Diamond T Cab Over Engine 931CN: harsh diesel cabover from the fifties (25 photos + 2 videos)

This 1956 Diamond T 931CN is a two-axle cab-over-engine model and is said to have belonged former president and board member of the American Historical truck company to George Krause before being bought out by a dealer for sale in 2022.





American truck of the fifties associated exclusive with a bonnet layout, so the machine to which it is dedicated today's post is quite a rarity even in the US.



This is the Diamond T 931CN and it's beautiful. In general, I love old trucks, there is some special charisma in this heap of metal with the smell of diesel. He as if telling us, slyly squinting, I'll be back. When they get up all those fancy unmanned electric trains of yours and strangled with urea environmentally friendly-technological, then remember me, I come in handy.







Of course, all this is poetry, and the future inexorably takes its toll. Survivors rarities are now on an honorary pension, entertain visitors to exhibitions oldtimers, and pull weights, winding tens of thousands of miles on the cardan this Diamond will be gone. But purely technically - it can work and farther.





The cabin hints at the harsh life of an American truck from the fifties, almost everywhere there is bare metal, tubes and wires. And also tumblers and a bunch all kinds of round devices, most of which are mechanical.









In the center of the main instrument panel is an air pressure gauge, clearly hinting that he is the most important here. Right tachometer with hour meter on the left is the speedometer, other instruments are located above the windshield.











It is curious that places are reserved for temperature gauges in bridges. The pointers themselves, although not specifically in this car, but in others versions they were, and this is in the fifties.





What about comfort? For the mid-fifties, he is here and just a lot. The cab is spacious, seat with torsion bar suspension, there is a heater and sleeping shelf. The radio was installed by one of the owners, and the absence additional homemade insulation inside the cabin hints that in winter to cities like Fargo, in North Dakota, this truck does not went.





Raise the cab to access the engine. This can be done with two ways - with the engine running from a special lifting hydraulic pump cabin, if the engine is turned off, then by manual lever drive, according to jack principle. So, what do we have under the cabin?



Inline six-cylinder Cummins NH220 diesel engine with a volume of 12.2 liters develops 220 horsepower and 822 Nm of torque. Ordinary naturally aspirated diesel. Manual transmission with ten forward gears move.









There is even a certain “Tractor Protection System”, displayed on a separate lever, but I did not understand the principle of its operation. Below checkbox selection road condition. The switches fit tubes, not wires, so that the actuators of the systems are pneumatic.



By car, you can of course notice modern details, such as rear LED lights, but there are not many of them, basically everything is native, still the same an era when harsh drivers had to put in a lot of effort, driving such a brutal technique.