All images courtesy of Komatsu Ltd 2,3,6, Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-8414, Japan.

The Japanese designed and built WA1200-3 is called the mountain mover because in effect, that is what it can do.  The Komatsu WA1200-3 qualifies amongst the worlds biggest wheel loaders and fights for second place alongside the Cat 994D. The worlds largest wheel loader at this time is of course the Le Tourneau L2350 as feature on my other web page.  The WA1200-3 though, is a huge machine, designed for moving large quantities of aggregate in the shortest time.  Generally used in open cast mines, these huge wheel loaders will shift tens of thousands of tons of material each day.  They handle all aggregates such as coal, rock, shale, ore, earth, anything in fact that has to be shovelled up in huge quantities. A single heaped scoop can hold over 40 tons or its bucket can be used to push and scrape many many times more, with the simplest of ease. The image below also illustrates the size of the the WA1200-3 when a work force van parks next to it, delivering service parts.  Its amazing to think that just one of the wheel loaders tires at 5 tons weighs more than the van that's come to service it ! The Komatsu WA1200-3 has an operational weight of 226 tons and a bucket capacity of 26.2 cubic yards.  It is powered by a 3674 Cubic Inch - 60.2 liter, Cummins QSK60 turbo charged, after-cooled 16 cylinder diesel engine and produces 1560 hp at 1900r.p.m  The WA1200-3 wheel loader can only travel at 14 mph top speed, but speed is not a significant  factor, as its the total lifting power and torque that the engine produces that these vehicles rely on. A: Length with Bucket on Ground 59.7 ft B: Width Over Tires 18.7 ft C: Height to Top of Cab 22.5 ft  D: Wheelbase 23.3 ft E: ground clearance 2.2 ft F: Hinge Pin - Max Height 29 ft G: Reach at Max Lift and Dump 9.7 ft H: Dump clearance at max rise 20.6 ft A wheel loader of this size dwarfs ordinary vehicles, with its overall dimension,  specifically with those huge behemoth tires.  Below a WA1200-3 is parked up awaiting the fixture of its huge bucket before earning its keep, as these multi million dollar machines are dead money whilst sitting static. Operating a super large loader also has its penalties and this is along the lines of health and safety, it is easy to envisage a huge vehicle such as this accidentally crushing a car... ...so it is of no consequence that there are video cameras installed into these big loaders to assist the driver, especially when reversing so that he indeed does not accidentally drive over the likes of a van or car.  The image below shows the rear view as displayed on the WA1200-3 LCD monitor. Safety such as this is very important as this wheel loader could easily kill someone if all due care and attention was not taken as a capital precedent.  It is reported that fatalities are actually quite scarce and I am of course quite happy to relate this. Below we can see an image of about 20 workers standing by the side of the WA1200-3 to give it some scale...its quite an impressive size.  They could all quite easily stand inside the bucket with room to spare. The WA1200-3 earns its money when put to work in open cast mines, where they shovel up tons of aggregate and tip it into waiting trucks that are just as big.  You may notice too that the WA1200-3 as seen in the image two paragraphs below, are generally fitted with super heavy duty snow chains.  These premium quality chains are actually used all year round as they protect the tires from damage and yield a lot longer life to them. Tires for these four wheel drive wheel loaders cost around $62,500 each...that equates as a quarter of a million dollars for all four, so naturally, the mine owners take as much time out as possible to protect them from punctures and other damage, that can easily occur in such a rough working environment. The wheel loader itself weighs in at 452,390 lbs - 226 tons, so we can calculate that there is about 56½ tons weight constantly pressing down on each tire, 24 hrs a day.  This weight increases of course to about 67 tons on each tire when the bucket has 40 ton+ of aggregate inside it !  Look how compressed the rear tire is under the colossal weight, there's a few tons in the back of that truck too ! The fluid capacities of this wheel loader are just as impressive: Cooling system 132 U.S. gal - 500 liter Diesel fuel tank 1,347 U.S. gal - 5100 liter Engine oil in sump 69 U.S. gal - 260 liter Hydraulic system 317 U.S. gal - 1200 liter Differential, final drive (each axle) 177 U.S. gal - 670 liter Torque converter and transmission 92 U.S. gal - 350 liter Brake oil 12 U.S. gal - 45 liter Brake cooling 71 U.S. gal - 270 liter...yes, 71 gallons of oil needed just to cool the brakes ! Below a service engineer would need to climb a few ladders and stroll around the engine area to access all the fluid level check points.  The service check probably takes a few hours as the whole engine bay is as big as a family car. So we can see that the WA1200-3 utilizes about  2,394 U.S gallons - 9062 liters of various fluids and considering that 1000 liters of water weighs exactly 1 metric tonne, then that equates at over 9 metric tonnes of various fluids! Its technically interesting to note that the hydraulics pump fluid around its system at a rate of 276 gallons - 1,044 liters per minute at a closed system pressure of 4,550 lbs - 2½ tons per square inch. Overall quite an impressive super heavy duty wheel loader, where all dimensions, capacities and forces are seemingly always measured in gigantic proportions, indeed quite an impressive wheel loader and one that I hope you enjoyed reading about.

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