Oh, you may love the NFL, NBA, or NHL but as far as Banghifty spectator sports? If we are going down that road, nothing is better than watching big trucks and old shovels doing pretend work. We’re not saying that to be negative, this was an old truck and equipment show and these guys were getting to stretch the legs of their shovels, Euclid and Mack dump trucks and more. Like going to a thresherman’s reunion or antique tractor show where stuff is “worked” it is like being in a living museum.
The shovel is our favorite part of this video. This is a Northwest Engineering Company 80-D. One may think that this means the company was based in Seattle or something but in reality they were from northwestern Wisconsin. Either way, the 80-D was the company’s major meal ticket for about a half century. This one likely dates from the late 1930s or early 1940s and over the course of its run from 1937 through the 1980s as a production model, there were nearly 3,000 80-D shovels made. The OG models have a 2.5-yard bucket and the later ones a 3-yard bucket. This looks like it may have the 3 yard job on it.
The fluidity of the operator is the neatest thing to watch here. The shovel rotates to the truck, back to the pile, the dipper arm with the bucket on it comes down, gets dragged up, and then back to the truck. The movement never really stops and that tells us the guy pulling the levers in there really knows what he’s doing.
Fun stuff!
That Euclid has a coil spring front suspension. I’d like to see the specs on that spring.