Bantam crane and backhoe

[BinderDan]

Just thought I’d post a few pictures of my bantam on a CCKW

 

[USAFSS-ColdWarrior]

Now THAT is a rare MV around here!

Thanks for sharing.

 

[USAFSS-ColdWarrior]

Seeing that you're new here....

Welcome aboard

Find a bunk, stow your gear, and prepare to get underway


You might take a look at this thread..... MV of the Month - February 2020 ...and consider entering your MV in this month's competition. Winners aren't always the museum restoration examples. Rarity and a good story score point with the subscribers/voters.

Again, WELCOME !

 

[snowtrac nome]

out here where I live that stuff is littered all over the tundra from the mining days.

 

[saddamsnightmare]

Just thought I’d post a few pictures of my bantam on a CCKW

Wow! A cable controlled back hoe! Those were getting rare when I was a kid 50+ years ago! I'll bet they are a bear to keep in clutches!


Cheers,

Kyle

 

[msgjd]

Wow! A cable controlled back hoe! Those were getting rare when I was a kid 50+ years ago! I'll bet they are a bear to keep in clutches!

Your arm strength is not supposed to hold any powered work being done. If it does, the clutches aren't adjusted correctly. It's all about leverage. The "clutches" look like and operate like oversize automotive brake shoes. Hand levers move the clutch shoes to engage the drums to provide working force, be it swing, travel, hoist, pull, or crowd. The hand levers have adequate leverage to fairly easily engage/disengage the clutch shoes past the over-center locking cams which hold the shoes tight to the drums doing the work. Success totally depends on the tightness of the shoes and the locking cams. (but no smart operator will ever remove their hand from the lever doing work, regardless)

The only thing that gets strenuous are the cable drum brakes, which are band-type brakes operated by a pair of foot pedals. Your thighs can get very tired by afternoon. Leg pressure/strength is required to keep the cables from slacking and to control the drop of the load, the stick, the crowd... and on a backhoe, the boom. It depends on your attachment up front. Basically, you're mostly riding the brakes all day with constantly-varying foot pressure depending on what motion is going on. Your legs control the spool-out of cable from the drums, and it's your legs that are holding the load (and also the boom on a backhoe) in the air.

You are basically running two big winches. It takes coordination and be of a certain mindset to run cable machines. When your legs get tired to where you're nicking the top of dumptruck tailgates as you spool out the dipper, it's time to go home ! Been there, done that. Many many hours in these machines. Until 2008 we had three 10B's , three 22B's , and a couple Lorain's. Nowadays have only one operational 22B and a parts machine

 

[wiggall]

WOW!

 

[saddamsnightmare]

Wow! A cable controlled back hoe! Those were getting rare when I was a kid 50+ years ago! I'll bet they are a bear to keep in clutches!


Cheers,

Kyle

The clutches would likely be either internal block clutches or exterior contracting band clutches, wither way, I would not want to have to keep them in adjustment. A lot of the 1930's-1940's cranes had those type, or some had mechanical dog cluthes. Probably the most critical parts will be the brakes, and again, they are likely the band type with linings. We had some BE 22B's that were from that era, and by the 1970's they were pretty much shot from a lot of heavy work done by them in the meantime. Amazingly enough, folks still collect 10B and 22B BE Cranes and shovels.


Have a Great Evening!

 

[m1010plowboy]

That's a WORKING
Bantam crane and backhoe?

It runs and moves? I see the hood up but I can't quite see the engine. Whatcha got under the hoods? I'd never guess but if I did would I guess 270? Thank you for sharing that.

Do you have a kid around with a smart phone that can take some video for us? I gotta hear that thing and I don't think I can get over the border.

 

[18operator]

That's a really neat machine! I'd like to see it in action. Find that kid with the smartphone!

 

[msgjd]

Here is the grandson of the man whose name is on the pictured machine below. I remember when this company had two of these ex-USMC IHC M5H6's. One has a Bantam crane/dragline (pictured), and the other had a Bantam shovel which also had an additional backhoe attachment for it. I remember them going past in the late-60's into the mid-70's at a whopping 35-40mph on their way to/from jobs, or their gravel pit. They also had a former M1 LaFrance with a Bucyrus 15B crane on its back in leiu of the wrecker body. The Lafrance was really something to this teenager, seeing its dual ignition system under the hood and all.

I recently hauled my M62 wrecker 150 miles (for other work primarily) to attempt to recover this Bantam M5H6 from where it sits, about a mile off-road in the woods, sunk in the ground above the axles. It dug a large pond in the early 80's and there it has sat since, the "new" owner didn't have any further work for it. The company's decendent (pictured) is trying to buy it back to save their last-known ex-military survivor . Besides the ex-military trucks, they had a few WW2 ex-army or seabees AC HD10's and 11's , ex-military cat grader, and ex-military screening plants . By the late 70's the company had sold off its WW2 stuff

 

[NY Tom]

How did it go? Looks pretty heavy and pretty well sunk down.

 

[msgjd]

How did it go? Looks pretty heavy and pretty well sunk down.

Yes it's sunk pretty good, and in clay too. It will come out, just needs a lot of patience. Perhaps one wheel at a time and get blocks and planks under them as we go... Haven't done the job yet, he is still working on an agreeable purchase price ..

On another story, I recovered a Lorain 25-ton shovel that had sat so long only half its tracks were showing .. I only had a M108 available at the time and it would not winch even with wrecker anchored to a big tree and double-reduction sheaves... I also could not straight-lift any part of either track out of the ground since the front of the truck was the only thing going up in the air... (outriggers were froze up long before i bought it) ..

Failure was not an option so I had a thought, yanked the house around so the shovel boom was perpendicular to the tracks, set the swing lock, attached the wrecker hook to a chain wrapped around the boom tip, gave it a tug and voila! ... Leverage ... The boom came down slow and the track on the opposite side creeped up out of its hole. .. We filled the hole with railroad ties, let the machine down, swung the house around to the other side, moved the M108, and did the same thing for the other track. The M108 was then able to drag it out to the road after we cleaned out all the potatoes (stones) that were jamming the tracks, and then it winched the old machine onto the lowboy. The Lorain was not much older than the M108. Then our whole parade of old stuff went home

 

[msgjd]

Going back to the original poster of this string from Binder Dan. Sorry I didn't intend to hijack his thread here. His bantam on that CCKW is quite something. His looks to be an original as-built machine. Bantam's were also a popular modification to ex-military 6x6's in the late-40's thru 60's because they were light, yet could really kick butt on a jobsite, thus its namesake.

I have seen two other brands on 6x6 trucks that were post-military mods. Those machines were heavier thus were mounted on WW2 4T's and 6T's, and also on 1950's 5T's. . Little Giant had a 3/8 or 1/2-yard model for those larger trucks, and I once bought a Bucyrus 10B crane/clamshell that once had been mounted to a M54 chassis.

In 2001 up in a marina on the north side of Bar Harbor was a GMC M211-type with a crane . It had the single-seat cab like Binder Dan's CCKW above