1974 Seagrave TDA's

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Jun 27, 2007
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3,335
Just received another outstanding FAJ publication, "Tillers and Tractors". It stated there was a problem with the tiller enclosure, can someone please elaborate. Thanx.
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2015
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56
Original Tillerman enclosure did not have doors. The entire cab except for the windshield slid open and then had to slide it closed. All were changed and have stayed pretty much unchanged since with sliding doors on both sides, while the remainder of the cab is stationary.
 
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May 6, 2010
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15,591
The first round of '74 Seagrave Tillers had a one piece canopy that slid backwards to get in & out......early on Seagrave replaced these w/a fixed canopy that had individual sliding door's on both sides....the sliding canopy had many more moving parts & when open in transit had a lot of weight hanging out the back on the tracks also when you opened the canopy you had no protection overhead as opposed to the sliding doors which left the roof in place ........ .the real problem w/the rigs themselves  concerned the ride quality in the Tiller ......to me it always seemed to be the lack of bracing under the Tiller seat....if you compare a '74 Seagrave Tiller w/an older American La France you can see the amount of additional bracing underneath the Tiller overhang.
In 108 we had a brand new '74 Seagrave that replaced our '69 ALF.....we did not like it & got the Shops to assign us a '68 ALF that had been 123s but had sat in the shops for several years w/a blown engine...when we got it it had a new engine however the hydraulics on the aerial kept crapping out & the Shops swapped the trailer section w/one from 120s former ALF after awhile it too started to become undependable...around that time 166 was looking to get rid of their '74 Seagarave so they were given (if i remember) one of the converted Mack Magirus Rearmounts w/a 100 Grove aerial so we got their '74 .....it was no different from the '74 we had new (which went to 106) but at least they were more reliable than the used ALFs (the ALFs were great when new though) . 
 
Joined
Jun 27, 2007
Messages
3,335
Boston purchased 10 1976 models with the fixed enclosure and sliding doors. One difference was we had bubble windows.
 
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