Classic Refuse Trucks DAYBROOK

Daybrook Power Packer (continued)

Above: One of the last Daybrook Power Packers of the mid 1960's. The flexible floor rewind spool and cable guide tube are clearly visible in this view of the left side tailgate, as is one of the push bars inside the hopper. Missing is the rocker panel, which should be visible at the top of the hopper opening, where instead we see a tubular support member which identifies this as a late model equipped with a third hydraulic cylinder powering the crusher plate (as described below).

THE FINAL YEARS
The last and perhaps greatest improvement to the Power Packer came in late 1964 or thereabout, with the addition of a third hydraulic cylinder to directly operate the completely redesigned crusher panel (highlighted in red, left illustration). This robust new design not only eliminated the rocker panel and mechanical linkage of the previous versions, but would appear to have given the crusher panel much more ability to assist in consolidating the the load, especially as the body became filled. Though little else changed, there is at least one visual cue for identifying late model versions; in the illustration, note the pivot mounting bar for the sweep panel hydraulic cylinders, and then look at the photo above and the images on previous pages. The tube shaped support is clearly visible in the photo above, while in the earlier versions, the angular rocker panel is always seen just above the hopper opening.

When exactly production ceased is not currently known, but by 1968 the Power Packer was no longer advertised in the Municipal Index. One clue lies in the patent for improvements mentioned above, which was the creation of Donald Mold of Whitehouse, Ohio. Though filed in October of 1964, by the time it was granted in 1966, the assignee was one "Paul Hardeman Inc, a corporation of Michigan", and not Young Spring & Wire. The latter company, who owned Daybrook, is now part of Leggett & Platt and apparently still supplying seats to the auto industry. The entire Daybrook Truck Equipment Division may have been cast off when L&P took over. Within the increasingly competitive refuse body industry of the mid 1960's, new designs with previously unimaginable power were beginning their eventual domination of the market, and perhaps the owners "saw the writing on the wall". Though short-lived and now obscured by the passage of time, the Power Packer was an important and once viable player in the industry, and remains a true classic refuse truck.

SIDEBAR:CONTINUOUS LOADERS vs. BATCH LOADERS

The Daybrook Power Packer was a U.S, built continuous-type loader, but competed against a slate of rivals which were almost universally of the batch-loading type. Simply put, the term batch loader refers to any type of refuse truck in which a quantity of refuse (a batch) is first loaded, and then compacted by the mechanism to make room for the next batch. With batch loaders, the operator typically has to wait until at least part of the packing cycle is completed before reloading may commence. The amount of time he must wait until reloading begins is called the re-load time, and could be as little as four seconds on a Gar Wood LP-500, or as much as twenty seconds on a Leach Packmaster. With full-travel side loaders such as the Pak-Mor, the entire cycle would have to complete before anything else could be loaded. The same was true of both the Heil Colectomatic and Sicard Sanivan rear loaders.

With continuous-loaders, refuse is constantly packed by the mechanism, typically in small increments as the collection crew loads the vehicle. There is no reload time, and the crew may continue to add refuse as fast as the mechanism will digest it. It is this school of design that found much success in post-war Europe, in contrast to the American trend toward batch loaders. European continuous loaders of the Rey and Ochsner type are among some of the first rear load packers ever built, with examples being in use as early as 1933. Their simple, plunger type mechanisms are perhaps best known today from two famous British makes; The SD Pakamatic and Dennis Paxit. A look at a Paxit diagram perhaps best illustrates this method:

(1) Refuse is loaded into hopper (2) Plunger pushes refuse from below, "inverted drawer" shape of plunger prevents refuse from falling behind mechanism (3) Pivoting panel sweeps and packs refuse into body (the SD Pakamatic used a similar method, but excluded upper packer panel and instead forced refuse beneath fixed tines)

The Dennis Paxit method illustrated above comes close to resembling that of the Ram-Pak/Power Packer, though the upper panel of the Paxit would seem to function strictly as sweeper-packer, and not a crusher. George Wood may quite possibly have been influenced by this design, the product of Swiss inventor Jacob Ochsner, since his earlier Gar Wood Load-Packer would have competed against bodies like this in the international market. Along with the escalator loaders like the Kurtz conveyors and the Roto-Pac, The Power Packer is among the few serious attempts by an American company to market a continuous-type rear loader.

4/2/05