Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/91

 Popular Science Mont hi }/

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��deliver a ton of goods more cheaply than any other vehicle. Its weight is re- duced to a minimum so that its power can be applied to actually moving the load, rather than to pushing itself over the road. Greater strength demands heavier and more rugged parts and this means greater weight.

Some truck ma- kers wondered why it was necessary for the United States Army to have a special and more rugged conveyance, when our Allies across the seas were not only using the 54,038 commercial vehicles shipped to them from America between July, 1914,

���Stirrup Step and Storage for Spare Parts

The clumsy automobile running board with its tool boxes and extra tires lias been discarded

��they are not all that has been desired. When our Allies bought American trucks they had to buy them, not because they were built in the right way but because trucks were vital necessities and America was the only country able to make and export them. To change even the smallest detail on any of our trucks now abroad would throw the en- tire repair parts sys- tem into chaos. Battles might even be lost if the system were disturbed.

But with the United States, it is different. We are entering the war at a time when we are able to apply every

��and July, 1917, but

were continuing to order more each month. That was all a matter of sheer necessity. The repair-parts problem is stupendous, because of the inherent weakness of the average commercial truck for war work. The trucks couldn't be changed, A single change in design of any of the dozen or more standard makes sent to the battle front would mean the scrapping of thou- sands and thousands of dollars' worth of spare parts. Our trucks overseas are giving a good account of themselves; but

���Exhaust

��inlaKe manifold^

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Hot gases heat and vaporize incoming fuel here

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��Governor

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��The Unique Gas- Saver

About three inches of the intake manifold is inside of the exhaust manifold, so that the low grades of fuel now used will be vaporized before entering the explosion chambers

��bit of truck experi- ence gained by our Allies at the cost of much blood and money. This experience is embodied in the new trucks, the first two of which, w^ere assembled in record time at plants in Rochester, N. Y., and Lima, Ohio, driven overland to Washing- ton and accepted by President Wilson and Secretary of War Baker.

The weakest part of the new truck is stronger than any conceivable war strain that can be put upon it. It is more rug- ged that any commercial vehicle of like capacity. Its load is only three tons, and yet it is comparable with the five-tonner of every-day use. This is very impor- tant; for there will be neither time to make extensive repairs when the forward march on the W^est front begins, nor road- side repairshops at which to make them. A broken-down truck is a truck lost. Into the ditch it will go, so that the line of vital ammunition and supplies is not held up. Again, the shell-pitted roads of northern France, over which the advance will be made, will be boulevards as com- pared even with Mexico's roadless country.

In order that our new trucks shall not fail in this crucial test, the two already completed, wall be tested to destruction between now and the first of January.. 1918. Any weaknesses which might prove disastrous later on will be dis-

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