Ford Jailbar & Thornton names

Ok old timers-
I kinda worked out the jailbar thing (eventually), but was the "Thornton" part an official name, or just a name it got?
And why did it get that name?
I'm sure I saw a few like these as a kid-must have been hard work in either.
Thanx in advance
Cheers

How about a young-uns opinion...Thornton was the maker of the rear, usually tandem, backend

I think there was a Mr. Thornton designed the Thornton tandem drive conversion who either worked for the Gear Grinding Machine Company of Detroit, also known as Grico, or had some other connection with this company. I've also seen reference to the Thornton Tandem Company and the Detroit Automotive Products Company. As well as Fords I've also seen photos of Chev-Thorntons, Dodge-Thorntons and even a Mack EF/EG model with a Thornton backend. Hopefully somebody else has more information on this.-Hamish Petrie

A picture of a Ford Thornton on "odd bits". Martin bros of Alice Springs bought two with Herc diesels in them, I remember checking one out one day without the semi on it, looked like 2 eaton 2 speed diff's facing each other, connected to a transfer box between them and the tailshaft going to the main gearbox, interesting set up, the only other two I have seen were carting wine to Hay with bogie semi's powered by, if you can believe it, a 4LW Gardner diesel, just as well there were no hills!! Be interesting to know if anyone knows about these.

Hamish,
The Thornton Tandem Co. became the Detroit Automotive Products Corp. I think the Grico Two Axle Drive Co. was a different company, they had their own two-axle drive unit. Ray Thornton designed the two-speed transfer box with a self-locking diff in it that later came out in 1939 as the NoSpin, which became the Detroit Locker. Chevrolet and Dodge both offered new trucks with Thornton conversions through their dealers. There are some interesting bits on the www.dodgepilothouseclub site, also the Thornton Patent No. 2043725 and the Grico Pat. No.2206752 are worth a look, hope this helps,
cheers

Thanks very much for that grandad.-Hamish Petrie

on the road making post it was said that the thorton conversion used same back end reversed but wouldnt have to been up side down as well to get axles to spin the right way or did they make there own diff centers as well ?

As far as I know the extra axles were supplied by the truck manufacturers to simplify spares, and looking at the pic one of the driving heads is upside down in relation to the other one so that's how they got the rotation right

Just as a matter of ineterst, DAF actually started as a producer of twin rear axles on Fords also, but their system was very different from Thornton's (as described above), more like Scammell's rear but using shafts instead of chains.

See more here: blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2010/04/27/t...l-drive-conversions/





There was a Chev conversion too.



They were used by the Dutch army pre-WWII but also available for civvy street I believe.

Cheers

T

PS: And while we're at it, who was responsible for those?

Tatra i see they use the word "insane" in the article you linked to. Hate to think of the power lost through what looks to be 7 differentials.