Steam Tractor
« Reply #5 on: July 23, 2019, 03:51:30 pm »
Reading this in the cold light of day realised that I hadn't updated regards the boiler - Following Sandy's help and getting a design approved the boiler is on order with Western Steam,  expected delivery around September / October, once I have this to hand along with one or two chassis angle castings a start can be made on the construction
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Jon Cameron

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Re: Garrett Steam Tractor
« Reply #6 on: July 28, 2019, 03:45:48 pm »
Look forward to seeing the rest of this project John. Going to be an interesting one to follow.

Jon

John Besley

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Re: Garrett Steam Tractor
« Reply #7 on: January 11, 2020, 09:15:44 am »
The boiler has been delivered... just needs additional fittings to move this project forwards
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John Besley

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Re: Garrett Steam Tractor
« Reply #8 on: January 11, 2020, 09:18:29 am »
Annoyingly the picture will only load the wrong way round... if it could be rotated correctly that would be nice...
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jkbixby

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Re: Garrett Steam Tractor
« Reply #9 on: January 11, 2020, 09:54:04 am »
Glad to see you're making some headway John - ought to be a great project.
Regards,
Larry

Steamandoil (Tim)

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Re: Garrett Steam Tractor
« Reply #10 on: January 12, 2020, 08:06:13 pm »
Looks pretty good to me!
If you play with fire, you're gonna get burned.

txlabman

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Re: Garrett Steam Tractor
« Reply #11 on: January 13, 2020, 04:45:24 am »
Excellent News John.

Looking forward to following your build.

Charlie

John Besley

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Re: Garrett Steam Tractor
« Reply #12 on: February 14, 2021, 04:49:26 am »
Long story, but after an aborted attempt at getting tyres made finally had the wheel sets returned … then headed off in a different direction, happy to say rubber is being ordered and tyres are on order … meanwhile to restart this project -

Parts for the front axle where dug out and checked over to works out how this will go together. Seeing as I already had a pattern made for a Foden front axle it seemed silly not to use this – this might not be so daft as it seems – Garret’s did approach Foden regarding their axle following a spell of broken stub axles, my back story on this is that the timber contractor replaced the front axle with a Foden one as it was better off road in the forest.

Made up the kingpins from a short piece of 3mm silver steel turned up  a M3 thread to mate up with the bush in the bottom of the axle mount and a 6ba thread for the brass nut to cap this off. Thread locked the nut in place and the bush into its seat.
Once the set up is worked out one of the stub axle mounts will nee modifing to allow the steering arm to attach.

Turned up a set of bushes and bored the front wheel through for these made up a threaded brass bush to insert into the ‘Garrett’ hub cap and set up the stub axles from a length of 3/16 steel bar with a M4 thread for the bush – waiting for the return of the second front wheel to complete this work.

Bored out the rear wheels for 8mm bushes and cut off a short section of brass bar to sleeve through a pair of wheels, marked out a chain sprocket and drilled 4 x 8BA holes so this can bolt to the inner rear wheel – I have made the rear wheels as separate parts as the tyre is a twin onto one wide rim.

This will allow me to bolt the whole lot up as a pair and bolt the chain drive sprocket to the inner rim which will in turn bolt onto the axle. – that’s the theory…
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John Besley

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Re: Garrett Steam Tractor
« Reply #13 on: February 14, 2021, 05:10:14 am »
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John Besley

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Re: Garrett Steam Tractor
« Reply #14 on: February 14, 2021, 05:11:27 am »
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