G-Day Guys; I have been reading about old D9's, and the D9 19A00001 D-T C B in particular made me think about the series #'s and my Question is, I understand the D. is the model, T.C. is for Toque convertor, But what does the B stand for ?????? any one has any info about the B please let me know. Also where they a good model with the torque convertor. Cheers Leroy
Yair . . . Aussie Leroy . The talk was that were bits of dogs in the scrub . . . I believe Carter Bros. tried a couple before they standardised on stick and powershift Eights. The torque converter Eights were doughy sods as well . . . thirteen hundred revs wouldn't cut it with fluid drive. Cheers.
Hey Scrub . I have that Carter Brothers DVD back in my hot little hands , so next time your passing Call in . One of the D9s is in the DVD .
Yair . . . Gotcha ianoz . That would be great, I'd like to see that DVD. Don't get up to Gladdy much . . . tend to go to Bundy. Businesses down there seem to have a different perspective on the world, more in tune with old dinosaurs and farmers. However the Super Clinic calls and I will try and drop by later in the month. Cheers.
Should be a great story.... apart from the tragic ending Cheers, Greg
Hi Greg , It is not a story as such,i believe one of the brothers took a lot of home movies . Guy i know managed to get hold to them and save them .The Guy he got to convert it on to the DVD format made no attempt to edit it,so just goes from one reel to the next . So there is scrubpulling , new D8s arriving at the workshop to be equipped, work on sugar cane railway lines. a bit on the Mackay sugar mill all mixed in together . There is no sound , but it is all interesting stuff for guys like us .
Ianoz, They pulled some scrub not far from here in the very early days, I think with the nines, but that is all I know about their rise and fall. I found some newspaper stories about the sad ending and its aftermath. It would be a shame if they were remembered only for that though. Would you consider making me a copy of the DVD?, Iam happy to cover any costs. Meanwhile, I'll keep researching. Cheers, Greg
Thanks Boys; Video would be good to see, Yair Scrub Puller good call 1300 RPM wouldn't cut the mustard !!, But my Question is still does any one know what the B means. Cheers Leroy
Hi Leroy; I have never seen or heard of the 'B' letter anywhere. And have had abit to do with early 9s. First D9 was the series D in 1955. available in direct drive 18A # or torque converter drive 19A # from memory was 2556 18As made and 1818 19As made. First year of production they were only 286 hp, but were bumped up to 320 in 1956. Next series was the D9E in 59, at 335 hp plus a few updates to it. was 3 series available 49A gear drive. 50A torque converter drive, and the powershift 34A series. All the TC drive tractors used a 3 stage twin disc torque converter that ran on diesel fuel. 34A was the same but used a torque divider to speed the impeller up. This torque divider design; and the converter design was all changed when the current oil converters came on the new D9G in 61. And the converter and divider on the D8H was changed to this design from the previous design at the same time. The diesel converters were ok; but they had to leak a certain amount of drops of diesel to lubricate the carbon seals. And problems arose if the drain tubes got blocked with mud, or they started to leak too much. Also they got hot when the fuel level dropped; less fuel to circulate for cooling. And if you ran out of diesel, was abit a procedure to bleed them ! They also had a narrow operating range. They had to be loaded. Tooo little load and they would overheat. even worse than at stall. in fact they would usually spin tracks before they stalled the converter. The converter stall ratio was 5-1, so they used fairly tall gearing in the 3 spd manuel shift box. 1st gear was 4mph from memory. The ones over here in NZ were mainly used as pushers for scrapers because they were quick. And cat had to do something to counter Allis Chalmers HD19 which was the first big tractor to come out with TC drive.
D6 Merv Thankyou for taking the time to answer my question in detail , very interesting read so the 'B' remands a mystery. Cheers Leroy
I am absolutely no authority on these designations, but could the 'B' be a configuration designator eg. a 'bare' tractor, a particular blade/CCU arrangement, etc?
What was the tragic end for the Carter Bros.?
Like mitch504, I am curious as to the fate of the Carter Bros. I recall a time when I was very young, would have been around 1960, when my parents and I were parked at the top of Porter's Gap on the Kingaroy - Dalby road having smoko. A Mack(?) pulling a lowloader with a D9 on came up the hill past us and my father remarked that it was one of Carter Bros dozers. It was the first 9 I had seen and was a pretty big deal for a young bloke like me as we operated a single D6 around Kingaroy at the time. Many years later when I recounted this memory to my father, he said "Yair, and I probably said, listen to the gear changes." He knew the driver and remarked that that driver was missing his left hand and had a hook in place of it. The truck had a ring welded to each gear stick and he used to put the hook thru the rings to change gear and operated the 'box as good as anyone. As my father died several years ago, I cannot get any more detail than that, but that truck pulling Carter Bros 9 up Porter's Gap remains one of my childhood memories. If any of you blokes (Queenslander, ianoz, Scrub Puller) who are familiar with the land-clearing game in Qld those days can fill in any details on the Carter boys, I would be very grateful. I am also interested in that DVD. Cheers, Gary
I'll let Google news tell the story From the day after. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=1qJVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=e7oDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7087,4739917 During the trial. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=AaETAAAAIBAJ&sjid=sqkDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7148,269632 The huge insurance policy was a requirement of one of the financial institutions to which the brothers were indebted and was the largest in Queensland at the time. Hastings Deering were then, and still are, statewide Caterpillar dealers. On Max's release. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=lgxiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=q-YDAAAAIBAJ&pg=891,9569249 Cheers, Greg
Leroy; had another read here; and I think maybe that "B" was a misprint, should have been a D; letters would then read D9D 19A TCD. standing for Torque Converter Drive. As the alternative D9D 18A was DD for direct drive.
Yair . . . Thanks Queenslander . It sort of puts things into perspective doesn't it. They actually were in hock for one hundred and seventy thousand quid . . . I wonder what a D8 ran to in 1960? Cheers.
Think your on to it Merv. Looked through my stuff and could not find any reference to a "B" either.
Well, some digging into inflation rates and conversions says that would be approximately $2.1 million dollars in todays money. That don't seem like enough to kill for to me. Quite a story though.
Thanks, I appreciate the links, I looked, but evidently didn't know what I was looking for. Guy I worked for in the '80s had a big outfit, (about 75+ Macks, and lots of other equipment),. He was found shot in the back of the head, with the pistol in his hand on the table in front of him. We were in a business slump, but he had been through worse. It was ruled suicide, but those of us who knew him always figured it was somebody in his family, because there was a huge feeding frenzy over his considerable assets.
Sounds like another good reason to not be worth more dead than alive. A lot less to worry about that way.
D6 Merv; I think you have hit the nail on the head, well done and thankyou. Leroy
Not sure what was the cause of the Carter Bros. financial woes, but if they could have hung in just a little longer it may have been a vastly different story. 1962 saw the creation of the Brigalow lands Development Scheme where, eventually, some 11 million acres were pulled. Cheers, Greg