I recently bought a D5H, serial number 7NC00577. I cannot find a service manual that clearly covers this machine. I did find one in book form that say 7NC1 and up but since mine is 7NC0 that would not seem to cover mine. I also found a thumb drive that says: "CAT Caterpillar D5H Crawler Dozer Tractor 7NC Service Operators Manual PDF USB". This seems like it would cover mine, would you agree?
You’re good that’s how they say first one built up. If there is a change they put the change number and up or until the next change
Okay, good to know. Funny you used that manual as an example. My first dozer was a D3, serial number 79U5817. That serial number is etched into my memory; I bought a lot of parts for it.
Stay way from those thumb drives would be my advice. They are Eastern European knockoffs that in no way are equivalent to a proper service manual. You will be disappointed - guaranteed. The service manual for a 7NC machine is Caterpillar Publication reference SENR3250. For your reference they are priced new at $885 in paper form or at $630 in pdf form on a CD. Here's a used one for sale on eBay . There may be other examples around, I didn't look. For used paper manuals the question to ask the seller "is it complete.?" In other words are all the separate modules listed in the contents page inside the binder cover actually present.? EDIT: The photos are not for your tractor. You may have to contact the seller for verification that what they are selling is actually SENR3250.
Thank you, I will take your advise on the thumb drive. Different question: Looking at the publication reference number, SENR3250, I do not understand how this works. Did Caterpillar publish the manual for early models (D5H series 1 in this case) and update using the same publication number for later models, (like D5H series 2) with a supplemental? Dummy me...I've had a series 2 (serial number 8RJ) for a few years and I thought I had the correct manual for it but evidently I do not. The manual I have does however cover the dozer I just bought, which is a 7NC. (The manual i have does cover direct drive as well as the powershift) There are some pretty obvious differences in my series 1 direct drive and the series 2 xl powershift. The pictures show a black covered manual that is on ebay and the tan colored manual that I already have; same publication number but the black version covers additional serial numbers.
The buff-coloured one is the older style manual, maybe pre-2000 or thereabouts. The black binder is the newer style (since about 2010). TBH I am not 100% sure exactly when the colour/style changed. It would not be beyond the bounds of possibility that with new models coming on to the market a newer version of the same publication number will cover a larger list of Serial Number prefixes.
Got it, it seems like Cat would change the publication number when they add to it though. We learn as we go.... thanks. I see you post on a lot of threads, I greatly appreciate your knowledge and your willingness to share it.
Not really. It's problaby far more economic for Cat to simply add a couple of additional sections to an existing publication than it is to make up a full set of maybe 20 manual sections to construct a whole new manual under a different Publication Number. The only trick I know is to make sure that the S/N prefix of your machine is listed on the spine of any advertised manual.
Thanks