AC 7000 series High Crops

all black bellies,  we were the field project manager, just a title, for the HC unit ,  kept logs on the prototypes in S. LA and beakdowns etc.   Felix Patterson was the sales manager   for the mid and south region and watched the project closely.  They wanted to take some cost out of the unit by downsizing the final drive drop housing.  Felix was my boss and Ernie Kritzberg was the chassis engineer trying to cut costs.   Felix instructed me to "make sure that don't happen, if it doesn't look bigger than deeres and IH we can't sell it".   We took the inner tires off - put on duals as wide as possible, hooked a 15' ripper to it,,,, and kind of failed the rh final drive unit, major... Ernie came down - we had the unit apart and had put the wheel back on the inside to hide the reason for failure - he scratched his head and kept saying - we tortured these at the proving ground and never broke a thing... I guess we will just have to go with it as is, we can't cut, but we can't make it any stronger and sell it... the dealer Bill Satterwhite , my partner in crime, and I never said a word.  Later I met with Felix and said "hey boss, you know what we did---" and he threw up his hand and said I know nothing and you will tell me nothing.... :-)  just a 'war story'. no charge.

Just an FYI, a 7000 tractor would not be correct with the 4 post rops, those used a 2 post. The 4 post was only on 7010 and up.