What year did Caterpillar and International Harvester stop selling dozers with cable control blades? Did Komatsu ever sell a tractor in the USA with a cable control unit? rofessor
Cable Controls Last Built ? Looks like 1973 in the CPH (Caterpillar Performance Handbook) , Edition #3 , for the D8H, D7F,D6C , Cable Control machines. 1974 just listed Hydraulic Controls . IH still had the TD -24, TD-20, TD-15 listed in 1959 for Cable Controls. Most likely later. Lot of old Cable Controlled Machines still in Operation today .
Whike not the norm I recall seeing a TD20B with cable blade so your into the mid sixties with cornbrand..........
another ? Also I have seen some cable control units mounted on the front of the machines. how many options were they front mount,rear mounted double drum, or hydraulic?:beatsme
Most cable dozers had a front mounted drum to control the blade.If you had a winch on the rear or was pulling a scraper you would still need some means to control the blade. Sometimes the rear unit had better control than the front unit which is why they were used but the front mounted unit was usually there,just hidden behind the grill.Ron G
i got a cbel operated d8 dozer that still works everyday i love it
i have a cat cable dozer that still works everyday
Komatsu did manufacture cable controlled bulldozers up umtil 1972 but I'm unsure if any were exported to the USA. Wabco had the Komatsu agency for the USA when Komatsu was trying to get a foothold in the US market, but I've never come across a cable controlled Komatsu dozer in my travels across the US. This doesn't mean there wern't any though There certainly were cable controlled Komatsu's dozers running around this neck of the woods (Australia & New Zealand), mostly D85A-8's, D120A's & D150A's ointhead
At one outfit I worked for there were four 14A dozers with double drum rears and one front drum unit. There was a 17A front drum unit there also. The front drum units worked about twice as fast but gave me fits keeping them adjusted. Only the best operators could push a grade with them. The rear drum units worked just great and as old and little used as they were I did little maintenance to them at all. I'm sure you could get cable drive Internationals into the mid sixties but after the hydraulics got reliable what was the point. Once in awhile you would see a farm tractor with a front unit and no blade. Why is the question being asked?
Cable Blade D8 Here is a picture of our 1955 D8 it only has the double drum in the rear. We actually still use this machine on occasion to push scrapers. We will have it at the HCEA show in Bowling Green, OH next week.
Had to move away from CCU's in the early eighties as new and good used parts for them became so rare and expensive. Mid seventies was the turning point for Cat as the D8H series was ended and the K's became the norm. I don't know that I ever saw a D9H equipped with a cable blade, did see some equipped with CCU for scraper operation.
Cable blades I think when hydraulics took over in the late 50's/early 60's very few purchased cable controlled blades. The newest ones I recall seeing around So-Cal were mostly 36A D8H's & 18A & 19A D9's I would say they were 1958/59 models, wish I would have looked at the serial number tags back then. I have a cat crawler tractor attachments brochure form about 1972 & they list cable controled dozers, but I doubt they sold any. Some of the old timers swore by them & were reluctant to switch. The early hydraulics were slow, especially the ones with the front pto. A couple of old time contractors in San Diego kept there cable machines well into the late 80's/90's (Cameron Brothers & C.W. McGrath Inc) Did not use them everyday, but they sat in thier yards in work ready condition. I think the last manufacture to use cable was Euclid there is a photo in the book Euclid & Terex Earth-Moving Machines by Eric Orlemann on page 31 dated December 21 1967 with a new Euclid 82-80 (DA) at the Hudson plant. This is a late 50's/early 60's D8H-36A with cable controled dozer.(Sure wish it had sound)
Hi Guys, When hyd. rippers came out it was necessary to have a front end unit on the Cat. I saw a guy trying to work with a dozer cable hooked up single part, believe me nobody is that clever.
I cut my teeth on a D6 8U It was the best ever to learn on and on the odd ocassion I stoke up a D7 17A cable blade dozer. I miss the old days !! Peter Kennedy
my dads uncle had a cable dozer a d8 one night the cable hung he grabbed it blade fell and caught 2 fingers in a pulley he pulled out his knife and cut them off wasnt much holdin them anyway dad said every time i touch a cable that story comes to mind , come to think of it dad had 3 fingers gone when i was 18 i worked for my brothers father-in-law he had 6 with a cable pug spreader , made him smile that a young boy knew how to start the pony and what a decompression was for ,
I got two friends still running cable rigs. A D8 about 80 miles from here and a 7E in my county. The 8 was bought to put on a Cutter and clear 640 acres and the 7E is mostly used on a Cutter taking out big fence rows. Round here the Old Timers say if your going to run a Cutter Blade there ain't but one kind of dozer to put it on. A cable operated one. Sad thing is, most all of the Old Timers are gone and there's not many jobs for a Cutter anymore.
I own and run a 66A D9G born with a cable blade on olot of job sites. Works great.
I started learning on an old D8 cable blade yrs ago, always seemed to be breaking the cable tho, was happier to go to hydraulics.
These pics were taken in 1968, the hydraulic one was bought new that year to work with the cable ones which I think were G's. Would the hydraulic one be a G or a H? The cable ones were the first dozers that I operated :drinkup :cool2
Learned to run a 2u d8 rear unit worn out dozer pushing sand &gravel into piles to be hauled to a sorter later.When I got on something tight I had a hard time getting used to it .
I grew up with # 25 & 29 cable controls, if everything was in good shape it was a good system, if you have enough cable on the drum the dozer would go down indefinately unlike hydraulic that rods out. Got expensive to maintain and operators that knew how to run them retired. Just don't spill fuel on your brake band or the dozer won't stay up, don't ask me how I know By the way for you cable guys the lined discs out of a D7 dry deck steering clutch work in the 25 & 29 ccu. Toward the last they got so expensive we started buying good discs from the junked out D7's. I like todays hydraulic dozers much better but glad I had a chance at old school cable
:exactly I like the #29 on my D9- I was sure I was going to have to switch the machine to hydraulic, but decided to try it for awhile and gave up any thoughts of a changeover years ago. The #25's are good, too, but it's a pain having to be clutched in to have power to it. I have an old WWII D7 with a LeTourneau cable control, not as nice as the Cats but perfectly usable. If you think getting parts for the Cat CCU's is tough, try it with the LeT ointhead Good tip on the D7 clutches, I'll have to remember that:thumbsup
Good looking old Cats Dave
D7 17a When up to a friends house yesterday that I used to work for. His old 17A was parked by the barn. Notice the seat off it, Steering clutch troubles BTW. They finally got tired of working on it and got a newer tractor. A 48A. We had 2 48A's and a 17A when I was a kid. First thing I remember was sitting on the 17.
We have a 1955 D8 15A1137 serial number which makes it a torque convertor machine and makes it a series D machine. what is a D8G? which is a 15a also but was made in 1955-58? whats the difference between a series D and a series G? and im in the process of cleaning it up for a show in lathrop mo in 2010 for the acmoc kansas city club and i was trying to figure out what color it is supposed to be painted? any help would be appreciated.
we are checking into a D9D 18A with cable control,
Cat Yellow.
Hi this is our old HD5B allis 1947 cable blade 2.71 GM around 40hp
I am trying to Help a Friend He is 75 years Old Paul is a Really good Person, He has a 1950 D8 Cable Drive the STEERING is STUCK, Will you Please give me Advice how we can get it un Stuck my Telephone # is 256-886-0557, Paul Tel #is 256-878-8224 CELL 256-572-6994 I personally Know Nothing about Heavy Equipment, I have always done my own Mechanic work Art of Deduction Trial & Error my age is 65
Dad had a later model TD-15B with a cable blade. It had a front control, towing winch on the rear, it had a power shift transmission, It seems to me it was a 1968 model. The majority of cable dozers had rear mounted cable control units or "C.C.U."Few dozers had front C.C.U. witch were bulky and not able to be hidden away, The need for a front C.C.U. was to free up the rear for other attachment such as a towing winch , a rear C.C.U. " for towing rippers, disc," and other rear mounted attachments. I also have seen cable bladed Caterpillar's in the mid 70's D7F-94N and D8H's-46A later five digit sn
Early 14A/15A tractors were dry steering clutches and brakes D8D and E. F and G were oil cooled
We had this slide bar 8 and a few 13a and 14a's in the 60's and 70's that we'd drop the blades and hook up pans to. I got so used to sitting on the arm rest seat for the pans I'd even run from there with the blades on. Wouldn't all safety people soil themselves if they saw this now!!!
Nice photos blademan150. Im sure it took some skill to operate the cable rigg. Date on the photo looks like May 74. Running old iron back in the 70's Thats pretty cool:thumbsup.
Fun times!!!! Blademan150, I also have spent my fair share of time on the arm rest. Pulling pans were one of my favorite tasks to do. Most of my time was spent on 2U's with either a cat 435-F or a old woodridge scraper, both were about 14-18 yards or so I think. Boy oh boy wouldn't OSHA have writers cramp before they were done with one of those units. However they would move a lot of dirt a short distance in poor conditions pretty easy. When conditions justified it we continued to use crawler tractors with cable pulled scrapers on production jobs in to the the mid 80's. as late as the mid 80's
I have been reading all these postings with the mouth open a fair bit, I must live in the Past somehow as its a regular job for me to strip out CAT and Komatsu CCU's and fettle up towed Scrapers, I myself love the cable style Scraper to the wet style setup, the weight thing with cylinders and oil lines is 1 thing I find a minus, plus the cost and damage factor that is not a small worry for spending out on, so I still think a bit of wire treaded through a few wheels is a great low cost way of getting a job done, there is a few contractors running wet CAT 463 box's about in the U.K. that have been converted, but I still love the CCU and enjoy working on them also using them, it might seem hard work or tough to get along with them, but its all down to a bit of knowledge and liking what you do, I could say that I have not been to Work for over 30 years as I love what I do so it cannot be Work. tctractors
The old cable control blades are pretty awesome. Just wondering if someone still using these kind of old models of cable control blades.
glenlunberg, you should come to the U.K. its still like a new invention, all my customers that pull scrapers use string through a CCU to earn the Coins, parts are still easy to find also its possibly a used to it style that keep things this way, I would have around 10 tractors that regularly pull Cable Scrapers that I work on, the Tractors range from D4 to D8 the oldest 1 is a 14A in the CAT stable,the Komatsu Tractors are D65-D85's, the 155's now are not common to find in my Area. tctractors
Hi Tony; what cable control was on the D4 ? Onions 12 or 14 at a guess, few of them found there was down here along with ALOT of onions scoops :drinkup
The latest model D8 I came across that was a base tractor (no hydraulics) with a cable blade was a K. This was in the late 70's and it belonged to Mitchums of Burwell in the UK. I can't recall seeing another K set up that way.
This thread brings back lots memories of pushing gravel to a crusher w/ a 14A w/ a U- dozer. Just load 'er up, pop a little slack to it, sit back and take a nap all the way up to the feeder. Mike
This is a good old thread I had not seen before. Notice up post a bit about clutch disc's for the CCU's being hard to find. General Gear in Idaho stocks new ones. I still play with a 2U-D8 and a 9U-D6 with cable blades and a cable scraper. Just picked up a DW-21 a few months ago to add to the fun in the cable stable. Lots of good not so clean fun.
wow!! cant imagine a cable k !! ran a couple 46A's back in the day though!! and the mention of dw-21's makes me get a stiff neck!! what series 21 did you pick up?
I still run a cable straight blade everyday when it's fit to work