The First Generation Tractor was simple and brutally rugged. It had no steering wheel, let alone a gearbox, so naturally there was no such thing as shifting gears. It did have a clutch, though, mainly used to switch between the various plunger pumps and the Steam Engine.
Operating a vehicle like this was much like operating a tank from World War II. Everything was controlled by a row of Control Levers in front of the driver's seat.
Well, to be precise, those Control Levers were all used to control the hydraulic plunger pumps.
The body used an independent suspension system made up of springs and Hydraulic Rods, while the frame employed flexible joints. The benefit of this design was that it allowed the tractor to cross mountains and obstacles as smoothly as if it were walking on level ground.
In other words, the tractor's four wheels and frame were all flexibly connected. No matter which wheel was lifted independently, the vehicle could remain stable to a certain degree, and all four wheels could still touch the ground at once.
With a rigid connection, however, when one wheel rolled over a Stone or another obstacle, the remaining wheels would be lifted along with it, causing the body to tilt.
The frame's twisting joints ensured that when the front two wheels—that is, the front of the vehicle—tilted to one side, the rear would twist in the opposite direction, preventing the body from suffering damage.
Put simply, all four wheels were independent, and so were the front and rear of the vehicle. A problem in one unit would not affect the other parts.
After lunch, Lin Fei took Luo Chong to observe the full-vehicle test. The group arrived at the workshop of the factory under the research institute, where they immediately saw the