Wheel-support assembly for rolling and stepping vehicles, especially cranes, excavating machinery and the like

In a rolling and stepping vehicle having a machine support, at least one traveling leg comprising:

• a crosshead pivotally mounted on said support for rotation about a vertical axis;
• a first piston-and-cylinder arrangement connected between said support and said crosshead for angularly displacing said crosshead about said axis;
• a pair of substantially parallel elongated link members pivotally connected to said crosshead at respective substantially horizontal axes and disposed one above the other in spaced apart relationship to define a parallelogrammatic linkage;
• a pivot head pivotally connected to said link members at respective spaced apart substantially horizontal axes for swinging displacement by said parallelogrammatic linkage relative to said support;
• a wheel assembly pivotally connected to said pivot head and defining therewith an axis about which a wheel of said assembly is pivotal relative to said pivot head;
• and
• a second piston-and-cylinder arrangement lying generally diagonally with respect to said parallelogrammatic linkage and connected between one of said heads and one of said members at opposite ends of said linkage for swinging said linkage in a substantially vertical plane.