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Emmett JordanCrawler
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During the years from 1910 to 1920, the budding tractor industry was a hotbed of inventive activity that resulted in a lot of very creative ways to solve the problems inherent in making a successful machine. There were many crackpot ideas, as well as sound ones, with wheel arrangements, engine placement and power trains taking every conceivable form. Many types of crawler designs as well were tried, with one of the more unusual being the 'Ball Tread' tractor. C.L. Best (whose crawler tractors were the main competition to Ben Holt's Caterpillars, from about 1913, until the two companies merged in 1925), believed in constant improvement in his products, and employed an excellent group of master mechanics. One of these men, Clarence A. Henneuse, developed a method of using balls between the track and frame, instead of pins and rollers. Apparently, Mr. Best wasn't impressed by the idea, so in 1912, Henneuse, along with Mr. Frame, of Benecia, W. J. Benson, of San Jose, and Alfred Johnson, of Wintersville, all in California, formed the Ball Tread Company in Detroit to market the tractor.
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The first Ball Tread, a Model 12-25, featured two tracks at the rear and a single front steering wheel. Each of the two tracks ran on two rows of large (2.25 inches in diameter), chilled cast iron balls that ran in steel races on the inside of the track links and the outside of the rigid track frame. An oil tank was mounted inside each track frame to provide drip lubrication to the ball races and the drive sprockets. The balls were claimed to distribute the weight of the tractor evenly over each tread, along with providing reduced wear and a better bearing surface on side hills.
The front tiller wheel was mounted with a three-inch caster to allow it to normally run in a straight line. As a result, the machine required little steering effort on the part of the operator, whose horizontal steering wheel was connected to the tiller wheel by steel cables. Each track was independently driven through a reversible, planetary clutch controlled by a hand lever, allowing one track to be driven forward while the other was stopped or driven in reverse. Most steering was done with these hand levers.
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