Sterling trucks was one of the venerable old truck companies, going back to 1906 when it was founded in Milwaukee, WI. It was bought by White in 1951, and the brand was retired in 1954. The name was revived in 1998 by Daimler, to slot in between their Freightliner and Western Star brands, initially a line of rebadged the Ford Louisville/Aeromax trucks after Freightliner bought Ford’s HD truck business in 1997.
We’re not going to spend anymore time on those neo-Sterlings, and instead take a look at a few original Sterlings, which were all heavy duty trucks, many like the one pictured above used chain drive right to the end of their production. Why? There were a number of good reasons, actually.
Here’s a closer look at this truck and its chain drive, as well as the guy with two left arms. Chain drive was a natural for trucks (and a fair number of cars back in the 00’s and teens) because it was a logical way to give them the massive gear reduction they needed, given their low power to weight ratios, as well as an easy way to change that ratio, should the need or desire arise. It avoided having to engineer and build a heavy and complex driven rear axle, especially in very challenging environments like construction, dump, concrete and off-road trucks. The famous Mack AC “Bulldog” truck used chain drives exclusively for two decades. Others too.
And there were few downsides to chains, since truck speeds were low. As long as top speeds were kept to some 25-30 mph, chain life was not a problem. Obviously they did break from time to time, but then so did rear axles, and it was a lot cheaper to replace a chain. Their reputation as being tough and having the capability to move almost anything given their low gearing made them highly functional and even legendary.
From the mid-30s on, when truck speeds increased from 20-25 mph to 35-40 mph or so, chain drives on highway trucks became rare, but were still common on “pit” trucks, as used on construction sites, logging and other slow heavy-duty work. But this Sterling hooked up to a trailer and shot in 1957 still has chains, quite visible. This truck appears to date back to the 1930s.
It’s impossible to tell if this Sterling has chains or not, but given the kind of work it’s doing, most likely it does. The dual axle chain drives typically had the differential/”drive axle” in between the two chain driven axles.
Several companies, including Cook, Fabco and Maxi made conversions of cheap Big Three trucks to chain drive, repositioning their drive axles further forward and adding chain drive to make the suitable for slow, heavy duty work, like this Ford converted by Cook. Top speed would be lowered to 25-30 mph, but much greater pulling power.
Here’s a Cook-converted Ford with a center-drive differential (likely from Sterling).
Cook Brothers even built this wild all-terrain prototype for the military in 1942, with two Cadillac engines driving two chain-driven bogies, front and rear.
Cook also built their own trucks, and was the last to build a chain drive truck, in 1964.
This post was to be about Sterling, not chain drive, but it’s a fascinating digression. Here’s a few Sterling gasoline haulers, likely at their terminal in Portland. Like almost all heavy duty truck makers back then—Mack and GMC being prime exceptions—Sterling used a variety of engine suppliers: Continental gas engines and diesels from Cummins and Buda, and both types from Waukesha. Sterling was a fairly early adopter of diesels.
This 1952 shot by Joe Wanchura in Seattle shows a Sterling straight (rigid) truck with a trailer.
Sterling also built COE trucks, like this 1938 Model G, here still hard at work in the ’50s hauling a big truck.
We’ll close out with this fine restored Sterling from Best Rigging and Transfer. Just the truck for hauling oversized loads like houses and such.
Postscript: Belts were also used on trucks, to power a normally undriven tag axle. Thousands of sugar beet haulers and other grain/farm product haulers were converted from single axle to belt-driven tandems by the Silent Drive Company.
Belt drive was also used fairly extensively in over-the-road big trucks.
It was a cost-effective solution to add capacity and traction.
In hiding, but with the greatest hurdles of dirt-exclusion and lubrication cleared, chain-drive is alive and well in wheeled vehicles seeing high loads at low speeds. The most common applications being skid-steer and grader.
Of course Cadillac Olds and Buick retained chain-drive on their finest models through 1985. 😉
I guess they just relied on tire slip (or belt slip for the belt-drive) for inter-axle differentiation, for the dual-rear axle applications. I wonder how well that worked on over-the-road trucks.
Good question. Inter-axle might be negligible with some applications, but now I’m wondering about the monster military stuff. It’d be brutal to expect something seeing sort of load to just scuff through it.
Actually, Sterling had 3 differentials in their “Dual Chain Drive” jackshaft for tandem chain-driven applications. See patent #s 1,812,819 Wollensak (Sterling’s chief engineer) which actually used the Krohn high friction differential (Patent # 1,483,606). This lobed high-friction differential allowed limited slip on pavement to minimize tire slip, but since it took considerable friction to operate, the truck could operate with one corner in slick mud or on ice and still put power to the other axles. It was a very sophisticated rear differential and rear bogie arrangement. Patent # 1,773,508 describes the rear bogie arrangement in detail (again a Wollensak patent). Sterling also built a jackshaft / differential for tandem chain drive applications that utilized a standard bevel gear arrangement that only allowed different speeds for the right and left sides (one standard “open” bevel-gear differential). This was used in their smallest tandem axle chain drive models. Cook built their own chain drive rear bogie along the lines of the simplest of the Sterling rear bogies as I described above.
This made me look into the current status of Indianapolis’ own Diamond Chain Company, which has been supplying roller chains going back to the Wright Brothers’ first airplane. Sadly, it appears that they were bought by Timken about a year ago and the plant here is being closed with production moving elsewhere.
These really old heavy trucks are fascinating things.
CC effect going strong again Im driving a Sterling at the moment a 8×4 towing an 8 wheel trailer carting Sunola oil, cruisy old truck, Detroit engine 18 speed auto shift and built before cabs shrank on US trucks so it reasonably comfortable for a day long trip and a nice cackle from the twin stax with the jake brake on.
Thank you this information. Cool trucks for old former truck sales people. By the way, chain drive trucks were a real pleasure to which to listen. WHAT NOISE!
I’d hate to get in a fight with that guy with the two left arms. Not too long ago, an article showed a rig driving up a mountain with the drivers door open to get rid of some of the heat in the cab. The pictured Sterling with the sides of the hood removed is a better solution.
Sterling was a victim of the White buying spree of the 50’s, along with Diamond T and REO. What was a bit surprising was that while White’s own product line overlapped with both Diamond T’s and REO’s, White didn’t build anything that was directly comparable with Sterling’s extra heavy duty trucks. Nonetheless, Sterling was discontinued a few years after acquisition.
Had an old navigator who used to rebuild engines in rum-runner boats a long time ago. He also said as a kid, he used to take a telephone book or chunk of wood and wedge it between the chain and the top of the sprocket just to see the chain throw itself off. Quite the juvenile delinquent.
Great article ! .
-Nate
+1
Wow! I thought chain drive was for go-karts or perhaps King Midgets; the advantages for slower-speed trucking never occurred to me. Thank you, Paul!
eBay has a surprising number of Sterling photos (not all of them with chains to be seen), and here’s a fascinating website about the **impressively** heavy duty Sterlings of WWII, serving around the world (source of this chain photo): https://usautoindustryworldwartwo.com/Sterling.htm
One other oddity of the original Sterlings was their oak lined frame rails basically a wood plank filling the C section as both reinforcement and vibration damper.
As a coda, Freightliner wound up the latter day Sterling line in 2009-10 retiring the Ford based models.
The Freightliner Sterling was built in London, Ontario, Canada. The plan was to move production of the Sterling to Mexico but the financial crash of 2008-2009 and the 2010 emission changes was Mercedes opportunity to kill off the Sterling. Western Star has since expanded to cover a lot of the business Sterling was covering. I had seen prototype CAD drawings of the Sterling 2010 truck changes.
Both generations of the Sterling’s were purchased and eventually closed down by their buyers.
Way back in the early 1970’s I had a Customer in Temple City, Ca. named Pete & Jake’s, they were a Hot Rod shop and built all manner of thngs, one being an ancient Mack truck, even after they re powered it and added normal axles they managed to keep the chain drive and sprockets, it looked pretty neat .
-Nate
Fascinating article…really enjoy these vintage heavy truck pics and posts…
Thanks Paul !
What a great read ~
i have a 1938 chain drive sterling whats it worth