Hello All, A question for the more experienced here please, if I may. About to purchase an older CAT grader, the owner has had it for 30 yrs, bought 2nd hand. He thinks it's a 12 or a 12F? The serial # is either 80J427 or 80U427 - the plate is damaged so 3rd letter could be a J or a U? Would anyone be able to help better ID the grader, yr of manufacture etc please. Cheers, Dingo 55
80J is a 112F model motor grader built by Cat in Australia. Not surprising bearing in mind your location. 80J is the equivalent of an 89J-prefix 112F grader built in the US. First built was in 1968. 80J247 might have been later than that but I would guess only by a year or two. I hope that the seller has some manuals for it because apart from the Operation & Maintenance Manual there appears to be nothing else available to buy online at this time. A good source of information for machines from that era would be www.acmoc.org - they also have a library of manuals.
Hello Nige, Thank you for your reply, much appreciated. You don't suppose the 3rd letter in the serial # is a U instead of a J? - ie. 80U427 perhaps? No manuals from the seller unfortunately, so thank you for the www.acmoc.org link. Looked up CAT 112F & found this video, which shows the same grader, 4 cylinder etc: Your a champion Nige, hope your MBE isn't too far away.
I did look at that before replying. 80U is a Japanese-built 910 Wheel Loader.
That should read 'You're a champion....' Brilliant, thank you Nige
Nige is much more a Cat grader man than a Champion grader man. Champion did build a good machine though... till Volvo took over and decided to shut them down.