There WAS one experiment, the GOBD kit. (Gross Organic Bug Digester.) The kit, if you can find one today, contained a high velocity rhombo-vortex fan to suck the critters in from the air stream in front of the radiator, a duct kit to route the carcasses to the CSC, (collector/separator chamber) where the bugs got ground up and mixed with a lye and Raid solution. the CSC emptied into the Onboard Rotary Digester, or ORD. Later kits included a Mark 22 CSE, or crunchy stuff ejector, which fitted to the side of the digester body, and solved the problem of the digester getting clogged with the crunchy stuff that was left over after the soft parts were dissolved. Consider it as sort of a feeder-delinker type of mechanism. Without this modification, the digester eventually filled with the crunchy skins and shut down. (vapor lock?)
The digester itself vented the rich CBG, or concentrated bug gas to the BGSC, or Bug Gas Super-Concentrator, where it was stored and tapped off through a regulator and fed to the carburetor. The carb was a simple throttle body with injector and choke shutter. It had a field serviceable fuel inlet BL&AF, or Bug Leg & Anntenna Filter, to protect the delicate main jet from LBID, or Large Bee Impact Damage. Kits included a BDIG (Bug Density Indicator Gauge) which matched the standard M series gauges, and mounted in the small bracket included in the kit. There were two gauges, a 0 to 60 and a 0 to 120, and the proper sending unit had to be used with the proper gauge. Trucks which were being shipped to grassland areas also got a PMCA sensor, or Praying Mantis Collision Alarm, which mounted in front of the radiator. If triggered, this switched on a 28 VDC bug zapper, and the defunct mantis was dropped into a collector tray under the radiator support.
Performance was acceptable in bug rich theaters of operation, where dozens of kit-equipped M37's could be seen making their high speed runs through tall grass to fuel up. Each truck was furnished with a can of PDSB (pre-digested standard beetles) which aided in steep hill climbing in bug starved areas. These could be added through a convenient vacuum port in the heater cut out hole in the dash. The unit, when in full operation, was said to emit an angry buzzing sound, and an odor like a giant bug zapper. Kit equipped trucks could be spotted by the addition of the letters "YG" (yard guard) to the USA numbers on the hood. No further details are available. It is rumored that a DWBD (deep woods beetle deflector) was also added in the third mark of this kit.
Modern you say? It don't get any more modern than that!
See you all at APG!
Jack
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jun 05 2001 - 23:18:31 PDT