I searched here and no one had pics of a D8L so i thought I would post some
Cat D8L Hi John 1066, The Cat L series dozers was out before digital cameras. Hence maybe the lack of pictures on the net. Unless scanned,even then they are of poor quality. I have D8L pictures on film, as I'm sure other operators do. The L series were a powerful Cat. The Cat D8L and Cat D9L, were real grunts. Lotta power ! And quick ! I really liked them. Thought I was in heaven ! The Cat "N" series were real dogs in my opinion. Gutless to say ! The thing I never liked is the track slap ( jerking) in turning or reverse. Real annoying. Especially backing up a hill or steep grade. Lot of contractors put their own top carrier roller on to cure the problem. Later Cat come out with their own as an option. .
d8l is one of the first dozer i worked around very good machine almost bought one once but went with a new certified d8k plus 8k is easier to move as the l is reall a 9 Freesen INC. runs d8ls and they have big hooks on the back of them to pull the twin engine scrapers out of the borrow holes the also have 3' wide tracks very nice thers one at the power plant down the road from me.
Cat L Series Hello Fiat41B, The Cat L Series were the most powerful Cats I ever been on. Exceptional is what I have to say. Sure beat the doggy N Series all to hell ! Pushed Cat 651's with the Cat D9L, them guys never got to relax, they're gone, outa my pit ! LOL Perfectly matched . The Cat D8L was a dream, full U dozer, perfect for mass dozing on the smaller ?? jobs. LOL I sure fell in love with the L Series . :usa
Cat D8L radial rippers Cat had a radial designed-narrorow beam multi shank ripper. Never looked like it belonged on the machine. Never heard anything positive about it, & some California contrators put D9H rippers in place of the radial. Was this a commity design or did they field test it? As a side note, Cat continued building the D8L in Brazil about 5 years after the discontinued in North America. Dug.
Okay ? Hello Dug Overburden, Okay, what is a "radial designed " ? What is a " commity design" ? I never heard these terms ! I plead ignorance .
Radial Design ripper I'll try and explain a Radial ripper I may not be correct. The radial design follows the fixed hinge point where it is hooked the the tractor. A commity is a group that gets together and agrees on a design. I don't think much thought went into designing the ripper when the D8L was introduced. As soon as the D9N was introduced the radial ripper was discontinued. Dug
Pairalell ripper A compairson photo of a pairalellagram ripper. The ripper angle is always pairalell to the machine. It's late pardon the spelling. (Sorry it's not a D8L) Dug
Hey Dug, One thought was the radial ripper swung up higher so you had more rear clearance when the machine went through a low area. It had a very aggressive attack angle on the point for penatration. The downfall was the shanks were a little closer spaced. The machine had a hard time ripping next to a slope.
Rippers A Radial Ripper(953), then a Variable Pitch Parallelogram Ripper(11) and then a Fixed Parallelogram Ripper. (#1 & 3 off the net. #2 from my collection.)
Great pics John, are you on DHS too?
John is this your machine if it is,check the cutting edge and corner bits on your blade.They need replaced,the complete set not this one then another one like it show in the top picture. If not your machine then tell the owner.Yeah i know your working in sand,but it still is wearing the bottom of the blade down and next thing you don't have any wear plates and the bolt holes are pulling out on down the road if you wait to long. I hate it when i see wore out edges and corner bits on equipment.It is hard on the blade,slows production,and are really not that expensive or hard to change,so i ask why???? Nice straight older looking machine,thanks for sharing.Good luck:usa
Here's my contribution to D8L's.... This one is [was ] owned by Liberty Excavating out of Camp Hill, PA. It was pushin 627's when they were doing the bulk work on Silver Springs Shopping Center in Mechanicsburg, PA a few years ago
The top machine is my uncles its lucky if it sees 500 hrs a year the one with the ripper is ours we have a new set at the shop at all times but that machine hasn't moved in 2 years other than for snow removal. I know what your saying tho we always change the full edge they don't use it enough and don't worry about it its pretty much a toy for them
nice pics!!!!
Description ? Hi Dug Overburden and Cmark, Ah, looks like , "commity = committee " a case of misspelling. Radial ripper, is a term I never heard of . I always heard it called a fixed ripper. Like the " ATECO " brand ripper. The shank was fixed, meaning you could not adjust angle. Except to raise or lower the shank, depth by pulling the pin. The ATECO also had a ripper that was fixed, but could flop from side to side also. It would go around boulders rather than dig them up. Hated that one. I searched all over the net looking for one, on a Cat D9G like I used to run. I see some even call it a hinge ripper. The fixed parrallelogram and variable parrallelogram rippers I am well aware of. Thanks for the clarification , Northart
Northart you got me on the spelling, happens when you stay awake to long!! Your right about the agressive angle, it probably works great in a specialized application. The Ateco ripper you are referring that flops from side to side I aways called it a hinged "Clevis" ripper, I use to see lots of them on TD25's,D8H's & D9G's. There is a lot of Granite rock in Southern California,these at one one time were the ripper of choice (60's) I found a photo of a D9G spread in the early 1960's at Mangla dam. Guy F Atkinson had a lot of them! Dug
Another D8L photo with ripper Here's a nice side profile of a 4 Barrel Multi shank ripper. Looks like this machine needs it's Rops installed
You can praise D8L's all you like, they were decent machines (for battleship boat anchors) I worked for an outfit years ago that had a few 8L's and 9L's, just seemed like Caterpillar cheaped out on alot of things, like fuel tank mounts would break, the tin seemed to rattle off them regularly. The severe vertical climb the chain has to do at the rear end around the rear idler and up to the sprocket is just murder on undercarriage components as well. I bleed Cat yellow, but of all the series of the tractors Cat build the L and the N are by far the worst in my books.
Cat Skinner 77V, I think one reason D8l's rattled apart was they were much faster then say 8K's. I remember some friends had a pair of L', and we had my 8K on the job too. Well being the operators we were we started to push side by side. Forget the 8L had more power, It flat out ran the 8K by quite a bit. I think some of the losing tin and high under carriage wear is caused by the fact that in second gear the 8l moves almost as fast as the 8k in third at 3/4 throttle. Had the 8L been easier to move the machine would have been a great hit. In Ca you could put one on a 7 axle and make weight only by climbing way up on the big neck. Then you had height problems. So most people moved them on 8 or 9 axle trailers. The engine inthe 8L 3408 was derated in that application, so they got long life. The d342 in the 8k was a 1950's design that Cat kept updating till they got 300hp. out of it. The engine had a lot of problems at that hp.
Movability and useability are two very different things. I love my old D9G, I would use it on every job if i could, but it just doesn't make sense to move it 50 miles for a 100 hour bush clearing job or garbage dump push. So the 8's usually go and the 9 sits in the yard most of the time, unless we have have a good few weeks or more work for it at one site. Funny, I have owned numerous D8K's and D8H's and I have had nothing but good luck with the D342 -low RPM high oil pressure engine.But of course, a rebuilt after 18-20 thousand hours is more than expected. Never in a thousand years will you ever find a V-8 diesel in anything I own, they quit putting them in highway tractors years ago for a reason.
we haven't had any trouble with the 8l we move it all over it doesn't seem to be rattling apart we rebuilt the engine tranny and tourqe converter at 20,000 hrs and havent had any trouble with it since. the undercarrige doesnt wear any different the the rest of the cat dozers. i think some people just don't like change
I hated the early D9L's. Seems like the coal mine in Kentucky I was at did most of the R&D work on the dern things for Cat. Cat made lots of mistakes on them having to do with undersize retainers (bolts) and other things. (I had a bunch of very low serial number units. 14Y100 on down) Lot's of new ideas on them and they sure did have teething problems. 84W D10's were just as bad. BUT, I learned a lot about D9L's that helped me later on, the most important of which was that you had to look at the entire machine several times a day if you were ever to hold it together. So preshift, lunch, and post shift, my mechanics and I would do walk arounds looking for leaks, loose hardware and anything that just wasn't right. We pried into everything. If it was loose we tightened it. If it leaked we fixed that. All right away. Larger problems we learned to take care of as soon as possible. We pioneered the use of using larger bolts to hold the fuel tanks, filters, and fenders on. Had to buy the rubber bushings from the manufacturer as Cat didn't have them yet. We tried everything in the book and then some on hardbars, pins and bushings. Cat was still having trouble with that area ten years later. We had a local machine shop re-machine the hard bars if they weren't broke. Hard nose pins and bushings we also swapped for larger items. Had those custom made. I dropped using Cat radiator cores and went to the Mesabi products. Lots less trouble for the same price initially. Repairs were a lot cheaper. A good running D8L was a pleasure to run doing general dozer work or punching scrapers. I used one behind a D9H pushcat in Maryland shoving 651B's thorough a cut and gosh, that was fun. The 8L would actually out push that 9, but the 9 was a little tired I have to admit. This particular 8 also got a Mesabi core. Cat didn't have a core on the east coast anyway, so it wasn't a hard decision. I never had a whole lot of trouble with the 3400 V series engines in 8's or 9's. I kept them up to snuff with tune-ups and updates and they were power houses. Both could be tweaked upwards quite a bit, but as the rest of the drivetrain was not up to that, didn't do it much. A good running D348 in a D10 that stayed together was rare and were essentially boat anchors so far as I was concerned. I’ve spent a lot of money keeping 84W’s going……
Some of My D8L Photos I have always liked them. When paying hourly for ripping, it said D8 on the side and was cheaper than the ones that said D9. We see quite a few here in the Denver area, they (As well as 9N's and 9R and 9T) machines can move down the road legal and in "full work clothes". I have some photos, some I took and others were "borrowed" from the internet or here. My apologies if anyone is offendend. The units with the blue ROPS were working a big rock ex job and were keeping up with two D9R machines pretty well. When the 9R's werent shoving scrapers around. Graham
My only experince with a 8L was very disapointing, to say the least. I hadnt been cat-skinning very long, and I got put on an 8L one day, pioneering. It had a full U and that goofy ripper that wouldnt stay in the ground. I dont know what the problem was, but I couldnt carry a flat grade to save my life! I would be easing along, in 1st gear, half throttle, and that blade would dig in like a hoe! Let the fun begin! Stop, back up, start over-same crap. If I was able to get a blade load, it would seem to push more material than it would carry. I was so P.O.ed at quitting time, I asked the boss to give me my scrapper back! The next day, a real awesome skinner got on that thing and was having the same trouble. He fought that thing for 3 weeks, then the job was done, so we all left. My next experince with a L series was a late 9L. What an awesome Cat! Full U blade, the good ripper. I have nothing bad to say about that one. Run and push like hell all day long. The last time I ran one, it was a 9L set up as a push cat. Pushin chushin's on both ends. It had been upgraded to a HUEI engine, and when pushing tandem, would out work the two 10N's in the next cut. Jason
hey gd10 thats one of those Freesen tractors from back here where im from it has the hook for pulling scrapers although that one does not have the wide tracks nice pictures.
Maintenance ? Hello Catskinner77V , and Surferjoe, Maybe I had an exceptional run of luck , after reading your posts, but I run the Cat D8L, D9L, D10-84W for different contractors. Nothing but solid performers ! What can I say ?? My experience with the "N" series, geez I don't prefer not to talk about, just gutless wonders ! Same with that Cat D5 ?? all series, wonder why they even made it ? Just never fit in the scheme of construction. Maybe for the little guy ,??? Hallelujah when the Cat "R" series showed up. Same with the "T" Series. Doing good! :usa
When I was in the 7th or 8th grade, I was with my dad somewhere in South Dakota on I-90. We stopped up on an over-pass to watch some 627's (I think) working on a strech of the freeway. There was one of those wide pad 8L's with a hook on the ripper, pulling the scrappers through this huge mud hole the where trying to muck out. There was also one on the back pushing, but he wouldnt go far, till the front Cat hooked up and finished getting him through. Just last summer, dad and me were looking through a stack of old Kodak 110 pictures he had, and I remember seeing that. I wish he lived a bit closer to me, so I could go and get them and scan them to my computer. Jason
Blade Pitch ? Hello JTL, Are you sure, you did not have the dozer blade pitched too far forward ?? ON the D8L ? Too far forward on a Full "U" dozer, you will NEVER cut or carry grade, in dirt,gravel,etc. That forward pitch angle is for rock work alone. Actually a straight dozer is for rock work. In real life, I had to teach a Stanford ,Purdue, Yale ?? forgot which of them "idiots" LOL project managers , how to select equipment for the right application. Straight dozer vs. U dozer for rock work ! Showed another "Star" project manager what an "idiot" he was, also. He fired a few catskinners, for not being able to carry grade with coarse gravels. Rightfully so. These guys never knew how to adjust the pitch angle, or tilt on the dozer. Took me 15 minutes to figure out what was going wrong, adjusted the pitch and started carrying grade. He thought I was Mananna (Biblical bread ) from heaven. LOL Anyway ,
Hello Northart, If I remember right, the blade pitch adjuster was welded solid. Im sure that had alot to do with it! I know what you mean about educated idiots. I worked for Kiewit for a year!! I perfer a SU over a full U for everything, exept when on a fill dozer. An SU in a slot, wheater its rock or dirt, will outperform a U any day. On the fill, its tough to beat a U. Especially when pushing 1 foot lifts dumped from a Payhauler, 773 or 605 Komatsu with a D8N. Gets real fun to build a fill with a new Komatsu 155 with that stupid new 'W' shaped blade they came up with. Jason
Education ? Hello JTL, Yep, it was one of the "PK" know it all's. I was just a 30's something catskinner at the time. Showed him the difference. And a few other thing' s. Saved him from being an idiot, in the eyes of a few others. Actually he took a liking to me, for that education. LOL Simple physics of the machines. They never understood till someone got into their face mean. LOL . What can I say. Later, the guy was acknowledged to be a ??? Star ?? by his peers, but Mother Nature intervened, ?? , died from a brain aneyurism ?? , young guy yet. Hhmmn. Anyway, ...........
Anyone know where to find an enclosed ROPS for a 8l I need one in a bad way.
Enclosed ROPS ? Are you talking about an enclosed cab ? As the cab is seperate from the ROPS . Or are you talking about the heavy screen guarding on the ROPS as in a Forestry Pkg ? Protection against tree limbs , etc.
enclosed cab
Enclosed cab for D8L Here's an aftermarket cab . http://www.cabs-rops.com/DNN/EquipmentCabs/tabid/144/Default.aspx
we found the cab for ours on iron planet and paid 2500 for it it cost more to get the heater for it from cat. if you look around im sure there are a few out there
D8L rippers I mentioned in an earlier post in this thread, that some contractors replaced the narrow beam ripper with a D9H ripper. In gd10r's pictures there is a photo. This photos looks to be from a Max Rouse & Sons borchure? Dug This could even be a D8K ripper assembly...
im new!I LOVE ,heavy equipment!my dad ran that stuff, for ever! im 51, and went to work with dad many times
YESSSS that is a Rouse brochure, the company is cherokee from CA, probally long gone now. I have that on the bb in front of my work table (toys). G
The Cat D8L is the most powerful D8 at 335HP that Caterpillar ever made, the only other D8 models that were close to the D8L's horsepower rating is the D8R and the new D8T. The new D8T's flywheel horsepower is 310HP and the D8R's horsepower rating is 305HP. I guess when the D8L came out you could make really big horsepower and burn lot's fuel doing it. But now machines have too do more work and burn less fuel doing it and on top of that they have to keep meeting ever stricter emissions standards.
Couldn't agree with you more, our D8N is complete piece of junk, I wouldn't be scared to say that our D7G widepad could out push it in the right conditions. I have done alot of different things with that D8N and I just can't seem to get the power out of it that it feels like it should have without severly over-fueling. Not to mention the torque converter is hardly half the size of a D8K torque! Cheap junk. The only reason it sticks around is because it has a cab A/C and a CD player haha, gotta do what you gotta do to keep good (but whiny and wussy) operators around I guess. I'd sit on a open cab K all tarped in and the fan turned around on any given winter day aside from that useless 8N, I prefer production and cost effectiveness over comfort. And don't anybody tell me about fuel economy!! We don't run 70,000 pound dozers around for good fuel economy.... beside thats why we still farm too, so we burn up that 60 cent per liter purple farm diesel on jobsites haha. Oh and D5's particulary the D5H LGP with the little 3304 in it, gutless wonder! well thats an understatement. How can you expect the same motor that a 928G loader has in it to preform in a 20 ton dozer? Hardly spin the tracks in first gear without any up pressure on the blade! I know its an LGP and thats alot of pad on the ground to turn, but just the same, it should still push something!
Gee, I rather liked the D8N's, but then, I never really liked the D8K models, preferring the H series instead. That may be because I had to repair far more K series than the H, and the N was easier to work on than the K. I rather enjoy a good D8R, think they are as good as the T so far as operator items are concerned. I've been around some D8L's that were real dogs, especially a couple that came as used gray market machines from Saudi Arabia back in 1986. The shifting sands had really done a number on these two and we spent more time fixing them than they did pushing dirt. But a couple of other's we got that were sourced from Iowa, they were stout and in top form, a pleasure to operate. My biggest problem with the early D8N's, was that they would not run a full eight hour shift on a full tank of fuel. Cat consistently denied this fact, but late models and all others since then have had larger tanks. I took the early ones off and had them enlarged at company expense. When made larger, they would comfortably operate ten hours in hard pushing and ripping applications. The tanks Cat installs on current 8’s now look very much like the ones I had modified. The reason for that is maybe because I sent pictures and specs of what I had done, plus performance figures to friends at the factory in 1990. Also provided the local dealer with copies of the same information.
Isn't it funny how you try to tell an engineer they messed up.To talk to them they are never wrong!!!!! Just like it works on paper so what is the problem? I think they all should have to do time as a mechanic and operator before they can get a diploma.:usa
liberty excavating Liberty has a lot of Iron. Hemp Brothers has a D8L over at the camp hill quarry next to the state pin. I still love the Old School G and H models. I love to see the older cat's from the 60's & 70's brings me back to whenI was a kid. Anyone want to share those pic's.
my dad ran dozers for years, from the 50s till the 90s, he left me with some huge 4X8X 1/2 '" thick blk.n/white posters of equipment ! i think the operators union gave them to him.pics of the euclid dumps, and early shovels. they date back to the early 50s. cool pics. tell me if you know of these.
The 8L never was a big hit up here in the oilpatch...there was a few of them around but i heard they were too heavy and awkward..The 8K was a very popular cat tho , spent many hours on that seat , ususally pinned onto a cable scraper . Absolutley hated the 8N gutless wonder!
Gutless wonder I thought the 928G had a six cylinder engine. 3304 in a 950B or E had plenty of grunt. Maybe yours is not performing as it should.
Here's my contribution to the thread! This D8L is owned by the Saglio Construction Company and is being used to strip topsoil for the second phase of our subdivision. The only complaint the owner/operator had was the lack of A/C, but he said that the machine stays rather cool for whatever reason. More pics of the job to follow.
Never been on a 8L, plenty of time on 8K's&8N's. Ran an 9L for a 2-3 weeks whatta freakin animal. power,power,& more power:drinkup Bob aka ZZ
The L series were fine for power. Trouble was, they were to powerful and too heavy for the entire machine to work well for very long. In other words, they, along with the 76 and 84W D10's, were tough on mechanics. I never fully understood why Cat discontinued them. They had most of the bugs worked out when they introduced the N series, who were poor cousins. I liked operating both machines myself. Preferred the D8L as it was quicker. I spent a lot of time twisting wrenches on all three models in the 80's and 90's. Ole man Freesen hated the high sprocket U/C concept. But he eventually bought some for a coal stripping operation in Oklahoma around 1981. Bought some brand new 651B's too for the same operation.
Just contributing to the D8L pictures
Any machines from that era look terrible with the later style decals, nothing worse than trying to make it look later model than it is.
Well thats how we bought it. It had good paint on it so there was no need to dump money into a new paint job. It had a brand new 3408 in it and the trans, and finals had less than 500 hours on a Cat rebuild so we bought it. Plus it had air conditioning:drinkup It was one of the tightest D8Ls that I have ever operated and our other operators said the same exact thing.
In the U.K. we are just about parking up the D8 2U's with the hope of getting a 14a for the big jobs I still do a stack of work on the older D8H/K 9G/H, and I still rate them as a good money earning item, the high drive tractors seem to always need fettling, the E Bar is a costly and regular let down on all the High drive tractors. tctractors
I could'nt agree more with you, my friend.....!! It looks like for some peoples, to own an older machine is some kind of embarassement....... I wonder what is the most embarassing between having an older machine that work just fine and that is been entirely paid for and a newer machine that is full of electronics and always give its owner all kind of bugs and when it break down, it takes for ever to fix it..... That is one thing, another thing is peoples who own older machines and label them as something else newer, like i saw quite a few Michigan loaders labeled that way, such a early '70s 175B with 175C stickers!!!!! Max.
You guys would'nt happen to have some of those old auction brochures left, by any chance?? I collect auction brochures from every era; any auctioneer but they are extremly difficule to come by..... Thanks. Max.