Was able to buy a cat 12F on a local auction for doing driveways and a little dirt work for farmers in my area was wondering if anyone would know the year and possibly be able to tell me where to find the operation maintenance manual for this machine the serial number is 33K319.
Check here and put 33K in the search box. Cat Publications Online - Order Cat® Parts and Operation Manuals Online Official source for Caterpillar® parts catalogs, operator and maintenance manuals, and service manuals for all Cat machines and engines. Purchase yours today! catpublications.com
Let's see some pictures!
Thanks Nige!
I will get some pictures up middle of the week I’m waiting for it to be hauled back on Wednesday so soon as it’s back I will post pictures of it.
That's the first grader I ran. I had no experience at all. I drove it to a gravel road near my house. Set the blade where I thought it should be. Put it in 1st gear. Let out the clutch. At that moment my "Grader Operator" career was born.....
Never ran an F. Plowed snow with a14E. I think they are similar. The 14 is heavier, and had a 13 foot MB
Or grader destruction operator. LoL I am frustrated at how much time it takes just to set the blade down where I want it. I watch experienced operators basically drop the blade at high idle and go. Then back up, drop the blade and gone in 3 seconds. I'm fiddling around for 10 or 15 seconds trying to set the blade where I think it should be. The operating engineers training center is a half a mile from my property. The head grader instructor brought a new Cat 140 down and worked on my oval track for a couple days. Didn't have enough material to finish it. He said the banked oval would be great for training new operators but apparently other neighbors wanted some work done too and any off property work isn't allowed anymore. I think my very odd neighbor is the one who wanted a bunch of work done. It would be so nice if I could get some instruction from the training center. I'm thinking of asking if the grader instructor could come over and give me some pointers. He'd probably hate running an almost 40 year old grader though.
Lay the blade ahead until you can see the back of the cutting edge. Put both sides down at the same time. One side at a time then one side lifts as the other goes down, makes it slower. Both sides at the same time. Once it makes contact, curl the blade back a bit, the the entire thing lifts together. Remember, rolling the blade, and if you're gonna be a grader man, it's a moldboard. Rolling the MB ahead and back gives you a fair amount of up and down movement. start moving forward, and roll the MB forward until she starts cutting. You still have to fine tune with the right an left, but start with your MB curl. If you feel her starting to break traction, same thing, curl back. When you come to the end of your cut, you can slowly curl back in order to feather the material out, instead of leaving a pile.
Hmmm,,, maybe I'm mistaken.... The 12 I started on was a 1975 model. No hydraulics. Mechanical. As Dave so aptly described, everything is slow. Required wrenches to roll the blade. Rigid frame. Gear box steering. As the Board member that hired me said, "You can grab a chicken by it's feet and drag it down the road and move more material than this grader will." He was right. But, better than nothing.
The old E had Hydraulic moldboard side shift. Same as the F, you couldn't roll the MB without wrenches. it was an automatic, cause I remember the transmission slipping. Never had brakes. I ran an old Cat once, can't remember what it was, but it was a real knuckle buster. as soon as the weight came against anything, the lever slapped back. The old E was pretty smooth in that respect. The machine Dave is refering to is a 730 he bought.
I should have clarified my grader is hydraulic. I think the 16' moldboard makes it even trickier. I'm worried I'll take too deep of cut or make an uneven surface.
Now I wonder what model of 12 I ran. It had no hydraulics, manual trans. Brakes didn't work. Total knuckle buster that left your hands at night unable to make a fist. When the Township traded it off the truck driver had an equipment trailer with ramps over the tandems. He wouldn't drive it up on the trailer because it had no brakes. I had to load it for him.
All that comes with practice. You'll figure it out!!!!
Ok guys got the blade home started right up and drove it on low boy spent the day washing it up and looking it over the only thing that doesn’t work is the breaks so going to have to get them fixed here are a few pictures of it and the YouTube video I did of it on my channel.
Watched the video on your channel. Pretty sweet. Very similar to the old E I ran. I considered something like that, but I run 14 and 16 hour days, so I don't get much time for side gigs. Then when I see the price of parts..... yikes!!!! But you have to take the chance.... Enjoy your purchase.
Well here is an update on my 12f I fixed the oil leaks in the control gear box in the cab had to get the cylinder that slides the moldboard side to side rebuilt and replaced the hoses for that cylinder also put a set of 6 new bias tires on it and replaced the glass in the cab that was cracked here is an updated picture of it
Curious how much tires are in the US and are the tires from overseas?
I was able to get a set of six for 2,000 dollars and there tires are from over seas I wasn’t thrilled about that but since I’m not going to put a ton of hours on it they will make do.
That's a great price. When I was looking at tires a few years ago the best price I found was $750/tire for overseas tires and it didn't include installation. I bought some new Goodyear radials with wheels at RB's auction fir $2500 that I was going to swap the tires but discovered they were foam filled. Thankfully with the way the original wheels mounted with rim clamps I was able to design some adapters. Cost about $1600 for the adapters, bolts and Nord Lock washers but they work great. The 40 1" Nord Lock washers for the wheels were $250. I found out the wheels are telehandler wheels. Too bad I couldn't have found a buyer for them. Would be about $20,000cad. to buy new. The wheels and tires weigh about 1000lbs. each.
That 980 at work, the tires for it are $11000 each
I thought tractor tires were bad. Doesn't even compare to that 980. We replaced all 8 on our 9230 last year for $18,000. That was tires and installation. We kept the old tires to cover our silage pile with so no disposal costs.
I just saw something recently that 797 tires are $42,000 or something around that each! Can't remember if it was Canadian or not but said it takes 2 semi trucks to haul the 6 tires.