These small bulldozers were made in England from 1945 to 1962. Primarily intended for backfilling trenches, working in the holds of ships, and other small dozing especially where there was lack of space like in tunnel construction. Although the company exported to 90 countries worldwide, we did not sell in the USA until the 1980's. One reason was an agreement with Austin Western in the 1950's to make their 99H grader under licence, but not to sell the UK version in A-W's home territory. However, quite a lot were sent to Canada, some of which have come across to the USA . There is a lot of interest in these machines right now and a Facebook page has been started to offer advice to anyone who has one. We would like to hear from any current owners , so we can keep a register of machines still around. There were 4 versions of the Calfdozer, and we need an early parts book for the Mk1 and MK2 machines, as well as any publicity material.
Interesting, never seen one before. How do you run one? Is it hydrostatic like a skidsteer?
Can sure see what you're doing but needs a good seat belt. Looks like the operator could get spit out pretty easily and possibly run over.
Weren't hydrostatic, was way before that was even thought of, think they were all mechanical, as in clutches and brakes. The local Council had some with their water works crews doing new water mains back in the 50s, there was a chain trencher that worked with the dozer. The dozer being the anchor, the trencher winched itself along digging a trench as it went, once the pipes were laid the dozer backfilled the trench. The trencher had no drive to its wheels only a motor to drive the chain and the winch. I was a kid when I saw these working and always wanted one but ended up with a smaller one, a Vaughan garden tractor.
Absolutely right. The blade lift was mechanical too from 1945 to 1958, when it became hydraulic. You mentioned the BA Trencher. They were used a lot for airfield construction, running cables etc. They came in around 1944. Seem to have 2 lots of images. Don't know how to delete them.
I especially like the sidehill feature
Turns out there a quite a few videos on YouTube. Looks like if you can get the blade into the ground, it'll push!
That thing is sweet!! You could rig up a real dead man switch in the seat so it would only work if you were sitting down on it good.
There were calf dozers in the Western Desert laying oil/fuel pipelines for the British forces during WWII , my father said they were walk behind rather than seated . That would have been early in the war at least before the Greek campaign
Interesting about the Trenchers operating in Australia. I took a snapshot of machine despatches in 1949, and in 6 months, 66 were made and 20 of those went to Australia. I am told at least 20 Calfdozers were used for Railway construction in New Zealand.
Aveling Barford are reported to have built around 2300 Calfdozers. There's numerous photos from the 40's and 50's of them working on council jobsites, building sites, and construction projects. They were very popular for backfilling trenches cheaply, and for general small site area levelling. But they were relatively crude, and hard work to operate. A 9HP crank start petrol (gas) engine powered them, and they had counter-rotating tracks! - a clever idea for the time. They were the Bobcat of the 1940's and 1950's. Aveling Barford were one of the oldest manufacturers of construction equipment in the world. They started in 1850 as Aveling & Porter, and initially built steam rollers (yes, actual steam-powered road rollers!). When the IC engine age rolled around, they started to build IC engine-powered equipment. They built a wide range of equipment that were other lines besides construction equipment, and during WW2, A-B built a lot of military equipment such as Bren Gun Carriers (Universal Carriers). A-B moved into diesel engine power early, but they never built their own engines. They utilised Ruston Hornsby and Perkins engines - and in later years, Cummins and other brands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aveling-Barford I actually owned 4 items of Aveling Barford equipment in the 80's and early '90's - a 300HP Cummins 855 powered FEL (a TS500), and 3 x A-B dump trucks (2 x RD30 - 30 tonners, and 1 x RD40 - 40 tonner). Their construction equipment was pretty "agricultural", and they had their share of problems - not the least of which was poor parts supply, a lack of dealers, and a general lack of company backup. However, they were cheap, so they suited my requirements at the time. In 1988, I was on holiday in the U.K., so I paid a visit to the A-B factory in Grantham, introduced myself to the management and told them I owned 4 of their construction products! The managers seemed a little surprised that someone from Australia would pay them a visit, but they were quite welcoming, and they even gave me an Aveling Barford tie! A TS500 in the factory - https://m.facebook.com/188618064551212/photos/a.188639611215724/206175296128822/ Most of the Calfdozers in Australia seemed to have disappeared from everyday view, but a few turn up at vintage machinery shows occasionally. Here's a video of one operating in the U.K. Aveling Barford products - Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100057749616032 A great A-B product line brochure here, seems to be from about 1947-48 - http://beamishtransportonline.co.uk...2/11/AvelingBarfordWhatwemakecatalogueOpt.pdf There's even a Calfdozer for sale on eBay (U.K.)! - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/334516444266
The most comprehensive display of photographs is in the several albums of "Aveling Barford Machines", which you have put a link to. Over 2,300 photos are arranged in albums, but you have to select "photos" then "albums " to get there. otherwise you just get a random selection .One of the strange features of Facebook. The Calfdozer Album. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2353406861545958&type=3 This is in fact my facebook page and each of the 2,300 + photos was posted individually, but at no cost to me, and anyone can view them from anywhere in the world. We offer a comprehensive advice service, also free, since Aveling Barford went under in 2010. I had 22 years with the company, mainly in Service. Sadly when Leyland sold AB in the early 1980's it was to a gang of asset strippers, who progressively ran the company down. After it went into receivership, the next and final owner Wordsworth Holdings had not enough resources to carry the whole product range.and the quality of the machines in the late 1980's and 1990's was inferior to the previous time frame. I left in the late 1980's . As a point of interest, some of the wikipedia information is wildly inaccurate. For instance AB was never part of the Thomson group who owned Moxy.
Wikipedia is not the gospel but usually fairly accurate. There are some glaring mistakes occasionally.
I did try to correct the mistakes on Wikipedia, but the "edit" button on their site doesn't get into their system. I agree, some of the information is useful.
Wikipedia have tightened up their editing, they have moderators looking at edits, and they require you to register as a contributor and to back up your information with links to published articles and other reliable information sources. Wikipedia is far from perfect, and there are many errors on their site, and sometimes a lot of the information comes from just one person, thus promoting a biased view. I like this photo of the Calfdozer prototype, which I believe is from around 1943-44. It looks like a few Bren Carrier components made their way into the prototype! Not surprising, seeing as Aveling Barford were manufacturing Bren Carriers at the time. I'm wondering why the "high track" design wasn't proceeded with, it looks like Aveling Barford got the "jump" on Cat with the high track design! No doubt some miserable bean counter decided the number of parts and components had to be reduced, so the "high track" design went the way of the Dodo!
Oliver Cletrack had a high drive tractor before WW11. Aling Barstard was quite innovative back in the day., first 4x4 4 wheel steer and 6x6 6 wheel steer graders but compared other makes agricultural to use until you got past their foibles.
Those graders were actually Austin-Westerns built under license. Unless they actually did have their own FWD designs before the deal with AW?
It appears they are AB designed and built.
Yep, Dave is correct. Austin Western built them under license to AB but used American engines, Cummins and GM.
I'm a young guy and only know what I've read about this. I did some quick searching and found stuff indicating that the 99 was originally built by AW in 1937. An article by Thomas Berry of the Historical Construction Equipment Association: https://www.oemoffhighway.com/trend...iation-hcea-the-austinwestern-99-motor-grader Then I found a UK site saying they didn't start building the 99 until 1950 when they bought the design from AW and called it an Aveling-Austin. https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Aveling-Barford:_Graders A NZ site that I'm sure many are familiar with says AB got the rights from AW in 1947. https://contractormag.co.nz/classic-machines/aveling-barford/
The topic was the Calfdozer not graders.
Hello Mate, Yes you are correct. i wrote the entry for Graces guide to industry as they were using Wikipedia which was not correct. Aveling Barford had an agreement with Austin Western to build their 4X4 99H grader from 1950 onwards. The AW version had an IH engine at the time, so AB used a local Leyland engine for their production, as well as some other changes. The machines built in England at Grantham were entirely made in house including all the gears for axles and transmission. Components sourced outside were engine and other specialist parts like hydraulic pumps. It was badged Austin Western and sold throughout the world except in the USA where the AW original was king. The next model was the Super 500 6X6 grader also AW basic design. The licencing agreement lasted until the early 1960's when Clark took over AW, but over the years AB had developed their graders and were no longer the same except in basic format. They had also introduced their own designs for a Medium grader and a Light one. I like these views of our Plate shop where the massive solid steel 10X4" frame members were heated up in a furnace and bent to shape using a huge hydraulic press before being finalised in this jig.
I am surprised none of the guys wore the leather protective aprons the boilermakers normally had.They were handling red hot steel in just a boiler suit.
Evidently OSHA (or the UK version) wasn't as prevalent then as they are today.
It's amazing how careful you become when working in environments like this. Survival skills take over. I have never forgotten Bectal Pacific Utah Constructions attitude on a job in NZ. They didn't want anyone injured but death was better because it cost less.
Back to the original topic, the Calfdozer had a mechanical system for operating the blade hoist. i will put a picture up later. Can you tell me how the full size bulldozers blade lift worked before Hydraulics came along.
Cable lift on older dozers. Some had cables over top of the operator from a rear mounted winch/cable control.
Treeman2 - The earliest blades used the principle of a rear-mounted winch, run from a PTO shaft, which wound up and released cables that lifted and lowered the blade. The cables ran over various pulley arrangements, which were always supported by some type of overhead frame. The varieties of these winch arrangements were amazing, and every designer always thought he had a better idea than the competitors. I have also seen a multitude of "home-built" winch/blade setups that were absolute marvels to contemplate, such was the amount of obvious thought and work that went into them. Many of the "home-built" units used a rear axle from a wrecked car or truck as a reduction and angle drive, with a winch drum replacing one wheel, while the other axle was locked. Surprisingly, you may find that early hydraulic blades were devised around the same time as the earliest cable blades. These operated on the simple principle of a rocker beam for the blade sidearms, with a large diameter, low pressure hydraulic cylinder mounted on a frame at the rear of the tractor, which pushed down, to raise the blade. Extremely low hydraulic operating pressures (limited by the mostly leather seal types available), constant leaks, the limited quality of hydraulic hoses, and the need for regular quantities of oil, stopped early hydraulic systems from being widely used, and cable blades were largely favoured until after WW2. Here's a "professional" cable bulldozer blade setup from a manufacturer by the name of Miami, who outfitted the earliest Cats from the mid-1920's. Note the extensive use of bolted sections to reduce the amount of welding required. Early arc welding outfits were rare and expensive, and arc welding was only beginning to become affordable and accepted, by about 1922-23. The electric power requirements for a factory were possibly the main restriction applying to acquiring an arc welder in the early 1920's.
Many thanks for that explanation. i couldn't find anything sensible by a simple search. I have a photo of what must have been an early hydraulic set up as the machine was in England clearing waste land for crops during the war. The bulldozer and grader( All mechanical) were suppl ied by the U.S. as war loan machines.
That's probably a Bucyrus Erie hyd. bull grader.
This is mostly irrelevant to the subject but... Looking at that setup it's a wonder someone didn't incorporate the winch system into a ROPS structure to use as protection for the operator and raise the blade at same time. If you envision the ROPS on Cats of a time not to far from the dozers in yours and treeman2's posts, tubes run from back beside the winch up and over the cab area to the limb risers and forward to the front of the machine generally to the top corners of the grill/radiator area...we may still be using cables to raise dozer blades today. Now back to your regular scheduled program......
You're too smart for your age, Mcrafty1! You gotta remember, these guys were working from scratch, metal was expensive back then, operators were a dime a dozen, and operator protection wasn't even in the equation! It was all about a simple and cheap arrangement to lift and lower a blade - and even blades were a rarity, back then! You generally used a piece of towed equipment such as a scoop for moving dirt in those days. One has to admire the Miami designers, they had the right basic idea, it just needed another 20-30 years of testing and gradual improvement in the design! Robert G. LeTourneau was the constant innovator who obviously got his ideas from the likes of Miami designs. But even LeTourneau didn't consider the construction of a ROPS to be important when he designed his overhead framework for his cable controls (well nick-named as the "headache rack", for the number of operators who banged their heads on them!).
Yeah, admittedly I have an advantage over the original designers, things are ALWAYS clearer looking back than ahead. From my vantage point a design like I described is a 'no- brainer' but would I have dreamed something like that up before the onset of ROPS? Highly unlikely...lol
In the 1940's and early 50's nearly all earthmovers, whether Dozers, Loaders, graders and the smaller Dumpers never had cabs. The larger Dumpers had canopies (cab protection plates), but all the cabs were "soft" and only really gave protection from the weather, and small falling objects. This brochure is from the 1970's. Still offering the open option.
That's an interesting dozer. ROPS weren't required until the mid 70's. You used to see several different makes of aftermarket ROPS on dozers, usually D6 and up. Would often see the bare ROPS for sale at used equipment dealers and auctions.
The well known UK brand of Marshall Fowler, who made crawler tractors and dozers was taken over by Leyland in 1975 .As Aveling Barford had been part of Leyland since 1968, and their products were similar, the Marshall factory was taken under the wing of A.B. Initially branded Aveling Marshall, then later Aveling Barford. These dozers were offered with cabs, but no ROPS, as late as 1978. [
That's informative, I never knew that Aveling Barford took over Marshall Fowler. We never saw any of these Aveling Barford crawler tractors in Australia, but there were a modest number of Track Marshall crawlers sold here. I'm in the process of restoring a Cat 931B traxcavator. It was originally fitted with a full glass cabin, and some imbecile ripped it off and threw it away!! I suspect it was because they used the 931B for clearing scrub and trees, so they probably damaged the cab beyond repair, judging by the level of limb damage to the rest of the tractor! I'm building a new ROPS canopy from scratch for it, based on the original Cat ROPS canopy, with a slight modification of an extra 150mm overhang on the front of the roof for more protection. It won't be a certified ROPS, but it will work just fine, for what I want!
I would love to have a 3 point hitch and PTO on my 931B, especially if it had down pressure. Could use a whole array of implements and be easily able to lift them up. Way more versatile than pull type implements.
Yes, it is unlikely that many of the Aveling Barford or Aveling Marshall badged Track Marshalls ever were exported. they were very short lived in production. Really solid machines well respected particularly in the farming sector Leyland shut the Gainsborough factory down in August 1979, less than a year after the Aveling Barford badging had taken place. Leyland were well known for spending lots of money to promote a product only to shut the factory to divert funds to the disastrous strike ridden car plants like Longbridge. On a happier note, here is a small machine from 1978 ier note here is
They look to be a decent machine. I'd take the 6-354 Perkins engine over the Ford. The trans. is interesting though. 5 speed constant mesh forward and reverse. Guessing it has some kind of reverser but do you need to clutch to shift gears?
Aveling Barford always offered Ford or Perkins in the smaller machines like the Rollers. Ford was popular in the UK, well served by local dealers, but Perkins was always the option people wanted on export machines, presumably due to the distributor network. I am sure the clutch was needed to shift gears, The above spec says it is a twin plate arrangement with trans brake to ease shifting. I never even saw one of these in the flesh, and never drove one. One of the other leaflets about 3 similar products including this one says there is a separate constant mesh FWD/REV lever. So no power shift. like the agricultural tractors in the day. So 2 levers to work it, range change and FWD/REV.
It may be similar to what there 3 point roller had
I never had time to get involved in their rollers, as Aveling Barford had a complete range not just one machine, so it was a case of running production down on the Marshall roller, after A-b was in charge. Before hydrostatics came along, A-B had a hydraulic clutch system which was just one lever control with another for work and travel ranges, so in effect, the operator only had one lever until he moved to another job.