I am talking to a fellow about an old 9u that he has for sale and he says the cable unit is mounted on the front of the tractor. I have never seen one like that and I don't know if I want to buy one like that. Is anyone familiar with this? Pros, cons?
front mounted pcu are live drive means if the motor is running you can lift the blade . rear mounted ddpcu need the clutch engaged to lift the blade .
the best way to go ,
An old Catskinner told me he hated them in the winter. With a suck Fan the snow would get in them and make them slip bad.
Wet, foggy mornings were no fun either. 20-30 lifts and drops before the blade would stay up. Tightening the brake did nothing in that case.
And do NOT attempt to adjust it while the motor is running!!!!! or it could be the last adjustment you make
The front mount unit on a 9U is probably a 25. I never had a problem with snow or anything else for that matter with mine. There is the correct procedure to adjust them and if not properly adjusted they are a bit funky. I would not be at all afraid of one. As Ronsii mentioned never, ever, try to adjust (any CCU for that matter) with the engine running. Those who just lost an arm or two got lucky. Many lost their life. EDIT: A newer 9U with the 318 engine and after they changed to the oil clutch is one of the most reliable classic dozers one can buy. They are still being used every day and very capable of doing a decent amount of work.
I had two machines with front units back in the day. I had three or four machines in that fleet with scraper control units as well. They all worked fine when adjusted properly. The front unit was a lot simpler to work on and setting it up was just a matter of adjusting linkages to match marks that were provided for that purpose. Operators were always the biggest problem on any winch machine. Most did not understand that the clutches were designed to snap in and not feel in like a clutch on a truck. The resulting slipping when feathering the clutch beat the disks up pretty quickly. You could tell the good operators right away as you seldom got called out the adjust them. The operators that wouldn't listen showed up within a couple of days. Once the disks started warping, you got called out to replace broken rope. The warped disks would lock and the blade would raise to two block and kill the motor if you were lucky. If the line broke, you had a mess to clean up. The lines are front units are far easier to change than the ones on rear units. Welding gloves are a must when changing line as there will be 10,000 needles from the worn threads.