I have been contacted by an American friend who wishes to remain anonymous, who wanted to share some material with us about a surviving classic Champion 100T motor grader that he was recently privileged to spend some time operating.
Goto HBXG to know more.
When the Champion 100-T, was first introduced in it was the largest production grader ever built, and in fact still retains that title to this day, thanks to the demise of the one off giant ACCO grader.
Pictured above: The Champion 100T on display at an American machinery show in the 70's.
The 100T was powered by a 700hp motor, either a Cummins VT--C700 or in this example a Detroit Diesel GM 16v-71T engine and weighed in at 202,000 pounds, designed primarily for maintaining haul roads in giant surface mines it was equipped with a massive 24-foot blade.
Our friend had been contacted about going to see this fine example after the owner had seen video clips of him using his Cat 16 motor grader at a classic equipment show. The owner invited him down to a retired coal mine in Kentucky which is where the 100T had been in use as a spare grader until .
So, as most of us would be, he was very keen to go and see this beast of a grader and to get hands on with her, so much so that he drove 800 miles one way to take up the offer!
One has to say for a machine that was designed in the mid 's the 100T still has a very modern look to it and a giant panoramic cab was fitted for good measure!
Check out this video clip and enjoy that throaty sounding Detroit Diesel powerpack, from an era when engines just sounded right!
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The largest grader ever produced was a one-of-a-kind machine with a 1,000 hp engine in the rear and a 700-pound engine in front. It had a 33-foot blade.
Motor graders come in all sizes, with the largest currently being the Caterpillar 24-H, weighing nearly 137,000 pounds with a 24-foot moldboard. But several large noteworthy motor graders preceded Cat's machine.
In , Dominion Road Machinery, later called Champion Road Machinery, introduced the world's largest production-model grader, the 80-T, which later became the 100-T. It was powered by a 700-hp Cummins engine and had an operating weight of 202,000 pounds. Like Cat's 24-H, it carried a 24-foot moldboard. Intended for use in surface mines to maintain haul roads or to reclaim large expanses of land, the 100-T was offered for some 14 years, but few were sold.
RayGo Inc., best known for its compactors, ventured into the super grader market in with the introduction of the RayGo Giant. Weighing 53 tons, it featured double articulation and GM 318-hp engines at both ends, each driving a single axle. Although it was suitable for heavy-duty leveling and reclamation of surface mines, its blade was fixed to the central frame instead of the usual circle mounting. The operator's cab was mounted on the rear frame and suspended over the rear articulated joint, giving the operator a panoramic view of the blade and the front power unit. CMI purchased RayGo in . Rights to RayGo products passed to Caterpillar in .
The same year that RayGo came out with the Giant, CMI introduced the Autoblade. It, too, was a double-articulated unit with a power module at each end consisting of a 225-hp engine driving four wheels through hydrostatic drive. Measuring 40 feet alone, the Autoblade had a cab module that could swing 180 degrees, so the operator could face the direction of travel. CMI promoted the machine as a precision grader, suitable for fine grading. The 65,000-pound machine could be guided in both alignment and grade from a fixed stringline attached to pins on the ground.
Other good-size motor graders were built by Galion and O&K. The Galion T-700 was introduced in and incorporated the new "Grade-O-Matic" control system consisting of a torque converter drive and powershift transmission. The biggest grader of its day, the T-700 weighed 40,000 pounds. The O&K machine, the G-350, weighed 90,000 pounds yet had all the blade movements of a smaller grader.
The prize for the largest motor grader ever built goes to an Italian contractor named Umberto Acco around . This one-of-a-kind grader had a 1,000-hp engine in the rear and a 700-hp unit up front to push the 33-foot blade, using traction from the machine's 12 tires.
Information taken from "Giant Earthmovers" and "Colossal Earth-movers," both written by Keith Haddock and published by MBI Publishing. If you are interested in historical equipment, consider a membership in the Historical Construction Equipment Association. Visit its website at www.hcea.net.
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