The Love Hydraulic Lift System that was distributed by Newgren Equipment Company beginning in August 1946, was the first “Jeep Approved” implement lift. The lift, however, quickly underwent significant engineering changes. We have learned just how quickly these changes came about, thanks to the help of Keith Buckley. Keith found Newgren service bulletins from May 1947 describing some of the changes.
While we don’t have much information on the organizational structure of Newgreen we do know, from the newspaper photo above, that they had at least one engineer. Regardless of the number of engineers, we know they were busy making changes. We have identified at least 6 changes from the original design:
- A new reservoir was design and moved from the passenger fender to the lift frame. It was a rectangular design. In addition to an inlet port for the new control valve (see below) and a return port, two additional ports were added. The first allowed for filling the tank with fluid at the rear of the machine. The second, on top of the tank is for the “air port” on the ram. The air port allows a single action cylinder (ram) to use power to lift and gravity to lower the implement. Air must be able to enter and to escape the lover section of the ram. Newgren engineers, perhaps because the ram would be operating near the dirt, used a hose to vent to the reservoir instead of the open air.
- The control valve was moved from under the hood, with a rod through the dash, to on top of the reservoir. The operating lever, that opens/closes the valve is then connected to two rods, one leading to the rear of the hitch, the other leading to between the seats.
- The pump was changed from belt driven to crankshaft driven design. Service bulletin number 4 details this change.
- The pump itself was change to a PESCO model. This same pump would be used by Monroe for their lift and by Stratton for their lift a full 20 years later.
- The pump mount bracket at first was a simple steel strap affair, as can be seen in the installation instructions. This was changed to an improved one-piece cast aluminum design. Monroe would make minor modifications to the bracket and Stratton would use Monroe’s for its lifts.
- The method of attaching the lift arms to the implement arms was changed from a “J” hook to and upside down “U”. We have referred to this “J” device when identifying a lift as a Love lift when we should have specified that it was used on the “Love Hydraulic Lift System.”
These changes were significant enough to qualify the Newgren as a separate design and therefore making it the second “Jeep Approved” lift. We find it interesting that these changes came so quickly after the introduction of the lift. Most were made, according to the service bulletin dates, within nine months. We will continue are research into the workings of the early Newgren company.