Found the D7G Serial number 3FG000058 and states it only has 30 hours on it (US Navy). That said if this is correct what do you think would be the issues with something like this sitting for that many years?
I would think seals and o rings would be issues maybe some hose problems. I would wonder about the clutches sticking as well. If it could be bought right it would be a good machine to de bug and work.
Would love to see pictures. Pictures showing closeups of the tracks, pedals, blade, and other wear points would be cool. 30 hrs. seems un-fathomable even for a Navy machine. I would expect more hours than that just training on it. Maybe a new hour meter with a certified rebuild. Military did rebuild them at times.
I worked at the Portland Oregon CAT dealer in the late 90's, early aughts and they did a handful of factory certified rebuilds on D7's, literally the only things original were the frame, blade, and sheet metal. New updated engine, reman trans, the finals and winches were overhauled, new seats, air cleaners, mufflers, wire harnesses, and the frames even had some factory mods to strengthen them. Most of these machines were under 3,000 hours, but they were old, so they "relifed" them with a new serial number plate and a zero hour meter. It was a nationwide program, ours were all National Guard machines. If you got one of those machines it would be a great runner. Maybe Nige will pop in on the serial number, it should show as a certified rebuild I think with the year it was done.
Are you sure on the serial number? I'm seeing 3FG as a E110 HEX.
3GF comes up as a D7G
If you could overcome the leaks it might develop from seals being that old, it would worth a pile of money in my region. I've seen farmers give over 70k for good 7G regardless of hours. I love working on those things.
That makes more sense. Build date 19th of May 1987. And it's an honest to god military spec machine as well, not a converted civilian one.
My dyslexia is showing again it is 3GF. There is also a 1988 JD 755BH track loader with 202 hours
Some more pics and last is the John Deere
Low hour would be believable on former military equipment. The way it works is each base has base engineering and housing by some official title. 99% of all work done on that base goes through them and is contracted out to civilian companies. So the Seabee or combat engineer gets little opportunity to practice their jobs. So most often they get to sit in the motor pool and check oil levels with about 15 minutes of run time a week. I had friends who were engineers in the Army. That was their big complaint post 1974. They never got to do anything. Sure the grader operators got to go and grade the tank trails in the training area once every few months but other than that civilians did all the work. Navy base isn't going to be much different. Seabees haven't built an airfield or improved a port sense Viet Nam. That's why the Navy cut half of them in the last few years. Things get bad they can not only draft operators who know what they are doing but they can draft guys who own companies who know how to run a project and because of experience just give them a commission or foremen and slap SGT stripes on their collars. Run em through boot camp for 8 weeks and they are ready to go. For those interested: You can draft truck drivers, equipment operators, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, heat/ac/refrigeration, finance and personnel clerks, cooks and mechanics, give them minimal training and have them ready to support our war fighters. On the other hand it takes time to train an infantryman, tank crewman, artilleryman and scout. Basic then another 8 weeks or so before they are ready to join a unit in combat. Takes a couple of years to get any of the fighters up to the level needed to be a low level leader. I'm by no means saying that any of the jobs are easy. It's just there isn't any civilian occupation for the war fighter skills. For the Navy it's the same thing. Sure you have to teach the support people about the ships they will serve on but the officers can't be drafted off the street. The pilots take time too. So again low hour surplus military equipment is very believable. 15 minutes a week translates to 4 hours a year. Add in another 10-15 hours a year max in the field during training and 30 years later you have a less than 500 hours machine. Rick
From my understanding (way too young to know first hand), even during WWII, much of the building of bases and other military infrastructure was done by civilian contractors. All over the Pacific islands US civilian construction crews were building air strips, bunkers, you name it. Same thing with the Alaska highway. Army engineers pioneered a rough trail and then turned it over to civilian crews to build a real road. Being in Cat country, you can seen acres of brand new desert camo painted dozers ready to ship out to Afghanistan and Iraq. The army orders them, Cat builds them, and then the sit in 3rd party storage yards for years waiting to be shipped out. The military never does anything with them until they are deployed to some war zone. When I was in college, several of the guys had gone through the National Guard as equipment mechanics. They said it was really frustrating. They would repack wheel bearings on a monthly basis (or something like that) even if the equipment never moved. They never touched the inside of a motor. If something was the slightest bit wrong, they pulled it out and slapped a new one in. The old one was sent back to the manufacturer to be remaned. One guy was telling me about the complex procedure his base had for replacing the engine one some kind of truck they used. It was a weeks long process involving removing the entire cab. He figured out that there was a access panel somewhere that let the entire engine slip out the back. He said he could do the whole job in a day that way.
Wes J , I can relate to much of what you have said, I was never in the military but one example I know fist hand. Back when the shop at work was going full stream they had a guy come in looking for a job. He was recently discharged from the Army. My boss had me talk to him a little to get an idea of what his skills were and such. A couple things that got me was when I was asking about what engines and machines he had worked on were first he did not have any good idea of what the "civilian" names or models of the engines were only the Army names of the vehicles they were used in. The other thing was, well he did know what a Detroit Diesel was but when asking about what work he had done on one of those he said he had replaced injectors, but adjusting them was something he had to get someone with a higher grade to have that done! This is not something new as I can recall a story from my uncle from WWII. I believe he was just a foot soldier not in the motor pool or anything. Well at one point he was in a convoy going through a mountainous area of Europe. The trucks started running very bad loosing power and skipping. None of the "experts" knew what the problem was, uncle then says he opened the hood on one of the trucks and turned the mixture screw on the carb a little and it smooth right out. Everyone looked surprised, he told them the air gets thinner at high altitudes so the mixture gets to be too rich!
Well drove over and had a look at everything. The county gets the equipment from DRMO and has to keep it for on year, after that they can sell it. They have Humvee's, heavy trucks and forklifts, also a D10 or 9, did not look that close and another D7 it appears which is not in this auction. Does look like some of the chrome is off a couple cylinders but that's about it
More pics
Here is two pieces which are not yet up for auction, the D7 and D9 I think
Before this post they might have went for a steal. Now that's is viral...
D7g's were selling for well over 100k last year at Ritchie's auction in Florida for the same dozzer with similar hours.
Here's a comparable machine that auctioned recently... https://www.govdeals.com/index.cfm?fa=Main.Item&itemid=57&acctid=1089 another one... http://www.govplanet.com/for-sale/C...=0.02222&hitprm=c=1,pstart=40,sm=1&pnLink=yes
Repacking of bearings would have been a Q service thing, once every quarter of the year regardless if the vehicle moved or not it had to go through Q services. When money was tight we got one 30 day gunnery and maneuver exercise once every 6 months with our tanks. One gunnery was a full one with crews having to qualify the other was abbreviated to help sustain our "skills". We would spend 2 weeks shooting (worked out to about 6 full range days per tank) then no more than 14 day maneuvering. The rest of the year during the peace time army we spent sitting on our backsides. At that time each soldier was authorized 50 rounds a year to practice shoot their weapon (M16, M1911A1 and then the M9) and qualify. That's it, 50 rounds total. Engineers had no money to train with either and no work to do so the equipment sat in the motor pool. Maintenance had different levels: 1st was crew. Crew level checks and services and simple repairs like replacing a fender of missing hardware. 2nd was company level which was simple stuff like changing minor components like a starter and trouble shooting. 3rd was battalion level which was just a tad higher than company. They replaced larger components. 4th was support level. They could swap engines but did no internal engine work. The came depot level. They did complete combat vehicle and truck rebuilds plus rebuilt engines with the exception being some construction equipment when was sent out on contract. The only soldiers who worked there were clerks who ordered parts and kept records, a few NCO's as supervisors to the clerks, The NCOIC and officer in command. So the common mechanic never did anything that would qualify them as more than a mechanic's helper. That's not saying they can't be good mechanics just that the army never let them do too much. During WWII at the start of the war before the navy formed the Seabees they tried hiring civilian contractors. If the area they were working on came under attack they had a pretty poor track record in defending themselves. Once they had enough Seabees they did not use civilian contractors where the threat level was high. The big reason they formed the Seabees was to give them enough military training so that they could defend themselves in the event of a counter attack that threaten they area they were working in. The army combat engineers were on the front lines and often erected bridges under intense enemy fire. Part of their duty statement is limited infantry operations. Plus an enlisted man was cheaper than a civilian laborer. As far as leaders were concerned many were approached and offered NCO stripes or commissions based on their level of experience. The guy who commanded the now famous "Red Ball Express" had run a trucking company prior to the war. IIRC he received a direct commission as a Col. Equipment operators were often offered rank on enlistment based on what they were qualified to operate. Guys that could operate more than one type of equipment were often enlisted a E4s or E5s. Foremen were often offered E6. Both the army and navy did this because they needed men and most of these guys took big pay cuts to serve. The Alaskan highway was opened up by the army engineers. Once the road was open they brought in civilian contractors to improve it and to build permanent bridges. There are some good videos on youtube about it. As far as building air bases and port facilities again not really. The Seabees in the Pacific and the army engineers in the South Pacific either repaired captured Japanese bases and port facilities right behind the front lines often under fire and once the areas was secured and they were needed for the next island the civilians took over and finished up by generally expanding what the Seabees and combat engineers stated. Strength levels on 7 Dec 1941 of the Army was pretty darn small. They had only just before Pearl Harbor been authorized to go to about 400,000 men. By the time Japan surrendered about 16 million Americans were in uniform. The Army made up about 8.2 million of that with 7.6 million serving overseas at wars end. The Navy was about 4 million, Marines were about 700,000. The rest were Coast Guard and merchant marine. I'm an armature historian and US Army retired, Armor. I served on M60A1's a3's, M1IP's and A1's. 4 year stent as a tactics instructor at Ft Knox teaching armor tactics to newly commissioned officers. Rick
oldtanker.. Thank you for your good service. without good men like you we would be speaking another language.
I agree they will probably sell for more then I'm willing to pay, but will have a try anyway. The other machines will be sell in March. Going to go to my local county folks and let them know how this county is making the extra money. See if they can get them for free and then sell a year later
I don't think the county can sell them themselves. It is my understanding that when they are done with them, they go back to the U.S.A. General Accounting(Feds) office of surplus equipment to get liquidated. At least thats the way it works with all the military trucks that have been converted to water tankers around here that were given to the fire departments. There is a yard near here where they store them to auction them occasionally.
The D7G certainly looks to be a low hour machine looking at the pictures of the brake peddles & undercarriage . Be interesting what sells for ? The tax payers flipped the bill on it .
I would get the serial numbers and try to find out if the parts are still available from a regular dealer. I have very little experience with military equipment. But for what it's worth, I remember a mechanic telling me once that the surplus military D7Fs were a different serial number prefix, and some of the parts did not interchange even though they looked identical. Slight differences of hundredths of an inch in machining, but not close enough to fit.
Ser no. prefixes are different on mil. & civ. machines of the same type. Here's a cross reference someone posted a while back that will make it easier to find parts.
In Peoria last spring on tour at Cat we seen many military D7s in the assembly building, right along with civilian models being built. The question was asked about parts interchangeable and how the military machines were different. The reply was that they do have different serial number sequence and some special military add ons on them but the basic machine Is the same. They did have less polution crap on them.
Good to know. As long as the serial numbers match up to the Cat literature D6C10K provided, they should be all good.
Less pollution crap on the US military machines? I guess when you're the gov't. you don't have to follow your own rules
maybe somebody up their finally thought for once and figured out that in order to with the battle your equipment has to run and not be down regen ing
I don't see an issue with support from CAT on the machines. As before probably won't get them but they are being sold to highest bidder at auction. No take-back-cies
More than likely an exemption for military hardware due to unknown fuel quality availability in the parts of the world they may get sent to. Let's hope we don't have to fight on our own soil, especially another civil war yeah?
Reminds me of a 60kw military genset we have with toggle switch under a red cover marked-BATTLE SHORT-, It disables all built in shutdown systems, Run till it blows!
I'm not particularly religious, but Amen to that Lantraxco!
Thing is when they upgrade all equipment goes regardless of hours to keep the parts system flowing smoothly. The option is to try to sell it at value or follow the law and at public auction. Cheaper than storing it for years and years. They, the brass have known that for years. They have to get exemptions from the agency or congress. That may take some doing. Rick