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WFE
09-02-2002 21:58:21
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Re: History of the Oliver 1950-T in reply to J.Hasert, 08-31-2002 17:17:46
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Yep, I am going to say how much I like that 310 Waukesha. The 1950-T is certainly among my favorites in the Oliver line and my collection. It was introduced in mid-67 at the Growing "O" meetings as a new model. Of course the dual, in-line precleaners were a distinguishing feature of the early models, while the last production run in 1969 used the single precleaner style of the 1955. The 1950-T came to be primarily as a cost-reduction project for the 1950GM. The Detroit motor was expensive to purchase and, as was mentioned, noisy, which did bring about more than one complaint. It was much cheaper to use an existing in-house design (the 310) and turbocharge it for improved high altitude performance, power, and fuel economy. Again, cost rules all decisions in the engineering world. Some say for better, some say for worse. In initial production, the 310 did suffer from a number of design and manufacturing shortcomings. Poorly balanced cranks, lack of oil coolers on early 1855 models, insufficient rod bolts that fatigued and caused rod failures, two-piece wrist-pin bushings, etc. all added up to less than satisfactory reliability on a number of the 310s. Having said that, we can today overcome all of these said shortcomings and build the 310 to last long and powerful. We have built several and set them to 140-150 hp without trouble. Granted, these tractors aren't plowing at that power level 12 hours a day either. It's all about duty cycle and using common sense, but short durations at that power level are well within the 310s abilities. The rear ends of the 1950-T also had some issues that were cured later in production. I don't want to be entirely negative. This was one great tractor with a number of industry-leading features: the Over/Under (best powershift in the industry - ps Hydra-Power and Revers-O-Torc were also optional or tractor could be equipped without any powershift); economical power from small displacement turbocharged engine; optional fender fuel tanks; dual speed and engine speed pto; tilt/telescopic steering wheel with full power steering; and excellent weight distribution.
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