The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot Big Bolts 1946 2 ton flat bed need hendrickson tandem

Need a tandeam axle of the era for the 1946 2ton. Any knowledge of location or tech information.

I don't think Chev offered a tandem in those years unless it might have been something for the military and those are bulky expensive to maintain setups. A Hendrickson walking beam tandem was offered on bigger trucks and they changed very little from the 40's to the 70's. Hendricksons were pretty much standard in garbage trucks,mixer trucks and tandem dumps for many years. Even over the road trucks used them a lot until about the 70's. They came in rubber pad or spring. The rubber pad would probably be more period correct, but they really ride tough. I drove one in the late 60's.Most old tandem trucks,except for Mack, you see sitting around will have a hendrickson, but most will be on air. Finding one with hydraulic brakes is going to be tough.

Hy CAJUN CRAW FISH, a company named Thornton made a conversion for Chevies called a "Dual Drive", it used two standard Chevy diffs. with the pinions pointed at one another, the power came to them through a drop box, and therefore only one driveshaft. You could order the truck from the dealer, or there might have been a kit available, hope that helps.

A member of ATHS, Gene Buchanan, in Wisconsin had some sort of unusual tandem setup from an old Chevy truck. It was interesting but confusing, looked like a lot of trouble to me, but I don't remember the exact setup, probably did have the two pinions pointing to the center of the tandem setup.
I was there to pick up some other stuff, and he gave me a tour around his place. I don't know the whole story, but it sounds like he sold it but it was never picked up. It might be worth a try to call him. I don't have his number handy, but you can find him through the ATHS, he is, or has been, very involved.
www.ATHS.org

Grigg

I saw a truck like you describe in Hutch at the convention this year. May be the same guy. Those things were actually offered by Chev as oem for a couple of years in the mid 50's but they became obsolete in a hurry when Eaton and Timkin came out with through shaft bogies. Hendrickson walking beam suspensions must have been around in the 40's because I have some old Batco catalogs that list them and they look like there were very little changes from the 40's through the 60's. I just got through scrapping an Eaton 3 speed on a Hendrickson that had hydraulic brakes. I thought I was lucky to get $100 from a scrapper who winched it out of the weeds.

I did not notice a truck with that suspension in Hutchinson, but I was not looking either.
The tandem Gene had was just a cutoff frame, no truck.

Grigg