Australian CGT mystery

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally posted by David_Hayward
May I just add that responsibility for production of cabs layed initially with Fords but axles/suspension layed largely with GM of Canada. This was as a result of experiences with the 1938 G/S 15-cwt Chevrolet trucks that the DND purchased. Failures of king-pins and axles resulted in belief that the 1940 Ford front axle was not strong enough for the production CMPs and so reliance was made initially on either McKinnon/Timken and/or Marmon-Herrington/Timken components. I like to think that Oshawa designed the GT drive-train, Windsor the cabs and possibly Brantford the GT bodies albeit based on the two British designs imported as patterns.

From The Design Record, Vol. 4, p. 27:

"Immediately after the war was declared, the Ford Motor Company of Canada were charged with the responsibility of developing a 4x4 truck for army use. Obviously, they had very little experience in this field [...] Consequently they went to the Marmon-Herrington Company, Indianapolis, who in peace time supplied conversion material to convert Standard Ford 4x2 trucks into 4x4 models for various commercial peace time usage. [...] these joints were unsuitable [...] [the weight of the more or less cab over engine design and heavy army wheels/tires put too much load on the front axle joints.] To solve this problem, "Bendix-Weiss and Rzeppa joints were chosen by General Motors and Ford respectively [...] [They later realized that the "Tracta" type was better but they were already tooled up with the above types, so left it as it was.]