Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 90.djvu/572

 The Motor-Truck Sewer Cleaner

It does the work of four gangs of four men each

��CLEAR WATER COMPARTMENT FEEDS PUMP

��/BAFFLE PLATES SEPARATE WATER FROM SEDIMENT

(HYDRAULIC H0I5T JOR DUMPING

^MIXTURE DISCHARGED INTO BODY

��pump driven from the vehicle driveshaf t by means of a silent chain, and a device called the eductor which is lowered into the bottom of the catchbasin at the end of a long telescoping pipe, as shown in the accompanying illustration.

The body is divided into two main parts, one for the sediment and one for the water used

The machine consists of a five-ton motor-truck with a pumping device which draws the catch basin sediment up and into the truck by suction

���SUBSTITUTING mechanical power for hand labor, the ingenuity of a Spring- field, Ohio, engineer has found a way to clean sewer catchbasins by motor power. Not only does the machine do the work better than it was done by hand, but it does it more cheaply. The apparatus will clean from forty to fifty catchbasins a day, an equivalent to the work done by four gangs of four men each in the same time.

The machine is a self-contained unit con- sisting of a five-ton motor-truck equipped with a pumping device. The latter is driven by the vehicle motor and draws the catch- basin sediment up and into the truck body by means of suction. After the body is full, the truck runs to the dump, deposits its load through tilting the body by means of a hydraulic hoist and is back on the job in less than half the time it would take a horse and wagon to make one-half the round trip.

The apparatus consists of a watertight steel box body, an ordinary centrifugal

��the pump to suck up the sediment. This division is made by means of a steel plate parallel with one side and a perforated cross plate at the rear, forming an L-shaped tank for the water. The water is fed from the bottom of the tank into the centrifugal pump directly aft of the driver's seat.

The pump forces the water down into the catchbasin in a hose and up again through the eductor pipe. As it passes the eductor nozzle it sucks up with it the sediment in the basin. The sediment and the water travel through a bend in the top of the pipe and drop into the front end of the truck-body. The sediment falls to the bottom and the water is made to pass through notches cut in opposite sides of three hinged baffle- plates. It passes to the rear and then through the small perforations in the rear cross-plate into the water tank.

At this time the water is practically clear. It is fed to the pump and used over and over again until the truck-body is full of the catchbasin silt.

An overflow valve and hose are provided to flush out the bottom of the basin after all the sediment has been removed.

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