Classic Refuse Trucks FRONT LOADERS

U.S. FRONT LOADER DEVELOPMENT

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In 1962, one could be forgiven for thinking that Dempster had an insurmountable lead over all competition, particularly in the east. They had the best lift mechanism in the industry, iron clad patents, a large distributor network and even their container trade name, the "Dumpster" was becoming a synonym used to describe any large refuse receptacle. Under a license agreement with Powell Duffryn Engineering, the entire Dempster product line was being aggressively marketed in Great Britain. However, one Milton Clar of Silver Spring, Maryland, somehow managed to come up with a lift arm variation competitive with Dempster without inviting a lawsuit. Even better, Clar's device was actually darned efficient and quite clever, consisting of an articulated arm arrangement mounted to the top of the storage body, with self-leveling linkage (concealed within the upper arms) to keep the container oriented during its ascension. Clar formed a partnership with Shayne Brothers, a Washington, D.C. area hauler, to distribute his product. The new front loader would be built in Ohio by Hercules-Galion, who had made one of the first all-hydraulic side loaders. Sold as the E-Z Pack FL, it became the flagship of the line. E-Z Pack would shortly becoming a full-fledged division that would offer a complete line of refuse equipment.

Left: Milton Clar distributed his front loader in partnership with Washington, D.C. hauler Shayne Brothers (1963 ad). Truck was built in Ohio by Hercules Galion and sold as the E-Z Pack FL. Right: Shayne brothers logo was a familiar sight on front loaders in the metropolitan area for many years (from a 1970 phone book ad).

Back on the west coast, another upstart Los Angeles builder named Bemars began selling a complete line of western front loaders including half-pack, full-pack and a new concept altogether-the Top-Pack. The top pack body was typically very tall, but had a packing blade approximately half the body height. A fast 20 second cycle cleared off the top area of the hopper, while packing the accumulated load in a circular fashion. The name of the game here was again weight savings, with a claimed 1500 pound advantage over full-platen versions. As for their other products, Bemars half-packs featured twin single-acting cylinders, angularly disposed behind the panel, while the full-pack used a similar arrangement but with multiple-stage telescopic rams replacing the single stage units. The firm built quite a good reputation in the west before being absorbed by Maxon Industries in the early 1970's.

It looked like a giant sized west coast half-pack, but a look inside the Bemars Top-Pack shows the short packer plate which trims the refuse off the top and packs the load in a circular fashion. Weight savings and fast cycle time were big advantages.
(Example shown is a 1974 Bemars-Maxon)

Inside view of Bemars-Maxon TP cycle (courtesy of Bill Tetreault)

Another Los Angeles based refuse body maker was Western Body & Hoist Company, who were building the famous Shu-Pak side loader body under license from the Shubin brothers. They also built a Full-Pak front loader with bodies up to 58 cubic yards capacity. Western was sold to Maxon in 1970, but not before George Morrison had created one of the strangest looking front loaders ever. It was a special version of the Full-Pak mounted on a unique truck chassis known as the "Jet", or "Wesco Jet". The Jet chassis had the front axle set far back to a point underneath the front of the packer body, achieving 50/50 weight distribution and outstanding maneuverability due to its short wheelbase. The closely spaced container lift arms actually bisected the area where a truck cab would normally sit, which was replaced by single or twin "telephone booths". Among the many options and features were 6000 pound capacity lift arms, an auxiliary engine and choice of fork styles, flat or sideways. The so called Jet Full-Pak would be of historic significance, serving as the platform for The Son of Godzilla automated residential loaders developed by Western and the City of Scottsdale, Arizona.

Up to this point, none of the "big three" rear load refuse body builders had fielded a front loader. The largest of the three, Gar Wood, may have rightfully had concerns about an eroding market share. The Leach 2-R Packmaster, growing in popularity had left everyone else flat-footed, while Heil had featured hydraulic full ejection on their rear loader for five years. In an ambitious stroke, obviously seeking a "breakthrough" type product, they gave us the T-100 Refuse System, the first time a U.S. builder had ever produced a complete refuse packer truck, body and chassis, engineered as a complete unit. Though somewhat outside the scope of this article, it is worthwhile to mention some of the innovative technology employed in this ultimately doomed project. First and foremost, it was a unitized or "chassis-less" design (that is to say there was no standard frame work: the body structure was built to itself act in that capacity. Unitizing was at the time quite popular in the European automobile industry, though most U.S. car makers had mostly shied away from unitized bodies due to the sheer size of their product. It was incredibly ambitious then for Gar Wood to apply the technique to heavy truck construction! Another jaw-dropping first was the T-100's front drive arrangement, necessitated by the layout of packer body work, which has seldom been tried on heavy trucks before or since. An indication of front drive performance on landfill surfaces is indicated by the availability of a hydraulic "traction assist" drive for the rear wheels.

Beyond the chassis and driveline, The refuse bodywork was anything but usual. The T-100 was designed to be a rear loader, a front loader, or a combination of the two ! Because of its unitized design, the T-100 offered huge body capacities (40 and 50 cubic yards) in a package the size of many 25 yard bodies mounted on standard truck chassis. The curious rail-guided lift mechanism of the T-100 front loader passed beside the one man driver's cab, with coupling achieved via a tapered "tongue" which mated to a slot at the bottom of the container. This incompatibility with contemporary fork coupled containers likely was a serious hinderance to the T-100's success, since it would not mate to any existing container. One other interesting feature of the T-100's layout was that the offset cab and engine allowed for placement of the packer/ejector hydraulic ram between the two, ahead of the body structure, thus eliminating any bulge in the packer panel.

The over-ambitious T-100 project never became the "breakthrough" that Gar Wood had obviously hoped it would. It may in fact have helped cripple the one time king of the refuse trucks, which changed hands shortly thereafter. Barring firsthand accounts, one can only imagine the kinds of problems encountered introducing such a complex new machine as this for the punishing duty of refuse collection. Gar Wood does however deserve credit for their attempt to address weight issues, and eventually fielded a formidable front loader after the takeover by Sargent Industries, versions of which are still in service to this day under the FAUN badge in Europe.

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11/6/05