Hey fellow Heavies. I have just brought an old 12 grader here in Oz. Serial 9K4712 It's had and engine swap to a mighty GM671 or 653 not sure yet. Just wondering if any could shed any light on the olde girl please. It joins my stable in company of a 1967 TD15B, and 1992 Ford Louiseville tipper and my Sumitomo sh125x3, not to mention the Zetor, ** and Same tractors. Thanks all
We need pictures, especially of the engine and how it was adapted to the original flywheel housing/transmission
A GM 6-71 is an inline 6 - a GM 6V-53 is a V6. Every 53 series GM Diesel, regardless of the number of cylinders, was a "V" design engine. Are you sure on that grader S/No? The 9K series Cat 12 was built in the U.S. between 1938 and 1945. AFAIK, there were no 9K Cat 12E graders shipped to Australia. The reason for this, is twofold. In 1936, with the Japs having invaded Manchuria and making threatening noises towards the U.S. and its S.E. Asian allies, the U.S. Govt slapped an embargo on the export of U.S.-built motor graders to the S.E. Asian region. This area included Australia. The reason for the embargo was some forward-thinking people in the U.S. Govt and the U.S. Military could see that motor graders would be a huge strategic asset to an enemy starting a War in the region in the near future (here's looking at you, Japan!). So the aim of the embargo was to ensure that a heap of very useful motor graders, for constructing airfields and roads, could not fall into enemy hands, in the case of a War. This decision caused a great deal of anxiety in Australia, as Australian councils were crying out for new motor graders, as well as contractors and other major Govt authorities such as Public Works Depts. There was a general belief that a whole heap of graders in Australia wouldn't be likely to fall into Japanese hands, in the event of a War - and having new graders here was going to become important in the near future. So Waugh & Josephson, the N.S.W. Caterpillar dealer, sent a deputation to Caterpillar, asking if they could build Cat graders in Australia under licence. W&J had a huge manufacturing facility capable of making all the components of a Cat 12 - except for the engine and transmission. Caterpillar finally agreed to the deal, obviously seeing some advantages for them in it. So ... from 1936 to 1945, W&J built Cat graders. They built all of the grader, apart from the transmission and engine - and Cat shipped in new engines and transmissions to be fitted to the W&J Cat graders. But the graders were not called Cat Auto Patrols (as the U.S. built graders were) - they were officially called the W&J Motor Patrol (or sometimes "Speed Patrol") grader, to distinguish them from the "genuine" Cat graders. But everyone "knew" they were simply Cat graders built in Australia. The Serial Numbers allocated to the early W&J Motor Patrol graders were the Serial Numbers of the engines supplied - which are listed in the Cat S/No records as "Industrial Engines" starting with a S/No prefix of 2S5501, and listed as "Misc Engines". When the new Cat 12 grader was released in late 1937, W&J soon got all the blueprints for that new grader, and started building W&J Cat 12's. W&J actually built an entire new and larger factory in 1940, especially aimed at increased Cat grader production. W&J eventually built about 600 Cat graders (with 500 produced during the War), up until 1946 - when the "licence to build" was taken away from W&J, and given to Steelweld P/L. The Steelweld graders had a Cat S/No that started with "S" and were known as Steelweld Cat graders. When WW2 kicked off for us in Sept 1939, the Australian Govt insisted that nearly all of the W&J Cat grader production be reserved for the Military. So W&J started supplying their Cat graders to the Australian Military Forces, as well as the councils. But many councils had to give up their Cat graders for military works - these machines were "impressed" into military projects. A number of major arterial roads within Australia were upgraded from 1940 to 1943, using a lot of the W&J Cat graders, which had been allocated to the civilian work forces tasked with the road upgrades. Two of the major arterial roads upgraded were the Barkly Highway and the Stuart Highway. The Stuart Highway was only called the "North-South Military Road" during WW2. The civilian workforces used to build these major military roads were - Department of the Interior The Allied Works Council The S.A. Highways Dept The N.S.W. Dept of Main Roads The Qld Main Roads Commission The Country Road Boards organisation. After America entered the War on Dec 7, 1941, and American ships and supplies started to turn up here in our Southern ports (Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney), a U.S. Army Engineer Battalion joined forces with the above groups to build many more airfields and roads. The Civil Construction Corps and the Civil Alien Corps provided a lot of the labour for many military projects. Around 300 new airfields were built in Australia during WW2, with the Americans constructing the largest number of them, and the biggest and most strategic ones. The Americans brought some construction equipment with them in early 1942 - D7's, D8's, Cat graders, and Carryalls - but they also relied on W&J supplying the vast majority of the Cat motor graders they used. W&J Cat graders were also supplied to U.S. troops operating in the Islands chain to the NE and N of Australia - because it was deemed that due to a shortage of shipping from the U.S., and the risk of seaborne loss by U-boats - and delays caused by shipping times - that the U.S. forces would be far better served, acquiring as much equipment from Australia, as could be supplied. Accordingly, the vast majority of the Cat graders used in Australia and the nearby Islands, during 1936 to 1946 were Australian-built W&J graders. AFAIK (and I stand to be corrected), no 9K S/No Cat 12 graders were ever built by W&J. There is a possibility that the Americans left behind in Australia, at the Wars end, some number of Cat 12 9K graders that they had brought with them, in initial military cargo shipments (1942-1943). These graders would have possibly been sold to the Australian Govt in the post-War, War Surplus settlement, that not only covered surplus Lend Lease equipment - but it also covered equipment that belonged to the U.S. forces, and which they had simply left behind, due to a lack of shipping after the War. Virtually all of the engine-driven major U.S. military equipment items left here in Australia from the War, carry a "USN 7" stamp on or near the machine S/No. These stamped letters/number indicates the item of equipment was the property of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, which owned a vast number of construction equipment items. The U.S. Seventh Fleet was based in Brisbane, it was formed on 15th March 1943, and the Fleet was under the overall control of Gen Douglas MacArthur.
Hey Ozdozer, I brought this at auction and won't be able to verify it until later this week when, all going to plan, it is floated to me.
Gus, that's a great photo of the S/No plate! The grader is definitely a U.S.-built Cat 12 grader that belonged to the U.S. Navys Seventh Fleet ("US7" stamp), and was obviously brought in as cargo on a U.S. ship carrying military supplies and troops, probably around mid-1942. I have seen "USN 7" stamped in the S/No plate as well. Note the "Made in the United States of America" stamped on the plate. The exact date of manufacture is something I have never seen on any Cat S/No plate, and the date of April 13th 1942 jells with my S/No book, which states that 1942 Cat 12 grader production started at S/No 9K4034 and ended at 9K5229. The grader would have been either left behind in Australia or recovered from a Pacific Island after the end of WW2. There were a number of marine salvagers who recovered quite a bit of badly-needed and valuable U.S. equipment after Wars end, that was abandoned on Islands such as the Solomon Islands (including Henderson Field), Truk Atoll (now Chuuk, Micronesia), Vanuatu, and even Bougainville Island and New Guinea. If the grader was left behind in Australia at Wars end, it would have been sold by the Commonwealth Disposals Commission, which was tasked with the job of selling all the military surplus left in Australia between late 1946 and early 1950. There was virtually no ship cargo space available to take equipment back to the U.S., in the approximately 12 mths after WW2 ended. Every square foot of shipping space was required to take millions of troops home! Some of the troops didn't get home for more than 12 mths after WW2, and complete U.S. troop demobilisation didn't finish until June 30, 1947. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/points-system-us-armys-demobilization Here's a couple of councils who bought military surplus Cat 12's from the CDC in 1947 .... https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/82365407 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/156410409 The Govt Works and Housing Dept purchased a pile of used military surplus equipment, including a Cat 12 grader, for the rebuilding of the Mackay aerodrome in 1947. A lot of the military surplus, major earthmoving equipment, went straight to Govt Depts after the War. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/171099606 Here's a report from a NSW council, grumbling about the cost of repairs to a military surplus Cat 12, offered by the CDC. The grader had only done 1300 hrs, but it was in poor shape. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/136152411?searchTerm=Caterpillar 12 grader Disposals Commission
Uh, Ozdozer, i hate to contradict you but what about the 4-53 inline? I worked on several in the old Oliver/Cockshutt ag tractors. In that application they were rated somewhere around 100hp +or-. They were available in other types of equipment also. They mostly used a VS governor and were quite easy to set compared to other DD governors
Yep, my bad 56Wrench - I forgot all about the 2-53, 3-53 and 4-53 GM inline engines. Just put it down to increasing senility! Like you, I'm certainly interested as to how they attached this GM Diesel to a Cat transmission housing! There must be some intriguing modifications in that arrangement. Bit of a shame they scrapped the original engine, a Cat grader with a 2 stroke scream just wouldn't sound right!
Yes I have several 2,3,4-53’s lying about in my yard of dead diesels. Many a Dowell / Halliburton / BJ - Gardner Denver pump, compressor or batch mixer would cry in disbelief that THEY have been forgotten!!
you really deserve some kudos for all that military knowledge. I really dig that stuff.
Well, here's an even bigger surprise. As I said previously, I have never encountered a 9K series Cat 12 grader in the nearly 6 decades I've been on, and owned earthmovers - but a few days ago, this unit turned up in a local auction yard. It's U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, WW2 9K series grader - 9K6943 - and it proudly proclaims that it's USACE property, on a huge cast brass plate! The brass plate even records its military registration number! I have a suspicion this grader (in the same, very poor condition) is the same one, that was lying under a tree in the auction yard, around 20 yrs ago! It laid there for many months, then it disappeared, so I presumed it got sold. If it's not the same one, it's the brother to it! She's a real old warhorse, beaten and battered and driven into the ground. Every joint on it has so much slop, I doubt whether you could actually grade anything successfully with it. The steering linkages are all worn beyond belief. The engine doesn't run, so the buyer is basically getting yard art! I hate to think how much it would cost, to put it back into good operating condition. I'd hazard a guess she arrived here without a cabin, and the current amateurish-looking cabin, has been fabricated by someone locally. It's lost it's original 9.00x25 front tyres and hubs, and it has had an upgrade to the later, bigger front tyres. https://oa.sbauction.com.au/#!/auct...gs/8e6e5c71-7f07-4608-8d3c-d963bc2d664c?ic=48
It looks like it needs me. It makes me miss my #12 8T series
Just a note, Detroit made a 4-53 engine that was inline, not a v configuration. I have seen many of them. I am pretty sure that also made an in line 3-53. AFAIK the 53 and 71 merely indicate the cu inch displacement. A “V” in the model indicates V configuration. Very interesting information, thank you!!
Yes, all correct, graderguy - I clean forgot that the 3-53 and 4-53 were built as the inline models of the 53 series.
A great thread OzDozer... Thanks.
No kidding, what a great couple of posts. @OzDozer really took me back. I had missed this thread. My dad was in the 4th Marine Division, and he may have crossed paths in some way with those graders. History of the 4th Marines below: https://www.marines.mil/Portals/1/P...ine Division 1943-2000 PCN 19000306300_1.pdf He came back from the war and his fist job was learning the construction trade as a powder monkey/driller in the central Oregon Cascades.
I have just got home my 1944 Caterpillar No12 serial no. 9K9378 stamped US Army! Trying to confirm if it would have originally been painted army green or Cat yellow? It has a cabin not sure if Aussie built addition?
Evo, have you got any photos? My book says 9K9378 is 1945 year of build. Nearly all Wartime production of Cats was painted Olive Drab, because it was all destined for military use and it was virtually impossible to acquire a Cat for civilian purposes, in the period from early 1942, after the U.S. entered the War up - until mid-1944. After mid-1944, the rules were relaxed and both equipment and trucks were released to civilian purchasers (especially farmers) as they clamoured for new equipment that they hadn't been able to acquire for close on 3 years. If they were producing food and goods for the War effort, they got priority in supply of new equipment and trucks. If you go under the machine and find a recess that hasn't been exposed to wear or the weather and scrape off the layers of paint, you should be able to find the original coat of paint. Olive Drab stands out quite readily, if original.
Hi OzDozer thanks will try to find any other colour but yellow but it really looks like unlikely. Can you tell if cabin was Aussie made and fitted here or original build?
Yes, it does appear as if the colour has been Cat yellow from the factory. I would've expected to see some Olive Drab where the yellow paint is missing. All military machines were Olive Drab from the factory, I don't think there were any exceptions. However, it could have been sandblasted at some time for a repaint, which would have removed the majority of the Olive Drab paint. That's why I said to find a recessed area where any sandblaster might have missed, to find the original paint. The cabin is not factory build, it's been fabricated quite neatly by someone locally who had good steel fabrication skills, but it doesn't follow any Cat pattern. I'm interested to find out if the engine serial number is the same as the grader. If the engine S/No starts with 2S prefix, the grader was built by Waugh & Josephson in N.S.W. If the engine has the same S/No as the grader (9K9378), then it was built by Cat in the U.S. Waugh & Josephson built around 600 Cat Auto Patrol and Cat 12 graders between 1936 and 1946, when Cat gave a licence to built Cat products to Steelweld P/L. W & J built all of the grader, except for the engine and transmission, which were built by Cat in the U.S. and sent here for installation into the W & J graders. This agreement with W & J to build Cat graders came about because the U.S. Govt slapped an embargo on shipping equipment that was capable of building airstrips, to S.E. Asia, in 1936, when Japan was posing a major threat for War. Many Australian Shire Councils, Road Boards, other Govt entities, and private contractors wanted new Cat graders, but couldn't buy them after the embargo was introduced - because Australia was in the declared zone for potential military aggression by Japan. So W & J went to Cat and asked for a licence to build graders for the local market - and the military. Cat agreed, and nearly all W & J grader production went to the military after WW2 started for us, in Sept 1939. The American forces took the vast majority of the W & J Cat graders between 1942 and late 1944, because Cat was not only struggling to keep up grader production, there was a major shortage of shipping available to ship new Cat graders to Australia, as well as long shipping delays, and a major risk of losses to enemy action (U-boats and German raiders). A photo of the plate that identifies the grader as U.S. Army would be handy to have. Some of the U.S. Engineer forces brought U.S.-built Cat graders with them when they landed in Australia, but this was mostly around 1942. The Americans initially had to land at all our Southern and Eastern ports such as Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, because the Japs controlled all the Northern waters in early 1942 - and then they had to make their way North to build all the necessary airstrips and roads to support the War effort. From the North of Australia, a lot of U.S. Engineer and Naval forces went further North and North East to the Islands such as Papua New Guinea, Bougainville, the Solomons, and Vanuatu. Some of the U.S. engineer equipment was simply abandoned on these islands and recovered by Australian salvagers after WW2 ended. Graders and dozers were in high demand in Australia after WW2, and they brought big money.
Unbelievable knowledge OzDozer very thankful for the time you are putting in for me! Engine has a plate with 2S6852 as per attached photos. From what you have said probably has always been Cat yellow but will look further. Is it a W & J roof design or after market? Not sure whether to fix roof or remove back to Cat standard no cabin.
Great! The engine S/No shows it's a W & J -built Cat 12, note the engine is marked as "Power Unit". "Power units" were basically industrial engines, for use on pumps, crushers, and any other use where you needed engine power. In the Cat S/No book, "power units" from 2S5501-up are marked as "Miscellaneous engines". These were the engine numbers reserved for the W & J Cat 12 graders. I believe the roof design is most likely aftermarket. I have a photo of new Cat 12 graders lined up in the street outside the W & J manufacturing premises in the early 1940's, and none of the graders have a cabin of any kind. Under pressure for maximum War production, it's highly unlikely that cabins rated as a necessary item, and I think you'll find cabins only became more widely fitted after 1945. Plus, cabins required more shipping room (height) when the graders were being shipped, so if a cabin was fitted, it meant that it restricted where the grader could be fitted on a ship, if headroom was limited. It's surprising that the ID plate has room for a date of manufacture, but it wasn't stamped. Unfortunately the graders WW2 military registration number can't be tracked, perhaps a WW2 photo somewhere may show the number, they were usually painted on the frame as well.
Thanks for all this information much appreciated. If you hear of any units being wrecked please let know I want to get it back to as original as possible.
O.K. Not many of these machines being wrecked today, they're too rare. What parts do you need? Below are some WW2 photos of the Cat graders at work. Note, how most have no cabins. First below is a photo of an earlier production W & J Cat 12, taken in 1942 on the "North-South Military Road" (now the Stuart Highway), at the Devils Marbles, Northern Territory. This grader is fitted with the standard early Cat 12 cabin. It was more than likely ordered with a cabin, before the War started. The grader has the markings "D /|\ I" with the broad arrow between them, showing it's Govt property. This grader belongs to a Federal Dept, the Dept of the Interior. The building of the North-South Military Road during WW2 was undertaken by a big combination of military and civilian groups that were thrown together to form construction gangs - mostly the Depts of Main Roads from QLD, S.A. and Victoria, the Allied Works Council, the Dept of the Interior, and Civilian Construction forces. However the Australian Army and the U.S. 808th Engineer Battalion also did quite an amount of work on the Road. The 808th used its dozers and graders to clear and widen the road, as they drove North from Alice Springs towards Darwin, where they had been allocated airstrip building jobs. A ROAD-GRADER AT WORK IN CENTRAL AUSTRALIA. THE TRANS-CONTINENTAL ROAD PASSES THROUGH THIS ... www.awm.gov.au This is a Cat 12 at work on Bougainville in May 1945. If the U.S. forces had surplus equipment, it would be given to the Australians to operate, as the Americans owned a lot more earthmoving equipment than we did. BOUGAINVILLE. 1945-05-30. SAPPER R.B. WALKER, 6 MECHANICAL EQUIPMENT COMPANY ROYAL AUSTRALIAN ... www.awm.gov.au A Cat 12 at work on Morotai, Nov 1945. MOROTAI, 1945-11-27. 28TH FIELD COMPANY, 34TH BRIGADE. A GRADER OPERATED BY WX33085 SAPPER J. ... www.awm.gov.au Cat 12's at work on Labuan Island, Borneo in June 1945. It appears the Engineers have fabricated some rudimentary sunshades for the graders as protection from the hot sun. LABUAN ISLAND, BORNEO. 1945-06-23. GRADERS, BULLDOZERS AND SHEEP'S-FOOT ROLLERS OF THE RAAF ... www.awm.gov.au A Cat 12 landing on Morotai Island, April 1945. RED BEACH, MOROTAI ISLAND, HALMAHERA ISLANDS, NETHERLANDS EAST INDIES. 1945-04-23. 64399 LEADING ... www.awm.gov.au 3 x Cat 12's at work on Tarakan Island, May 1945. This is an RAAF Airfield Construction Squadron. As the War progressed, the ACS's took over a lot of the airfield construction work. Tarakan Island, Borneo. 1945-05-06. Some of the graders operated by No 8 Airfield Construction ... www.awm.gov.au
Your grader was built to a purchase order by the U.S. military, and would have been left behind in Australia as the U.S. forces went home, and would've been classed as "U.S. military property" - not "Lend-Lease", as a lot of the War equipment given to Allied nations was classed. When the War ended, an Australian delegation went to the U.S. and negotiated with the Americans to purchase all the surplus War equipment left behind in Australia - including any surviving Lend-Lease equipment. The negotiations went on for about 6 months, and the Americans initially demanded a high price for all their equipment, pointing out how much it cost them to purchase. However, after many long discussions where the Australians probably pointed out that a lot of the equipment was well worn, it wasn't going to be economic to ship it home to America - and if they didn't sell it to the Australians, the only other potential buyers, would be Asian scrap dealers! - the Americans relented, and sold all their surplus War equipment to the Australian Govt for a figure that was about 5 to 10% of the original purchase cost! Then, from 1946 to 1949, the Australian Govt set up the Commonwealth Disposals Commission to sell all the War surplus equipment - the largest percentage of it being American in origin, although quite a bit of Australian military surplus was sold, as well. Auctions sales and tenders were held about every 2-3 months, until virtually all the War surplus was sold. You will find records of CDC auctions in the newspapers on the Trove website, from 1946 to 1949. If you know where your grader originated from, you may find a record of the auction sale that your grader was in, in that period. The machines weren't identified by any S/No's or military registrations in the newspaper sales adverts, just listed as "Cat 12 grader". But there wouldn't have been a lot of Cat 12 graders in the CDC sales, anyway. It appears the Councils and Roads Boards were offered any military surplus graders first, as they became available for sale. There are numerous grumbles in the newspaper articles after the War, from Council Engineers, that a lot of the military surplus equipment was in poor condition when it was offered to them. Here's a record of a surplus Allied Works Council Cat 12 that was sold via the CDC to a Local Council. It's identified in the article by its AWC registration number. SHIRE ROADS - Engineer’s Report - The Inverell Times (NSW : 1899 - 1907, 1909 - 1954) - 13 May 1946 The Engineer (Mr. L. G. Day ) submitted a lengthy report to Friday’s meeting of the Macintyre Shire Council. It dealt with work done on a ... trove.nla.gov.au Here's another article from 1945 regarding the release of War surplus Cat 12 graders to a Council. Making sure you're not a bot! And below is an article where the finalisation of the purchase of a Cat 12 from the CDC is discussed. Making sure you're not a bot!
Do you know what dozer is pulling the packer in Borneo, maybe a Euclid?
Dave, Euclid crawlers didn't exist in 1945, they didn't appear until after GM bought out Euclid in Sept 1953. The dozer appears to me to be an A-C HD-7-W, it's had the RH armrest cut away, and a large bracket installed in its place - possibly a frame to carry multiple jerry cans?
Great thanks. I need 2 x exhaust manifolds, harmonic balancer and the original under bonnet air cleaner system mine has been modified.
The original air cleaner is the oil-type, these became totally obsolete with the introduction of dry-type aircleaners around 1960. I think you'll discover these are very hard to find. Have you tried Tillys in Qld? Another source would be the wreckers and scrappers who specialise in collecting wrecked items they think they can make more money out of, by selling these items as "vintage collectable", rather than scrapping the item. We have a local big scrap-dealing company that saves a lot of items that would otherwise go to China in little pieces - the problem is, they usually look for big dollars for this stuff. Tractor | J&P Group jpgroup.com.au
It just didn't look like a Cat and had a more rounded profile. That's why I thought maybe Euclid. Didn't know when Euclid started making dozers.