I may have the opportunity to get two old dozers, I am going to find out what the situation is on them to see if they are salvageable. The 9 looks as if it was driven in and parked judging by the material in front of the blade. Am I crazy for wanting to put them to work or should I leave them alone? Everything looks to be there when I looked them over. I attached two photos.
If they had coolant and not water, and you can get things to move you might be OK.
D 9 looks like it has quite good track gear on it, could be a nice find.
No matter which you pick if not both the expenses to get them functional will be GINOURMOUS.
Look up Youtube channel Jpaydirt, he works one of these and has bought 2 more junky ones, you will see the amount of brute labor and large/expensive parts necessary to keep one of these going or get one fixed.
What work will they do once repaired and running? What resources do you have to keep them running? Time? Money? Repair facility? Truck, trailer? Nearby dealer? Tools for this size equipment? Experienced mechanics? Good luck!
They look peaceful where they sit. I wouldn’t disturb them.
Never know how they are if the price is right and a guy could do some preliminary checking on site they could work out the 6 is probably worth more than the 9 unless you have some good pushing to do
I see old dozers like that and think they would go well on dump sites, where all the work is just knocking down truck piles and making level with loose material. You rarely do that for more than a few hours at a time so if it is a little touchy on heating up you might not get there, etc. Old rails and tracks tend to fail you in hard pushes and especially side hill work, but a skilled hand can keep them going on the flats.
It still comes down to the total condition of them. And the cost to haul them out. Don't forget the asking price either. There is one fellow on youtube that seems to get a lot of machines like that for free, just to haul them out to clean up the land. Its the cost of fuel now that really messes up any supposed "Good deal". You may need a minimum of a D8 to move them and to load them, that is if they move freely. Personally I think the value of this old stuff is going to go way down due to changing fuel costs and regulations.
The 9 will have to be partially disassembled, blade and lift arms, oversize even after that requiring specialized crew to haul. Everything of them os obnoxiously large and heavy.
To run big old dozers,it helps to have long arms and short pockets as you’re wallet will need to be handy quite often. They are handy to have for certain jobs where brute force and ingnorance are to be considered beneficial and can move large amounts of muck very quickly. D8’s are fairly handy most of the time and aren’t much more of a handful than D6’s etc. D9’s are a different brute though.I find it a reason to start sweating just to even think about doing abit of maintenance on them
The guy on Youtube has a lifetime of experience operating and maintaining them. Also a very large shop, very large yard and all the specialty tooling that comes from a lifetime of using them. And a very large lowboy and blanket permit to move stuff. Plus he has owned them for a very long time and knows all the idiosyncrasies of his particular machines. Starting out cold you are going to be missing a lot of those advantages.
The guy on youtube, your talking about must be someone different. I think this guy goes by HeavyDSparks, he is also a helicopter pilot as well, and had the TV show some years ago.
I'll echo what has been said by several others. If you want to get some idea about what is required to work on a D9 as far as tooling, knowledge and maintenance, look at some videos on Jpaydirts channel on YouTube. One of the reasons he operates a 9 is his need to push scrapers on occasion and a D8 is not big enough.
I'd like to have that 9.
Dave Sparks is amusing but a little high strung for my taste. Jpaydirt is who I was talking about, he just does honest daily work with his D9 and 637s and 988 and such, and also lots of fixing on them. You can get a real good idea of what is involved in all of it.
You haven't lived if you didn't work for a cheap ___ boss, that had no extra machines to use, nor a heated shop, no service truck, and had to work on old D8's, and 7's using wood, come a longs, chain hoist, jacks, prybar, chains etc. and on top of that working alone no help. It took years for things to improve there. I would have loved to at least have a fork lift then. Yes after a wait an excavator may come back to the yard, but all I would need it for is lifting the hard nose (radiator guard), or occasional engine, loading or unloading from truck things like track assemblys etc. anything else like tracks to reuse or track frames all just by hand. How many here been there done that? Anyone here move a D8 on concrete floor by hand? I don't miss those days at all.
My dad was a field service man for IHC and later Caterpillar. He used to take me along to give my mother a break. The things he accomplished in the middle of nowhere with no power anything were nothing short of amazing. We’re all spoiled by comparison.
I’ve had lots of D8’s over the years and have had to move them along the yard (not allways concreted) with a hand Jack under the grouser sometimes to get them somewhere cleaner after dropping belly plates etc,or taking the dreaded steering clutches out).It was fun……..but I’m done with most of it these days
I’m trying to sell my D8 46A now. I’ll miss running it but not the heavy lifting i’ve done over the years. I’ll get over it but i may look for an old small one to fix up & play with
Its hard to believe how bosses thought about how things are done. I worked for one guy that thought a 1/2 impact was a wast of money. If there was a hard way to do it that how he wanted it done. I have worked for so many that would have me spend hours chasing a penny.
56 Wrench,I built up to around 10 x D8 68A and 66V tractors over the years,and kept 2 very nice late 68A 5800 series for many years.They would do a couple of months every year without fail,but I picked up a D8R at auction,and that made me realise my beloved D8H’s had to go.The D8R was so lovely to drive and gave very little trouble.That was in 2018 and I sold them for pretty big coins as o would never part with them otherwise. I felt mighty strange at seeing them go,but soon forgot about them and never looked back. These days I have a nearly new D8T that potters about and an older D9T that’s great for the bigger grunt
Did you ever work for a small coal mine out in Black Diamond?
No I didn't John.
Sounded like we worked for the same employer at one time.
I dare say we ALL have worked for THAT Family of Cheapskates!!!
I had to go to a Hyd shop i had never been to the other day to get some parts. The owner had a Dozer salvage yard at one time. I got to talking to him and told him i know were there are 2 old cats one has a grader with it. He was interested in them. I hauled scrap from the place that has them and they want to sell them but would like me to buy them to resale. I thought there was 2 a RD6 and a 30 with grader but after going back and asking there is another 40 i havent saw yet. I need to do some figuring and find out if there is any money to be made on my part . The 30 and 40 would be not be hard to move but the RD6 would be .
pictures help
I will but i cant look until Deer season is over.
I wish i would have taken pictures of this place back when i started on it . The farther had passed away and the son moved back to the farm. The family owned alot of land that was all in one spot. The family was all good builders and had a junk yard at every farm to salvage parts to build stuff. I was called to clean up alot of stuff at this farm i was there almost a year hauling and they saved some stuff. One of the other farms when the Dad died they had a auction . I went but only had $150.00 on me thinking i wouldnt get any thing cheap any way. I was a big sell the bigger equipment combines, graintruck , emplements covered about a 3 acre plot. I bought more than half of every thing . They got to something i realy didnt think about buying so i went to get a hotdog and the auctioner was shouting were did Doug go. My bid was relayed back to him and i bought every thing inside a small building. I felt bad about buying stuff cheap but the family was very happy knowing i would clean every thing up .
I forgot to add say this but i had $150.00 on me at that auction and i didnt spend it all my total came to just over $140.00.
Cannot hardly buy lunch at auctions these days for under a 100.
I took some stuff to a consignment auction early this summer. We and i have alot of stuff on this farm and i thought great if i can get rid of some stuff through this auction and get a little something for it but it hasnt been good . A table saw didnt sell they have ran it through several sells they have one every month. I was realy thinking about having a auction but i may be better scraping the metal stuff and hauling the rest to the trash place.
I went to a local auction about 5 years ago where a steel fabricator had gone bankrupt. He had a big factory unit with an open yard area out the back, probably about 100 sq metres. The back yard was where they threw everything that wasn't being used - scrap steel sections, all types of equipment. The auction house declined to even sort it or catalogue it, it was just a jungle! The auctioneer stood at the back door of the factory unit and pointed to the yard area and said, "We're auctioning everything in this yard area, as one lot! You have to clean it all up, and take it all away! Every other bidder was leery of bidding, and the cleanup work involved, you couldn't even see what was there properly, stuff piled on top of heaps of other stuff. I was the winning bidder at $90. I got in there and found a shipping container ramp ($1000), a set of forklift slippers ($300), a big old John Heine punch and shear machine ($500), close on 5 tonnes of very useful steel offcuts - angle iron, pipe, RHS, channel steel, workshop tables, pressed channel chassis extensions - several steel racks - a metre diameter 3 phase exhaust fan, and a host of other useful items that I can't even recall in total. I reckon I got at least $5000 worth of equipment, machines, and steel - and I had it all cleaned up and loaded on my truck, in one afternoon! They had a forklift there that got worked hard, loading everything on!
Sometimes you get great deals at auctions. I bought 6 4" channel and 2 large 8" channel steel saw horses for $7.50 ea. at a pipe fab shop closing. They had plywood on top selling smaller items. It was near the end of the auction but I couldn't believe I was the winning bidder. Of course I took all of them and was pleasantly surprised the 2 big ones were included for the same price.
Don't let a little bit of rust scare you off. These old Cats are becoming a rare breed here in North America. Many are sought after and shipped over to Africa where they are put back to work. This demand has driven the price up for these old machines dramatically. Very rarely can u pull a '70s era D7 or D8 out of the bush for less than $20K today. I think in Canadian dollars, but correct me if I'm wrong. Anyways, to get this thread back on track, yes it's gonna take some resources to get those machines back up and running and doing work. I've done it myself, and I started with nothing... wasn't easy though, but worth it.
Value on those old dozers equates to what percentage of undercarriage is left if the machine runs and moves. If it doesn't run and move on its own, it is worth what it weighs.
I just sold my old low horse 46a for 15k with a weak final drive and a well worn undercarriage. I had about 20 calls on it. I’ll miss it. I’ve had it for almost 40 years. At least its going to a good home. I also sold my old #12 wristbuster. It went to the same place
I'm guessing those were Canadian dollars?
Cannot see investment of excess time and whatever money to earn potential $20k. Many more lucrative arena out there. i would consider for my own uses to possibly save some money but not as a income.
Me too kelly
Me to Kelly
yup. I thought it would be a hard sell but it wasn’t
That day is getting closer. When they get fuel prices higher, and don't allow old machines on job sites then the price will be lower.
$15,000 Canadian is roughly $11,000 US. Scrap value is roughly $6,000 to $9,000 whole and then take out the shipping and prep if needed. I would say the price is already gone out. You won't impress anyone on a government project when you roll in with a forty to fifty year old machine that belches black smoke like a locomotive spooling up to start a train moving.
It's a shame the great old Cats get scrapped - but the bigger they are, the less economic it is to fix up an old tractor - unless you've won Lotto. They really are a money pit. A local young guy started an agricultural deep ripping business here, with a pretty nice old D9H. You can get work for these machines in agricultural areas, but you'll never get on a construction or mining jobsite with something that old. But the old D9H has run a big end bearing, and it has destroyed the crankshaft. No doubt the repair will cost nearly as much as the D9H is worth - so the owner has put it up for sale, hoping someone will buy it. Unfortunately, unless someone just happens to score a good D353 engine for next to nothing, or has one sitting around unused, he will never be able to sell the D9H for anything more than scrap value. https://twitter.com/deepclayripping The construction and mining sites are run by hard-headed engineers and university educated managers, and they get educated that only the latest equipment provides the necessary levels of operator safety, low emissions, and operating efficiency. Most job tenders, they want to know the age of your tractor, the hours it has done, and its overall condition. Plus they want photos of it. They want equipment that looks good in media photos, so their company displays the latest and best in equipment on site.
There is still a reasonably good market here for old Cat dozers for ag work, especially the more popular machines with a long production run like the D8h’s, D8k’s, D7e’s, f’s and g’s, D6c’s and d’s. Ag work around here is mostly landclearing and cleaning up fencelines and windstrips. A lot of farms also use trackhoes with thumbs. They can do a good job but they’re slow compared to a dozer with a good operator. Most of the farms here are fairly large so fuel cost and repairs are no big deal. Its just a tax write-off anyway
Still a old fella here running a Cable 8, dragging a Cable Pan builds ponds, not good for much else. SLOW and gets paid by Job not hours.
These days you can't get away with showing up on a job site with a 40 year old machine. The tendering process doesn't allow it anyways. Not to mention, here in Ontario, Operators are unionized and require heating, air conditioning, GPS blade control, AM/FM Stereo, etc. This alone has rendered the old Cats obsolete. That doesn't mean they are worthless. Where I live, there's a substantial market for old dozers and Owner/Operators for farm work and private landscaping projects. Locally, it doesn't take long for an old Cat to sell here, as long as its in running condition. Can't say the same for old Case dozers, or even John Deere for that matter. Can't give 'em away it seems. Often, I see trailers loaded up with old Cat machines, not just dozers, but excavators and anything else Caterpillar, all headed to the port of Montreal to go overseas. From what I understand, most of this equipment has crossed the border into Canada from the US. Sad to see in my opinion.