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| Snow Wing |
Adams is a very old name in road graders. Their early graders were of the towed type designed to be pulled by a team of horses or a tractor. Later they made motor graders some of which were very similar in appearance to the Caterpillar graders of the time except that the early motor graders were powered by an International Harvester engine---usually a UD-14--which was a 4 cylinder gas-diesel hybrid, also used in the IH TD-14 dozer. The featured grader here is a fairly late model 666 powered by a Detroit Diesel 671, implying that it is a fairly high powered grader, as the older ones that used Detroits usually had a 471 in them--once again the first number in the engine model being the number of cylinders.
The additional photos show an older Adams with the UD-14 power dating to the early 1950's. Adams did set themselves apart in some ways from Cat. They offered over some period of time all wheel drive motor graders with a mechanical drive to the front wheels. This appeared on both 6 wheel graders, and a fairly popular 4 wheel grader. That latter which I've heard called a 'finish grader' offered steering axles on both ends which was a for runner to the articulated graders which are pretty standard today.
Finally, I call your attention to the snow wing shown in one of the photos. This is generally available for all road graders in some version. In the 'use it' position it can be lowered to allow more plowing width in a single pass. Lowered not quite all the way it can be used to slope a snowbank or scrape snow up a snow bank.
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| 1954 Adams 440 |
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| UD14 side view |
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| UD14 side view |
Featured here is an older Adams grader with the UD-14 engine. Like the old Cat motor graders these are 'finger slapper graders' in that all the blade controls are mechanical drive with activated with dog clutches. It's a design that predates hydraulics and is really a spin off of the engineering used on the even earlier designs which required the operator to hand crank the blade controls.
Of particular interest here are the good photos of the sides of the UD-14 engine. On one side you can see the magneto, spark plug wires and an up draft carburetor. On the other side of the engine you see the fuel injection pump, and injectors, and a big lever sticking out of the middle of the engine. That lever is the Gas-Diesel change lever. This hybrid engine starts on gas with the spark plugs concealed behind a 3rd valve in the cylinder head. Once it is running and had a chance to warm up a little bit, you switch the lever on the side of the engine closing the valve off isolating the spark plugs and increasing the compression ratio, and you open the diesel throttle (on the injector pump) at the same time. If the engine is warm enough and you are coordinated enough, it will catch on diesel, and then operates a a normal diesel engine.