Try 28 axles, my friend. Take a look at this. And if I recall correctly (I took these pics several years ago), the dollies were evenly divided into two groups, front and rear. In each group, all of the dolllies were mechanically linked together, and the group was hydraulicly steered. So I think they could steer the front group and the rear group independently. You can see the front "Pittman arm" in this photo.

I also seem to remember them saying on the news that the payload was right around a million pounds, although I don't know if that could be correct. But, I think this was a transformer, which means it is pretty much solid iron and copper. It took them a couple of days to make it through the county and get to the plant, travelling at night. I wish I could have caught it when it was moving.

Edited to add: I remember when I looked at this thing up close, most of the tires were somewhat flatterned. Also, you can see slats of wood that they put on top, I think they were to deflect any ovehead lines that they might encounter.

 

Yeah, here ya go, look at the tires in this photo. And OK, I will quit hogging bandwidth now...

 

this is what im talking about though when gasser guys bring up gearing......yeah, but my v10 will outpull your psd if i get a 10 speed tranny and 4.88 gears and the psd has to keep a stock tranny and 3.73 gears. my argument is that if you give your v10 a 10 speed tranny, then i can turn right around give my psd a 10 speed tranny. when you give one engine a 10 speed tranny and the other a 5 speed, its not really an engine vs engine comparison anymore. that being said, i can take a 90 hp 4 cyl and give it a 10 speed tranny and a 2 speed rear axle and 5.14 gears and it will get a load moving easier than the v10 with a 4 speed automatic tranny and 2.73 gears. does that make the 4 cyl a better towing engine than the v10?

in another example, take jr dragsters in a drag race vs a shelby gt 500. the jr dragster has a 20 hp lawn mower engine but it will outrun the gt 500 by over 2 seconds in the 1/4 mile even thought the gt 500 has over 500 hp. does that mean that the 20 hp lawnmower engine is better suited for drag racing than the 500 hp engine? what happens when you put them in the same car? just saying lets try to keep things fair here. a 10 speed tranny vs a 6 speed is hardly fair.

 

...but all the gears in the world would not allow the V10 to outpull the PSD, if the V10 had less horsepower.

 

Good thing i dont have to worry about a v10 havin more HP then me. lol

 

KelVarnson, where do you come up with these amazing loads? That is incredible. I would love to see something this big on the road.

I have pictures of the space shuttle Challenger being transported from Edwards Air Force Base through Lancaster Ca. It was around 1985.

 

Heh heh... Like I said, I would have loved to have seen the thing moving. I would have had to miss work for that though. The big-wheeled truck in the first pic was the lead pulling rig. I've never seen a truck like that before, maybe someone could tell us what it is. It was similar to the tugs they use for moving big jets around, but seemed quite a bit bigger. I think it would (possibly) outpull a V10.

That is something I would like to see. It is also amazing to me that they can carry the shuttle on top of a 747. Here is a page with some time-lapse video of the piggybacking procedure:

http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Mov...M-0084-32.html

 

All I could tell you is that the lead truck was a very heavily modified Kenworth W900. For something that custom, there's no way we could really guess what they did to it, other than HUGE axles and wheels.

Good point about the tires. Looks like that rig was loaded nearly to capacity, considering the way those tires were bulging. Either that or they were all underinflated, but I seriously doubt that!

 

Looked like a short load, They were aired down for flotation, in the sand

 

in the all the comparisons you all are making, the v10 is outpulling the psd because of gearing and not because of power. when you say "my v10 in 3rd gear can outpull your psd in 5th gear going up a hill" you think that its because its in its powerband and making more hp, when in reality its because it has a HUGE gearing advantage of being in third gear. i can take my 225 hp 7.3 with 4.10 gears and put it in 3rd gear and outpull a 350 hp 6.4 with 3.55 gears in 5th gear going up a hill. no matter what rpm i am at, he is going to be making more hp than me, but yet i will still accelerate faster than him. because of the gearing advantage. and thats with less hp and less tq.

my family owns a wrecker business and we have several gas and diesel rigs. one of our gassers(~350 hp and 400 tq) has a 2 speed rear axle, and let me tell you, from a dead stop that thing will get a load moving just as easily as our diesels with 350-400 hp and 1000 lbs of tq. why? because with that kind of gearing, it doesnt take much power to get anything moving. BUT, there comes a time when you have to change gears. the more gears we run through on the gasser(and get into more normal final drive ratios), the more it pulls just like a regular pickup truck. thats why i keep saying that for a fair engine vs engine comparison you need to have the engines in the same truck with the same parameters(gearing, each in peak powerband, same final drive ratio, etc.) you cant compare one with 4.30's in 3rd gear vs one with 3.73's in 5th gear and say its engine vs engine.

 

also, you must not do much drag racing. gearing plays a huge roll when it comes to racing or towing. you can take two identical mustangs and put a 4.56 in one and a 2.73 in the other and the one with the 4.56 will beat it by several car lengths. but yet they have the exact same hp. how can that be? it doesnt have a thing to do with hp.

take a 2wd 360 hp v10 with 3.73 gears and 4 speed automatic and park it on a 10% grade and hook a chain to an 80k lb big rig. i will do the same with my 225 hp 7.3, 4wd in low range, 4.10 gearing and 5 speed with granny gear. we have a drag race to the top of the hill. who is going to win? i am going to be at the top of the hill and you are going to be sitting there with a fried tranny. so yes, all the gearing in the world will help me outpull you when you dont have the tq or the gearing to even get the load moving.

 

I had to replace a spindle on a wide load a couple years ago up on I-70 between Columbus and Dayton Ohio. The transporter was 18 feet wide and had a bearing failure on one of the wheel hubs. The hub/drum assembly came off and the spindle dug into the pavement. No way to chain it up so I had to replace the spindle right in the middle of the freeway. Had only one lane open for traffic heading west. The load grossed over 420,000lbs. Had a pusher and a puller on this one.

 

Totally disagree...when the two engines are designed differently, the gear trains must of necessity be designed differently. That is, of course, if you are comparing the performance and capability of the two.

In actuality, a lawn mower motor can pull a locomotive if it's geared properly. Course it might take a week to move it a foot, but thats a hp problem.

 

Yup. RPMxTorque/5252 = HP

Take a 400HP @ 1500 RPM Diesel truck engine, thats 1400 ft-lbs of torque. Take a 400HP @ 4500 RPM gas engine, only 525 ft-lbs of torque. Stick a 3:1 reduction unit on the gas engine, and it will appear to behave exactly like the Diesel. You can't compare two vastly different rev-range engines with the same gearing, because the gearing will favor one engine over the other. You run the gas engine with the gearing optomized for the Diesel and you'll end up lugging the Gasser and it will never get in its peak power range. Put the gasser gearing on the Diesel and you'll top out at 35 MPH in top gear.

 

You don't seem to understand what we've been trying to say. When you read about an engine's HP, it's referring to PEAK horsepower, which is only valid at a certain RPM. Totally meaningless everywhere else in the rev range. Same goes for torque. With the exception of a few rare forced inducted engines, torque is the same thing.

My truck is rated for 650 lb-ft of torque at 2,000 RPMs. Means NOTHING once you are at any other RPM. A dyno sheet could provide you with the other info, but peak HP and torque are meaningless outside of those RPMs.

In 5th gear with 3.55s , I'd be somewhere near 1600 RPMs. Don't have time to do many calculations, but that's going to be close. At torque peak, with the formula mentioned everywhere on this thread, I'm making 247 HP @ 2,000 RPMs. At 1600, it would be considerably less than that, as I'd have less RPMs as well as less HP.

So, assuming I'm pulling 170 HP at that RPMs, which is just a guess, you'd be at or near your peak HP. So yes, your 225 HP output would trump my 170 @ 1600. At least, until I put my foot to the floor and I went to 3rd at 3,000 RPMs...in which case my 350 would leave you in the dust.

350 and 225 are simply peak numbers! It's the gearing that gets the engine into the correct RPM range!