This turned up this week. It is an upgrade from our D4D. Has air cab that works, it is a PC engine. Has obviously done quite a bit of work. The blade linkages all need work as there is a fair bit of slop. Undercarriage is in quite good order. I would say the SALT links are 70%. Grousers 90%+ and the bottom roller the same. Rippers could do with a line bore but will suffice for the time being. Strange thing is it has a modern S/N plate attached New radiator and 90% of the hoses are new. One F/D has had work by the gasket goo around the case and the transmission has a new coat of paint on it so it has been out at some point. Seems to run quite fine. Changes gear nicely. Put a magnet on a stick in the F/D compartments and not even any big chunks of gear teeth, not even any grey fuzz. No major oil leaks. Just a few weeps. One lift ram needs resealing, although sadly the chrome is in excellent condition except for one tiny spot. Even came with a dent on the muffler. Some of the glass screens have been replaced with perspex which I know will not last long due to scratches, it will soon not be visible to look through. All in all it seems a decent machine for something ~40 years old and been used. I would have liked something newer quite new was well out of the budget and something from the 2000 period would be full of electronics on their way out. I am of the opinion the D6D would probably be one of the most common older models with the best parts availability, given they were still making a variant of it until just a few years ago.
Nice find RC. Iam certain that you won’t have trouble sourcing parts and that is the biggest advantage this tractor will have over the 14C you were considering. Have you used Partstore before? It can be very interesting poking around there checking prices and availability.
No, I have not used any cat online store. Years ago I went to open an account to get access to online parts and they wanted to know everything about me down to what machines I owned and how much money was owing on them. So I never went ahead with it. I am chasing a stickrake for this machine now. They are not exactly cheap these days. I do have most of the track frame guards, all the guards are stripped off it at the moment as it has been getting a bath.
I’ll keep an eye out for you. What width are you thinking..18ft maybe?
We have repaired badly scored and damaged chrome with JB weld with excellent results.
Not sure about stickrake width. around 16 ft minimum maybe up to 18 foot depending on weight. Looking at a korean made one that is imported at the moment. Do not want one too heavy as it puts too much weight on the front idlers. Be interesting to see how the JB weld would stand up. The rams are not scored, just a bit of flaking right at the end of travel.
Yes it is quite interesting, especially the prices. It is also interesting the lack of simple cheap maintenance that is not done. The hydraulic control linkages on this machine have a lot of slop. In fact I am not sure how people used it successfully with so much slop. So I look for replacement linkages and they are AU$18 each, so I ordered them. Only need a few. But on the other side the transmission control is nice and tight. There is in fact minimal wear on the transmission control aluminium U slot for the hours it appears to have done. I was looking at one D6D and it did not have a clean U, but was closer to a V shape. I also had a sticky at prices for parts for more modern machines, thinking they would be cheaper due to better design. Would not like a catastrophic failure to happen to a D6N final drive as a D6M or D6N size machine would be one I would have gone for had I had more $ to spend. They look to be just as pricey to repair, although they probably should last twice as long as planetary gears seem to go and go and go if well designed (unlike the ones on the mitsubishi MG400 grader).
Here is a root rake that we made for our D6C a few years ago. I know that down under you tend to make them much wider than us, so perhaps this idea is out.
Yea metalman, those sort that I see in use in the US are not real useful for what we do here. Decided to order one of the Korean made ones that are sold by a mob in Brisbane, saved a few $ by ordering one without a tree spear. It should fit pretty much straight onto this 6S blade. Has wings which will make it easier for transportation on a truck. It is not a Gessner or Homan but should do.
I think I know the mob you’re talking about. I don’t like the look of the pushers either but the rakes look impressive. Are you a fan of a cutterbar in your rake?
I will probably weld in a suckerbar. Have not used a rake without one, but I have not used many different styles of rake either. Have given the dozer a good run yesterday. Seems to run fine. Transmission has a clunk when changing direction when the machine is still slightly moving. No noise when at idle and machine stopped and putting it into gear. No clunk when changing speeds. It has been a long time since I ran a bigger powershift machine so I expect different noises then our nice quiet tiny D4D has. I expect the enclosed cab is quite good at amplifying sounds, since it sits on top of the transmission and has no sound deadening or insulating materials. Saw a video on youtube and the D6D there made pretty much the same noises at 48 seconds
Hate to see guys using the brake pedals as a foot rest.
I am not sure why they would, it would be an awkward position to hold your leg, and there is a perfectly good footrest on the floor.
The D 6D I had with the hyd linkages I drilled and tapped threads in the bell cranks and fitted grease nipples in them, a shot of grease every now and then made them a lot easier to use.
Yea, I found only one fitting is greasable, the one in the engine housing. Have given it a good workout, it has one peculiarity. Steering to the left is fine and normal. Pulling the steering lever to the right, the clutch works as it should, the brake section on pulling the hand lever is a bit lazy, especially when cold, and it improves when warm. When cold the lever pulls right to the end of travel and it thinks about turning, then locks up the track after a couple of seconds. I have checked the brake adjustment and is it as it should be. But the footbrake is fine for both sides. Pulling the clutch and use the footbrake is the same for both sides. It is just one side with the hand applied brake. I do not have my service manual yet to see what it says, it is somewhere between Oregon and me here.
I welded a tongue out of each brake pedal so that you could push both pedals together with one foot was much easier specially when working on down hill slopes as u were using both brakes instead of just one all the time.
who uses brake to stop dozer what is the blade for, very little wear there always have hand on lever and replaceable edge with out pulling tank and steering top.
i do. in steep hills you need everything, sometimes all at once, especially when doing brush work
Serial number check shows your machine to be a 1977 model. The tag says duplicate and the position of the rivets is kind of odd. Looks like a decent mule for the farm.
A crappy 2 minute whiney video . I suspect it is normal for an older machine with an enclosed cab to reverberate every vibration. I think down the track I will attempt to add some sound proofing to the cab.
have an 84 model d with a direct injection motor. I replaced that precleaner with a TurboII, which does not have a glass or plastic outside bowl to break. my brakes act like yours too, have never figured out why they are so grabby sometimes. really love this old tractor, it had a really tough life before I got it but is in pretty good shape now.
Yes I have seen those precleaners used before. May get one down the track a bit maybe. Now I remember why I bought an air cab. Two hours of that was enough.
Depends what you are doing , sometimes its not practical to use the blade to stop the machine. Thats why they put brakes on them.
To true, in steep country you everything at times.
So the next question in this seemingly unending saga, is how hard is it to remove the track frame with the blade still attached? The story is the front idler had about an inch of vertical travel in it. Feeling with my finger found the retaining strips on the two inner collars were gone. I broke the track and removed the idler and the wear into the track frame needs welding up and two new triangular strips welding in. It would be far easier to do this welding in the flat horizontal position which means removing the track frame. I have the lifting gear to remove it just the blade is still attached as I was not planning on removing the track frame. Of course I could just put in some weld there as is and do a proper fix of both sides down the track as sure as eggs the other side will be worn just as much.
Blade will have to come off to pull the track frame. Are you saying the rails that the horse collars ride against are gone? What I have done in the way back past on D8s was to push down on the blade and raise the track track frame up and then stick come blocking under the rollers so it stays up in the air and you can work on it safely.
While I'm thinking about it, is the plate with the bumps that the springs ride on still in place? I've seen those plates go missing and watched the idlers jump up and down just traveling over flat ground.
The rails are still there, just worn. I have got the welder out and the wear looks worse then what it is. A single bead nearly bought it back to original height. And that was welding vertical. The springs and plate is stell there. I have ordered new springs though, as they are cheap and one side of the yoke has no spring left in it,( it is touching the retaining plate).
Used the plasma cutter (45 amp one) with gouging tips to gouge off the old retainers. I ended up removing the yoke as well. As expected, one 3/8 bolt snapped off. Should not be too hard to extract it now it is easy to get to. Makes me wonder if I should put new seals in the track adjuster since I have it apart this much. I ordered new retaining strips from Cat, but their freight times have gone to crap. They are telling me six days to move these parts 600km from the warehouse to the local dealer. I remember when a lot of stuff was overnight.
The new strips turned up and I have welded them in. They came with a wide strip of hardfacing on the bottom. I have machined up the collar so it is flat on the bottom, did a test install and worked out what size wear strip to weld onto them. All there is left to do now is put it back together. I also found out the previous people who pulled the idlers off last time had a bet each way whether to put them in the high or low position. As this was was inthe low position and the one on the other side is the high position. So I have break the track, pull the other idler off and spin it around. Not happy Jan. Air con got regassed on the weekend. Gets down to 7C now.
to each his own have worked very steep ground and in strip mine d8k and d9h i have 5h 5b 6c and 6d and 7g still have paint on petels perfer the blade brakes for lowboy. lot smoother with blade, hate the jerts.
I I agree 100% ,was taught that years ago.In my opinion resting your foot on the brake pedal is a bad habit,but it’s not my machine
Got the other idler off. The bolts had been snapped off on the other side, hence why they put it in the high position rather then get the bolts out. I ended up having to mill the bolts out. Got the tracks back on OK. This dingo sure has a million uses.
Just be sure to keep it away from your baby!
Stickrake has arrived. I am happy with the quality of the build, it is not as good as a Homan or Gessner (it also did not have their price tag) but for what I am going to be doing it will be adequate. It was not designed for this blade but it is going to fit it very well. Been doing other stuff. Replaced the ball joints to reduce the sideways movement of the blade. Have got covers for the track frames. I have borrowed a gauge to pressure test the steering system.
Stick rake is connected to the blade and seems to work quite well. Is rather heavy so I try to keep it on the ground as much as possible. Gave it a test run this afternoon, and now I have broken the connector that joins the push arm to the blade trunnion. It is apparent this is not the first time it has broken there. Some person who had ten seconds experience in welding tried to weld it back together some time back. I have fully replaced the ball joints in the centre of the blade to remove some of the sideways slop.
Looks to be well built. I guess it’s better to have it a little on the heavy side rather than too light. Best part is raking with a cab. I still can’t get used to being allowed in the house after a days raking. In days gone by I was usually forced to have a bath on the lawn under a garden hose.
reminds me of re-piling burned piles and all the dust and ashes
Talking about dust... I just picked this compressor up yesterday to blow gear down with. They are used machines, this one has done 2000hrs, refurbished from Japan, and look brand new. It replaces an old VW unit that we’ve had for years... the ones that run on two cylinders and blow on the other two.
Good looking unit there Queenslander! What is the rated out put in cfm?
It is 75cfm, which is probably about the minimum for this application, but I wanted to be able to carry it on a ute and not have to drag another trailer around.
Pretty nice looking compressor, Queenslander
The compressor looks a handy unit. A decent sized one is something I will consider down the track. I have a 40CFM one here that I currently use.
I have finally got around to testing the pressure on the steering brake comtrol unit. The side that the brake is sluggish reads a lot lot lower pressure at the same pullout of the lever as the other side. Until you get to the near end of the travel, then the pressure jumps up quickly to full. I would say the problem lies in the steering control unit. Maybe a broken spring or just plain worn out valve spool($$$$) However interestingly at idle the pressure is higher sooner then at half or full revs. I should be able to remove the spools from the rear without having to remove anything else. I have discovered new ways my elbow bends getting the pressure gauge hose onto the test ports.
nice shop and nice tractor many happy hours
Steering spools and out and been pulled apart. The cam that operates the spools is apparently very very worn so the spools were not moving when they were supposed to. The person doing the work has not seen one so worn, although on later models the cam had a roller bearing on it, this is metal on metal. Worst part is the new parts are ex-USA, so probably weeks away in this day and age.
All back together. Parts from US took a week and a half to get here So not too bad. It now turns just how it should. So I am back to filling the pre-cleaner with dust.
Been doing a bit of vegetation management.
No it is not mine, but am glad it isn't.
should stop before gets that far, bet that made a noise, i lost one in core of pond one time, rocks was wide enought for tracks but push arms was to wide ,had to take track apart in mud drag it to top of hill then go drag dozer to top on flat and put back on ,made for bad day you dont forget thoes days.
I can relate. As a 14 year old kid I was pushing a manure pile up, cleaning a very sloppy feedlot for a neighbor with our new to us D2. I learned that day that someone had the tracks off previously and substituted a bolt for the track master pin. It came out and I walked that D2 right off the end of the nicely laid out track. Under six Inches of sloppy crap. Fortunately my uncle was only a few miles away with his Euclid loader. He came and drug me and the track out if the manure. I had to hook it and the track up. It still wasn't pretty but at least the tracks dried up mostly in the couple days it took to get a track pin.
The undercarriage on that dozer is well used, add a snapped recoil spring and an ordinary operator and it is a recipe for the track to come off. I was told they got it back together pretty easily. I have had a track come off our D4D a couple of times. Once the pins and bushes were replaced it never happened again.
Found a major problem with air cabs. You can do more work in dusty conditions leading to air filters filling up with dirt far quicker then expected (as expected on such an old machine it has nothing to tell you when there is a filter restriction). The plastic precleaners seem to be about 1920's technology in dusty conditions. Have ordered a Turbo II pre cleaner. How many times can you clean the outer element? Do not really want to put dust onto the inner.
Here you go, RC We have similar dusty conditions to you. We blow them out pretty regularly and hold them up to the sun or using a light to keep an eye out for the paper splitting on the folds. If you are getting dust on the inner its time to change. Probably replace outers at around 500 hours or less on average. It helps to have a spare outer element so you can blow it out at the workshop and swop as necessary. Water temp guage usually lets you know if the filter is blocked.
Glum, when I started reading where you said to have a spare air filter I had a flash back to an image I saw at a filter seminar years ago. Believe it was of a D8 or some such dozer and the operator carried a "spare" air filter. And to have it cleaned out for future use he had it slipped over the exhaust pipe to blow out the dirt!
Have done my bit to boost the US economy. Next up is a new fuel pump. At full revs it runs in the idle pressure range. The line is clear and the primary screen is clean but it was atrocious. Fuel pump must be worn out from the crap fuel they put through it
Have mounted my grass seeder on it now.
Very tidy affair there. Both the Brush rake and the seeder set up.
What powers the seeder? 12Volt wiper motor?
It is a bit bigger then that. The motor is that black thing atop the blue gearbox in the middle of the seeder I cannot recall what size the 12V motor is 500W or maybe even 750W I think.
That looks like a SEABROOK seeder, how is it performing? Mine has been faultless, lived outside for two years (being used) and the seed bins never got wet through some pretty bad storms.
Yes it is a Seabrook one. Has been really great. They are not cheap though. To try to fix the low fuel pressure, I replaced the transfer pump. It boosted pressure a bit, but it is still low. I did test the gauge earlier on, but I suspect a faulty gauge. It has developed some quirks since I have started working in hills. On very odd occasions reverse will not engage. Going from forward to reverse at low revs and nothing although the track does give a slight jump, 1st, 2nd and 3rd all the same. It sounds like the transmission is spinning but no movement. But if you go neutral to reverse again it then goes in. Linkages are my first point of call, although I suspect something else. It only does it when the transmission oil is hot. It runs at just a bit over halfway through the green. It also runs hot although I have narrowed this down to air is hitting the blade/rake and coming back onto the motor and getting recycled through the radiator. When dust is kicked up you can see the direction it is going in.
Slowly cleaning up a paddock. I am not the bravest operator out there. I do not really want to get stuck in a gully and have to pull the rake off to get out, or worse break something. So the steeper areas might have to get a chain or something run over them. It is slow going. Cannot push uphill.
Whereabouts are you RC, looks coastal? I'll take a stab, around Sunshine Coast or Townsville area. You've covered some country.
In central Queensland.
Prime country for a gravity roller , steeper the better . Very easy on the dozer sitting on a ridge or cut sideling track dropping a roller faster than a man can run through trees . Wild pigs and deer leave the "building" rather quick , goats don't though , they see it as a free meal ticket .
Around the Carnarvon? It looked like ranges, hence the coastal guess. I was only a 1000ks out. ;-)
Been slowly making myself a thinning bar so I can kill more vegetation quicker. The main bars are 5 pieces of 80lb railway iron 2.5m long, welded as per the photo and filled with concrete. About 20kg of 8018 4mm welding rods later. I then initially used large chain links and some D shackles to connect the three pieces together, then on my first trial run, I only had to pull it a very short distance to see my design was a complete failure. So I decided to fabricate a hinged design, not sure what size steel would be required I used what I had on hand and welded some 16 and 25mm steel together and drilled a 50mm hole through it. Some 36mm bolts with a sleeve in the middle and some fabricated washers out of 16mm plate to see how it would go. It all looked promising. However in use it had a tendency to flip up onto it's edge. So Mk3 model came along and I changed the chain connection to some 60lb railway line 500mm long welded perpendicular to the bar to in effect lengthen the bar making it harder to flip itself over. The ability to bend lets it follow the contour of the land so much better.
Nice. When I was reading I was thinking it was going to be pretty hard on the grass and scalp everything, but looks to work good by the photos. I've been spending a lot of time swinging a tordon axe recently so it looks very appealing.
We had a tordon gang in here earlier in the year. Except they use brushcutters with electric knapsacks and only the axe on the bigger trees. We had quite the chemical brew going. A mix of generic Grazon (triclopyr and picloram), Stinger (metsulfuron and aminopyralid) and Lontrel (clopyralid) with some blue dye.
This is another weapon I have for the never ending battle against trees. Over the years, I’ve chopped, sawn, pushed, pulled, raked, burned, sprayed and ploughed them..now I can just shoot ‘em. Skattergun, for broadcasting Graslan/Regain pellets.
Why the alchemy, what were you trying to kill? That would have to work out dearer than generic tordon or velpar? I use mainly tordon because I have a lot of nice straight narrowleaf ironbark I want to leave and the velpar can be a bit aggressive if there are a lot of trees done around one you want to leave. Around here there are certain species that tordon won't kill and you have to use velpar, gumtop box being one. Curious what your brew was for. Edit- I do add a bit of granular metsulfuron to the tordon mix so maybe yours might simply be cheaper. Interested to find out.
We were doing wattles and eucalypts. The Lontrel was for the wattles. Easier to do it as they al go along rather then have to go back with different chemical and go over the same ground. With the cost of labour so high and I have seen more failed tordon jobs then successful ones I had no worries about paying for extra chemical if it stays clean for 40 years or more, rather then ten to twenty. A neighbour spent $100/acre on wattle five years ago and as he just used generic grazon pretty much blew his money as it is now just as thick as before he started. I am told there used to be a tordon product called Tordon 105. It was Picloram and 2,4,5,T. It was extremelt effective, then when they replaced the 2,4,5,T with Triclopyr it was well neutered.
Pictures from today.
Looks good, simple but effective. Seems to be hooking a lot more out of the ground than a heavy chain would.
I trust that you are celebrating national tree day today RC?….and don’t forget about national wattle day on September 1st.
Speaking of wattle, I've got a new block of dirt with a species of wattle that I haven't come across before, it's called dogwood wattle. I've stem injected a fair bit over the past few months with velpar, however I met one of my neighbours for the first time on Saturday and he mentioned that he's tried velpar and it didn't work real good for him. In my experience if velpar won't kill something then tordon won't either. Would you mind sharing your recipe RC, I'm not admitting defeat yet, but I might need it. Or if either you or Queenslander have any experience with dogwood wattle, I'm all ears.
I did my bit today for National Tree Day. I also found a cliff edge. I thought I had steered clear of the steep bits. The photo does not do the steepness justice. It slid down down the last bit. As for dogwood. If it is the prickly stuff we have that we call dogwood it is properly called corkwood wattle https://www.ttit.id.au/treepages/corkwoodwattle.htm . Probably one of the hardest variety to kill. It is easy to kill the main stem, but it just suckers back. It seems to mostly have a limited life or 20 to 30 years before borers get in it and kill it. I class it more of a nuisance than a pest. We have never had a lot of success trying to kill it, and was one of the main reason I tried a clopyralid chemical like Lontrel this time around which is specially for wattles and supposed to have little effect on eucalypts. With Metsulfuron and Aminopyralid as well. So far what I got done looks good, but the real test will be what it looks like next year. Interesting wattle is apparently a huge pest over in Africa. Glad we could share the wattle love with the rest of the world.
You all have the Acacia Wattle there, we have a specie similar but MUCH Larger here similar to the Sunshine Wattle called Honey Locust. All locust specie here are similar in that can kill or remove the main tree or saplings but root stock will eventually sucker sprout dozens off that same dead and removed sapling. We use a mix of 2-4-D, Crossbow and Tordon mixed at equal one pint amounts to a gallon and spray the ENTIRE leafy structure that will kill the roots structure, commercially is called poor man's Grazon. Honey Locust develop Spine Thorn appendages from Stump to Crown and can survive nearly every insect pest known for decades sprouting feeder root suckers to extend their domain. These are actually Black Locust and not nearly as bad as the Honey Locust. This is a typical Honey Locust
Black locust are a pain in the butt to deal with too. We cleared an old hedge row of them 6 years ago for a pivot to pass through. We dug up stumps, removed whatever root mass we could pull and dig out, and chisel plow and remove any roots we pull up every spring. It gets planted, and then maintainenance sprays throughout the growing season and we still have 50+ new suckers in with the crops by harvest. You just can't kill it. I have a customer dealing with a black locust invasion in her backyard. The old tree is gone, but the suckers pop up everywhere and by the hundreds. The main stump is gone, and I have her spraying a brush killer on any new ones and letting them die before hacking them off.
At least with Black Locust can get some NON-spiked logs that are somewhat rot and insect resistant for fence post, 6-10" diameter can be useful, Honey Locust begins to rot as soon as cut or pushed down.
There are close to 1000 acacia or wattle varieties spread across the entire country. All but a handful have yellow flowers, including the Golden Wattle, the floral emblem of Aus., hence the reason for National Wattle Day. Thankfully, there are only a couple that have thorns, but nothing like your Honey locust. We have had good results with the pellets on the Western Silver Wattle here. Been dead for four years now and still not shooting, so time will tell. Not so good on the Northern Black? though.
Well I spoke with a couple more locals today and was told that a double dose of velpar will kill dogwood/corkwood wattle (yeah you're right RC it is the stuff with the thorns), this wasn't going to work for me as I want to be selective in what I kill, (this also rules out any pellets Queenslander). So I checked out RC's, Cropyralid, I found out that it is recommended to kill acacia at a dilution rate of 1-9 by stem injection. So I bought a drum and spent today chopping. I'll let you know if it works, along with the velpar at regular rates, I've already done, in 12 mths or so time.
When I was 12 or 13 dad put me to work cutting all the locust trees on the property for post was getting 5 bucks a piece made enough for a kid to have money.
I take it you got Lontrel Advanced? As it is double strength 600g/litre of the active ingredient compared to the generic ones which are 300g/litre and you would have to mix them at 4.5 to 1. Of course when I had this tordon gang here I started with some generic clopyralid at 300g/litre, which they used up and needed more. I could not get more generic and had to get the Dow version of Lontrel Advanced, and I told the tordoners it was twice as strong, so use half as much. So you can pretty much guess what they did, and it was not listen to me.
No just the generic, but I saw that it was half the active ingredient of your stuff, so I just mixed it at the tordon rate of 1-4, a little bit stronger than recommended, but I can live with that. I also threw in a bit of metsulfuron as well. Did you have any big stuff? My borers must have smaller teeth than yous, I have some of this stuff 18 inches or more through the trunk, average would be 6-8. Big strong healthy trees. Yeah I'm with you re the tordon gangs, I worked off farm until start of last year and couldn't keep up with the trees. Got a gang in, pretty ordinary kill, got a different gang in the following year to finish off the paddock, kill rate wasn't much better. There won't be a third time.
Some happy snaps. Spot the dingo. It is chasing a baby.
The things you see when you haven’t got a gun. That bar is certainly doing the job on those bushes.
We generally do not molest the dingoes around here until they start becoming a problem. We feel they do more good then harm most of the time. I am far more concerned about wild pig and the undesirables they bring around, like weed pests and pig hunters. I am wondering how this product might work. https://animalcontrol.com.au/products/hoggone The bar is doing a great job. I should have taken a patent out on the hinge design as it is about to be copied by a neighbour.
.R.C., you and I follow about the same path with wildlife. We have Coyotes around here and it's open season on them year round as they can be a nuisance at times being hard on chickens and small game. They are numerous in the fields surrounding my shop and easy prey for target practice, but they don't bother me at all so let them be. I did get one last year that was after my "mouser" with a .410 Winchester, but that was a one off scenario as I seen him and had time to grab the shotgun.
I still prefer a .243 for the Yotes here, Faster, better accuracy and not much muzzle rise for a second if needed!!
Time to change the final drive oils. The side that has been redone. Nice and clean just some grey fuzz on the magnetic plug. The other side, a bit more. A flake off a gear and a small piece off the tip of a gear (probably the first pinion), and some silver flakes. All part of the hard facing on the gears. Feeling the bull gear with my finger in the hole, it feels good on the side I know has been done, and the side with the metal, you can feel the wear on the bull gear, more on the tooth side that is not taking any forece when driving forward, meaning the gear had been turned. I will refill with oil and just keep an eye on it. If some NOS gears come up somewhere cheaply, I will pick them up if possible as they will be needed sometime down the track.
In your service may end up outlasting your use!!
Have done around 60 hours and thought I would check the plug. Could either be fresh material, or pieces that have fallen onto the plug since the oil change, or a mixture of both. I might do another 50 hours and see what it looks like after that, then decide how quickly the gears and bearings need to be replaced. I am thinking when the time comes Italian final drives gears might be adequate for my usage over genuine Cat ones.
Not looking very good, any noises, any thumps or bumps during use?
There are no abnormal noises that I can hear. Although it is hard to hear anything over the general noise of the machine.
Those pics above of where I ran the bar over the lantana. This is what it looks like today.
Nice, looks like you got under the rain as well. We had a bit over 13 inches for November, over in the Nth Burnett area. I hope it is stopped for a week or so, hoping to start branding next week.
Yes had the best spring/early summer start for many many years. I hope the dry period of the last ten years is over with and we get ten years of good conditions. We ended up with nearly ten inches for November including a fall of 78mm late on the 30th that actually went onto the 1st December total as it fell after 9am on the 30th. Our falls were not in big dumps but spread out really well. Only the last day we had a heavy fall that got the creeks running. I will have to get into the cattle work soon as well, although they are predicting unsettled weather for the entire foreseeable future.
16 inches for the month here. Probably a record for November, well over half our yearly average, although short of record flood levels. Getting plenty of practice pulling up creek crossings…no one’s complaining though.
Yeah, we're like rc, no big heavy falls just good steady rain. Biggest fall was only 65mm (260pts), mum checked back through her records, biggest single fall since 2013 floods. Not all dams are full yet, couple of weeks of dry to give the grass a hit and get the branding done and bring it back in for Christmas.
Well I have been back into driving it again however it has an intermittent transmission issue. It has always had it but seems to be getting less intermittent. The symptoms are when the transmission oil is over halfway into the green and I am say in second gear heading down a gradient at half revs, when I finish going forward and go to reverse, put it into reverse, what speed does not matter, it does not make the usual little squeal as the direction clutch engages, instead the transmission when given slight revs makes a noise like the gears are rotating but there is either no movement, or a very weak movement. Putting it back to neutral and then into gear usually fixes it (changing speeds does nothing), but the hotter the oil the more it happens and then sometimes it will happen going reverse to forward but not as common. It is nearly like the directional clutch fails to engage properly. When the oil is cool it changes gear snappily, however it has always been slower engaging reverse then forward by a fraction of a second. Forward direction it nearly clunks in. Reverse when cool oil it takes that fraction longer because you can hear the clutch engage, and the hotter the oil the longer it takes. There has been no metal or debris on the magnet/filters at all.
That sounds as Clutch Pack seals are dying. Hours on machine? Hours on current trans oil? Seals condition will not necessarily show as particulates in the oil just sluggish shift and will eventually stop engaging altogether, often at a least opportune point in time.
I was hoping it was more a valve or pump problem, or someone might say. Oh yes it is most likely such and such other then clutch seals. But I guess these machines are now that old, the people who used to work on them are all very old and suffering from senility in a nursing home. I guess a pressure test is the first order of call.
Have you looked into the possibility of an air leak on the pump suction side.? What grade of oil are you using in it.?
It is Cat TDTO 30 oil. I did think of an air leak, but it mostly affects the reverse directional clutch, and the steering/brakes are not affected. But when the clutch decides to go in. It makes the normal noise. I see the book says the directional clutches are supposed to be from memory 55psi below speed clutch pressure.
In that case get gauges on P1 & P2 and run them to the somewhere where you can see them. Observe the behaviour of the pressures when the problem occurs.
I have not got gauges yet to do any tests, but am leaning to a valve problem of some sort. Running it today it only happened once. But doing some playing around putting it into gear at idle and you can feel a definite two stages of it engaging the directional clutch. Putting it into gear it happens quickly but you can see the tracks take an ever so slight movement in the direction you have engaged, then very soon after it makes the jolt as the clutch fully engages and it stalls the torque converter. So it is like the directional clutch gets slightly engaged initially, then fully engages. It is the second fully engage that never happens when it plays up. When it is playing up, changing speeds does nothing other then change speed clutches. You have to go to neutral first, then choose a direction to fix it when it plays up. I will probably make sure the direction spool valves are correctly adjusted first with the detent. Just I prefer driving it to fixing it and now the air con is low on gas again. As us mere mortals who are not licenced can not buy R134A in Australia because it kills baby pandas if you put it in an air con system, buy bizarrely buying it in a freeze spray can and spraying it into the air is fine. I am going to put an propane alternative gas in it I think.
Well it has been too dry to be driving it so I have done nothing about testing pressures, and busy spending money on feeding cows rather then diesel. So while I wait for parts to fix the air con, a front idler has decided to start leaking. It was only a fifteen minute job to pull it off and anyway I have to check the tightness of the final drive bearings since they should be seated properly now with a few hours since the rebuild and that is easier done with the track broken. Not being too familiar with leaking seals, I am not sure if it was leaking from the o-ring or the duo cone seal itself. The seal looks unmarked scratch wise. The oil inside is pretty black. I ordered two sets of new seals anyway. They are pretty reasonably priced aftermarket.
What's that green stuff on the ground?
Where the radiator got washed out.
You get any over the last couple of days? Bit patchy around here, one block got an inch and another 10km away only 9mm.
12mm or so. Very patchy here as well, as in most got nothing.
I reckon you would have to be a special breed of retarded neanderthal dickhead to actually loctite o-ring air con fittings together. So now I have cracked the evaporator piping trying to get the fittings apart because some cockhead used loctite on them.
I've had that problem with someone using a sealer of some sort on the aluminum fittings of air conditioners several times. Have replaced many line sets and condenser coils because of it too. I purchased a press and selection of fittings with the auto parts store carrying hose to ease the cost burden.
Lucky the evaporator piping is all copper, silver soldered together. Got that fixed, got some more fittings apart. Vacuumed it out, and charged it up and I have cold air again finally it is fixed, and the grass is very green and to top off the day our leftie dumb useless pile of **** state premier resigned today. Was a good productive day today. Here is a photo of one of the fittings.
Careful what you wish for RC. There's some terrible leftards waiting in the wings who'll joyfully continue the rape and pillage of this state.
Oh don't worry, I know the two who want the job are left of Stalin, but with an election next year and them already unpopular. I want cameron dick to get the job, only because of my 12 year old brain and the memes and innuendo fun that could be had. Think of the election slogans. "95% of women and 25% of men admit they like dick."
Well here you go Pony, something else for you to try, once you get over the shock of the price. Around $1000 for ten litres. You can spray it, cut stump and stem inject it. Method 240SL. Just recently become available in Australia so I picked up 10 litres to try. I was impressed by it's use on a golf course green in the USA, were it managed to be like Velpar and kill all the trees as well as what they were really spraying for via root uptake. Of course being the USA they sued and the chemical got temporarily taken off the market. So hopefully a chemical that good might be a game changer for us.
Funny timing, I just mustered the paddock with the dogwood a couple of days ago to brand and got a look at the trees, so here's a bit of feedback for you if you ever need to stem inject the big stuff. Velpar (1-1) killed about 10%. Cropyralid (4-1) killed about 50% Tordon/Cropyralid (3-1 of each) killed them all.
About $1000 here for 2.5gallon jug. Locally available. Not one we use, but I had to look it up to see if it would beneficial to us. I think it would be a useful applicant for our fence rows, roadside areas, and ditches that are difficult to mow to keep brush and locust from creeping in. Autumn Olive is highly invasive and quick to spread. Black locust suckers sprout and grow fast, reaching 6ft high easily in a summer. These species quickly spread and get into crop and pasture areas if not kept in check. Mowing works, if you can easily mow the area.
Looks like it is slightly cheaper here then. I am only trialing it for Lantana mostly. Nothing seems to kill it for long. It needs something with residual root action, which I am hoping this has. That would go along with what I have seen. There is quite a bit of Sally Wattle around here. I do not have a lot as it hates fires, but neighbours have been battling it for decades. They have continued to use just Tordon or Grazon and some metsulfuron mixed in as well. One has even tried to remove it mechanically and they have a wonderful crop of it now. A person I know had a paddock full of it, and the tordon gang added clopyralid to their brushcutter mix and I have never seen such an amazing kill on it. Everything died. The job I got done some years back, still an amazing kill. I have seen so many tordon jobs that initially look OK, but years later everything grows back I cannot understand why people skimp on chemical when it is the labour that is the most costly part. I did about 500 acres with pellets a year and a bit ago. Have got good results there as well at 15kg/ha rate. I would do more but I did something silly and bought land at the top of the market, or more to the point, the neighbour thought it a good time to sell.
Well someone has pointed the bone at me. Two days ago, I had half a day spare so jumped on it to do some more clearing. I was on top of a hill and turned around, I was apparently turning on some rocks and a rock has come up jammed against the ripper mounting point and the edge of a grouser and popped all the bolts on the grouser and broke it off. The thing is though the machine was only at half revs when I was turning, the track did slightly jam so I went into reverse and then continued forward with no indication of anything wrong, until 100m down I see one missing plate and it has broken the curved bit off the adjacent plate (I found that bit next to the grouser) I had not much left to do, so decided to carry on (after finding the plate and broken bolts) then I was clearing along a fence line and along a narrow very slight cutting with dense scrub on the side, the stickrake dug in one side causing the machine to slightly go sideways. No worries, go backwards and the soil was soft, so it just wanted to go sideways more and more, and of course this stuff always happens late in the day when there is no time left to do a recovery. So I had to pull the stickrake off do some earthmoving with a RB1 and it slowly backed out. Then recover the rake with a chain. Then that night I did not win the $200 million lotto. So someone has jinxed me.
Weird things happen. I got a rock between the idler and track frame. I heard this awful grinding gouging sound so stopped and that's when I discovered the rock in the idler. No problem I'll just take it out. Nope, I had to break the rock to get it out which wasn't easy. I have no idea how it got in there. It was 1 of very few rocks in the dirt I was working in. Had to take a lot of force to get pushed in there.
Just a pic of what I have been up to the last few days.
Clearing scrub brush on hillsides? Looks like a large area! How's the 6D running?
Looking Good
Yea, trying to clean the noxious weed lantana which has taken over. The dozer is running OK for it's age, it has not yet morphed into the D7R I want it to be, maybe it is like the frog and I have to kiss it . Engine temperature is not an issue any more. Transmission still has it's problem, been trying to get some pressure gauges to put on it. But I have narrowed down the problem. It only intermittently part goes into gear when two things are met. First the oil has to be at normal operating temperature. Second there has to be a period of inactivity as in a couple of minutes in changing the state of the transmission. So you could have warm oil, engine at idle, transmission sitting in neutral for a period of time, then sometimes it will not engage properly. Or you could have had it on a long pull going up a hill engine flat out, then when you idle down to change direction, sometimes it will not correctly engage the gear. Or the same thing but a long run downhill at half revs. Short runs of back and forward, it never does it. So long periods of the transmission in the same state is the main factor. A sticking valve I am guessing that stops the transmission getting proper pressures to fully engage one of the clutches. Or maybe a suction side air leak letting air into the system. Here is a photo looking back the other way from the picture I posted yesterday. I snapped it today. The over grown looking hill in the middle of the picture I plan to get a plane in and spray it with herbicide (agent orange) to get rid of the crap, then burn it. It is just too rocky for my little dozer and stickrake. It would do it, but too rough on the gear. And one for the rock doctors. Is this limestone? There is limestone in the district and marble. It does not look very much like marble to me.
It's not limestone, it's basalt - a very old (geologically) and basic igneous rock type. It can vary from very, very hard, through to decomposed - when, in that state, it makes good road base. https://www.mindat.org/loc-45194.html
Well I ordered new springs for the control valve on top of the transmission. There are only three and they are not expensive, two are ex-Singapore, so might take awhile to arrive. What was expensive was the silicone O-Rings and there are a heap of them. I found another thread on ACMOC about similar issues to what I have. The resolution was a broken valve spring and a slightly out of adjustment direction/speed control rods. D6D power shift | Forum - ACMOC The Antique Caterpillar Machinery Owners Club (ACMOC) was founded in 1991 by a small group of enthusiasts who all shared a similar passion, the legacy of antique Caterpillar machinery. www.acmoc.org
Why not go for the (potentially) easy fix first. Take a good look at the linkages for wear then repair/lubricate/adjust as necessary. Isn’t that mechanism the one that has needle bearings in the cross shaft.?
I know do the cheap tests first. But OzDozer says I am apparently a beef baron with lots of money, so I did not want to let him down with me frittering money away. I have checked the external linkages, they seem fine. I have not pulled the cover off the transmission yet. As it will do it both forward to reverse and reverse to forward I put it down to another area. I did wonder if the control valve is not correctly torqued down could the valve body be distorted enough that when it heats up it causes a spool to get sticky.
I would seriously doubt that the valve body is capable of being distorted if not torqued down properly. The things I would be looking for, are; 1. That the linkage is adjusted correctly and that incorrect linkage adjustment is not holding the spools off their correct detent positions. 2. Blown o-rings. The o-rings under and associated with the control valve can become blown. This can make for strange transmission behaviour. 3. The spools have tiny orifices in them, and they also have small pistons inside the spools. Those tiny orifices can become blocked, and cause erratic operation. The small pistons can jam in their bores with fine trash and fine dirt particle buildup. Take the spools out, carefully noting how they go together, then dismantle them from the valve body and clean them thoroughly - carefully checking every single component for small orifices drilled into them, and making sure those orifices are perfectly clean. Ensure the pistons can move freely. Look for fractured springs and check the length of the springs against the specs in the manual. Re-assemble and reset the linkage adjustment so it is correct and not binding anywhere.
To be fair to OzDozer, RC, we all think that, he's just the only one saying it. ,;-)
Well, so long as you are also all thinking I am really handsome, then I suppose I will go along with it.
A rich, handsome beef baron, and witty as well. Why are you wasting your time here on HEF with us, RC?
You can only spend so much time on onlyfans. LOL.
Can attest just a Poor Dirt working Retired wrench bender here, about handsome as a Rock where about as dense some days while opinionated a bit harsh. Not a woman draw.
Come on, all the wealthy people say that.
Now the truth is coming out. There aren’t many wealthy cattle barons theses days…you’ve actually made your fortune on onlyfans?
Well you have to make sure you use all your assets to make money .
Wait up, it's getting a bit deep in here ... I'll go get my waders ....
Gonna need hazmat suits and respirators quickly!!
Here in MO Cattle country can buy a Prime Range Steer, having been fed out, hauled to slaughter, aged properly and cut to specs, packaged and flash frozen, all for LESSTHAN $7/lb inclusive of ALL the above, still trying to understand Store Bought Ground Beef(Generally OLD Dairy animals) at $8-14/lb and major cut NAMES as Porterhouse, T-Bone, Roast cuts ALL above $16/lb to $26/lb, many of which are STILL OLD Dairy Animals.
Packers and the middle man getting in the way. I can get a pretty similar rate here buying off the farm and dealing with a small processing facility. Or do it myself from bottle to butcher for even less (on paper - don't look at my labor though for 1 or 2 animals)
The springs turned up and I apprehensively pulled the top cover off the transmission. Blow me down, it was much simpler then I expected. Three bolts and the top control valve came off. Three more bolts, then a religious hymn when I found I had to take off the outside oil feed into the transmission, to pull out the inside pipe that feeds the control valve with oil, then the lower control valve came off. Put in the new springs and all new o-rings. the new springs were a tad longer then the old ones, especially the little check valve spring. All back together with properly adjusted direction/speed spools (the directional spool was out of adjustment by probably a mm or two) and a test run revealed my problem of the directional clutches not properly engaging at rare times had manifested to not engaging properly, all the time. Pulled the pressure control valve off, found I had put one spool in backwards. Back in and a few hours test run later revealed that gear changes are snappier. Reverse no longer has a long lag to engage, and I could not get it to play up. I should borrow this pressure gauge to check the pressures though and adjust the shims as necessary. But all in all I think it was money well spent. Was quite clean in there and lots of centre pop ID marks from whoever rebuilt it.
Last two pics.
It's always good when you can fix what might be a little complicated by yourself. Great job!
Just a Caution. Try to locate a heat gun and attempt to check heat signature on the Trans cooler section of the radiator, the worst enemy of spring tension inside a hydraulic system is Heat retained. Could be just cyclical age on the springs but excess heat could beat on the new ones.
RC, my D5B seems to share a fair amount of parts with the D6D, must be about the same vintage or have a lot of overlap. In any case, my hydraulic linkage also had a lot of slop, I ended up replacing the bracket that holds the bell cranks, the bell cranks themselves, several rod ends, and had to heat and straighten the rods under the floor plates. It's quite a lot better now. I wish I could replace the lever on the front of the hydraulic tank, but that's a big job. The hole for the pin is oblong, but not much room to work on it between the tank and the back of the engine. Before and after pics included. I found original cat parts from Nat'l Equip Dealers. Just noticed in your thread that the year for yours is 1977, same as my D5B. Well, I should have looked at the dates on your thread. My comments are a bit late to be of any consequence. Sorry about that.
I replaced all the tie rod ends on mine. I repaired those bell cranks. it is much better then it was, but there are that many joints it takes next to no wear for there to be a lot of slop. I never understood why when all the bigger machines that came out in 1974 ( 7G, 8K and 9H) they moved to pilot valve's controlling the hydraulics the 6D which came out years later they kept it the same as 1950's design for the hydraulics.
Cat preferred Simplicity to complexity back in the day. Linkages were a solid value and inexpensive to construct, Hydraulics were back then problematic tended to leak A LOT. Had a Allis 7G, Rockford Clutch built the nmajority of Drive components but were Unique to the machine. Were temperamental and tended to need a lot of care. IH/Drott, Case used similar components but nothing interchanged. Ball Eyes and Heim joints could be acquired or carried cheaply by suppliers forty to fifty years ago.
Goodness me, if it is not one thing it is another. I guess I should have put some sealant on that dead axle keyway when I put it back together. The nut is tight so seeping down that keyway is about the only place this oil can come from.
Oh no! Sorry, RC. I feel your pain.
I am not worried about it. Easy fix, loosen off the bearing preload, remove the nut and plate. clean up the key way area, fill with gasket goo. Reinstall everything.
They are forecasting another La Nina in the next few months, so give you something to do while it's raining.
I have a leaking seal of my own, oil present outboard side of the right sprocket. I'm going to finish what I have in progress before I shift focus to that. I've never been into one, so no idea what I'll be getting into.
RC, do you have to break the track to do that job?
Thanks for the great pics and explanation of your process, @.RC. As to your rocks, they look awfully familiar. Nice eyeball @OzDozer they decompose all right. Some of them better than others.
Well the triple La Nina we just had delivered next to nothing for us except a bit of winter rain that got us through, but our summers were just essentially flops, much like this latest one. On top of that the triple la Nina delivered a huge drought over in the US, that is why their cattle numbers have not been this low since the early 1960's. I would imagine producers over there are not looking forward to another La Nina. 2017 was our last above average (our average is around 36") rainfall year and it was not an amazingly above average with 42" of rain. Unlike 2010 when we had 70" for the year. Yes, but that is an easy job to break and put back together. I have done it five times by myself on this machine now. I join it back together down low at the rear of the sprocket. I put a block under the grouser, so it points upwards then the other half link flops together, after wire brushing it all to make sure it is quite clean.
Thanks for that explanation, RC. I'm a little apprehensive since I haven't done it before, so your comments are welcome. I may not be quite so handy with this equipment as you are, however. I did manage to move a 900# gun safe that was anchored to the floor out of the house and up a ramp into a Uhaul truck all by my lonesome during my last move (no special equipment involved). Does that count? haha Thanks again...
Nw qld had had 2 above average seasons in a row. Another cyclone announced in the gulf yesterday.
Good for range feeding!!
That looks bloody good, they are going to be exploding they will be that fat. Is that mostly Flinders grass? I am not that familiar with the Flinders and Mitchell grasses. I snapped these pics today. Dieback is killing off the best pasture. The Biloela Buffel seems resistant to it, but is less palatable then USA or Gayndah Buffel which is highly sensitive to it. And to make this relevant to my D6D. I plan on adding a hydraulic remote to the rear of the D6, so I can pull my hydraulic breakout yeoman plough to rip this country (if I get the dozer over to it as it is 150km away by road) In fact a diverter valve for this project turned up in the mail today. I snapped photo's of another D6D that had a diverter valve installed for the rippers for a rear hydraulic remote.
Photo of diverter valve installed on another D6D that was at an auction.
What sort of results has the Yeomans plough been giving,RC?. We’re lucky not to have any dieback here….yet, but a mate has been trying to deal with it for a number of years. He has Gayndah and Bilo buffel on handy scrub soils and has been having some short term success with burning. He’s about to drag some heavy offsets over it in the next season or so.
Spot on. Primarily Mitchell, buffle and flinders. Having issues with Mitchell dieback aswell. We believe its from over rest/under utilisation and lack of biodiversity. We are trying heavy impact grazing during the growing season followed by spelling using rotational grazing.
Yeah I've only got a tiny bit of softwood scrub country, so no real dramas with dieback. Probably the one good thing with having breeder forest country is its mostly native grasses. Although I did rip a bit of heavier red soil in paddock on a new block that was a bit degraded by a previous owner a couple of years ago, It responded really well and has hung on. I don't know how deep the yeoman go, I ripped this down as far as I could, I reckon about 400mm average. It was on a gentle slope and it has really kept it rough and stopped any run off so all the rain soaks in.
Really enoying all the ranching talk. This is just the right distance between me and farming.
It gets into our black spear grass but not real bad. The worst for it seems to be Bisset Blue Grass where it can be brutal on it and the previously mentioned Gayndah and USA buffel. I do not have a lot of Gayndah or USA buffel. The photo above of the die back area there is only about 300 acres of that prime country then it goes onto more grey clay country where the bilo buffel is and prior to the dieback it could fatten some cattle (it still can, just not as many). The neighbours is currently up for auction, way out of my price range, it is expected to bring $2700-$3000 an acre. It is likely going to be a large western owner with probably 20 000 acres of prime bottle tree, brigalow country that buys it. I find only they can afford this quality country now. Not us coastal dwellers that happened to snap up a small parcel back near thirty years ago when it was $300 an acre. Land prices seem to be that stupid now I worked out a lot of them, if you had to borrow the money you would be flat out paying the interest. So I decided to improve what I have. (then went and bought out a neighbour at the height of the silliness ) To be honest the Yeoman has not had a lot of use the past ten years. The seasons have been that unpredictable, I never knew if I should rip and remove grass, or if I would need the grass. If I had the money and was buying again, I would probably look at a TTQ Raptor. I have heard stories a chap near Rolleston pulls one behind a dozer for contract work. A much heavier machine, but when I got the Yeoman, there was virtually nothing much more available for ripping where there were stumps and rocks. I find the Yeoman is not a real heavy duty ripper, more suited to semi clean and farming country. They are a good machine though. I have read that dieback does not affect short pastures and burning, fertilizing and reseeding can nip it in the bud.
We have first hand experience of land prices, as we sold some country at the height of the silliness. When we bought it in 1988 the land was worth twice as much as the cattle to stock the place. The price we were offered 18 months ago was at least ten times the value of the stock..when cattle prices were high. Still have enough to keep us busy and cause the odd headache.
Farm prices seem to be ballistic Australia-wide. I don't know where the money is coming from, it must surely be a lot of corporate money? In the wheatbelt region of the Great Southern in W.A., where I did earthmoving contracting from the mid-60's to the mid-80's, a former client has just sold his family farm - because he's aged and wants to retire, I'd guess. He had around 7000 acres of good wheat, canola, coarse grains, and sheep country in a pretty reliable 14" (355mm) Winter rainfall zone. The farm was established by his father in the 1930's. Around 20 years ago, that farm would've brought about AU$2M. He just put it up for AU$21.2M, no offers, and it sold within a month. In previous times it would've possibly taken a year or two to find a buyer. Not so now - today there seems to be billions waiting at all times, to be thrown into property of any kind.
US is no different, Farms north of here forty years ago, were at double what the crops would bring, now are at ten to fifteen times. Hard to make a living knowing will not ever pay for the ground growing on. Leases abound currently where some that own do not know what will do as the pricing continues to rise and profits margins suck. 80-90% of Farm Equipment is Leased, two or three seasons goes back to supplier, new lease units arrive, do not ever own much of anything. Corporate America awaits in the wings to snatch all this up as can buy outright, then lease to locals to farm it, only issue, fewer locals even interested these days. Can see this turning a Vile Nasty corner in short order as no one to tend the fields and set/harvest crops.
R.c. This is coming up in our vege garden. we used fertiliser from the yards and has come up since the rains. Do you think its lantana?
Looks Virgina Creeper
Doesn't look like Lantana to me. Looks more like what we call pig weed. I spent 10yrs up the Cape and don't remember seeing any pig weed, so don't know if it actually grows that far north.
Land prices are absurd here too. Too many cities growing out instead of up. In 2002, a 132 acres of sandy farm ground came available. My grandfather had leased this ground for 25 years and was given first rite of refusal. At the time land was going for $800-1000/acre for good, tillable acreage. The children that inherited the land offered it to him for over $4,000/acre as that was what a developer offered for it. My grandpa balked at the absurd price. Developer got the bid, started developing it right away. This parcel is directly across the road from our dairy. The initial developer got the land plotted, road in, utilities in, and then went bankrupt. The land sat 10% developed from 2006ish until 2016 when another developer finally picked it up. By the end of 2018, it was 100% developed. Crazy part, in 2016, what was left of the development sold for half of what it had initially brought as vacant land in 2002, but there was lots of foreclosures still on the market in 2016. I bought my 72 acres in 2016 for about $4,000/acre. Just last fall, a neighbors parcel sold for $8,000/acre to a large grain operator. They're snapping up everything they can get, big or small, these guys want it all.
Our 78 bought for 167k, added barn, rebuilt fences, added gates, built shop added a well then house and now new well, less than $500 in it, keep being pestered by agents $1mil to a mil.2. Really do not want to leave just yet.
Here in Queensland, it is not the corporates buying up to run cattle. They got pushed out long ago as they could see there was no money in it. If you run some really optimistic figures. Say you have 300 acres of the good stuff I have and you can fit 50 steers on it all day every day all through winter which is not an uinreasonable figure. You buy in 50, 300kg steers at $3/kg liveweight so $900 each. You aim to sell them in twelve months to the abattoir for a carcass weight of 320kg, lets be optimistic and say $6/kg which is much higher then prices this week (this week for generic ox over 300kg carcass I read is about $5.40/kg or less). So say $1900 sale price. A gain of $1000 for your 50 head, or $50 000. You bought the 300 acres at $2500/acre (which is less then what it would actually bring) so $750 000, with stamp duty it will be close to $800 000. If you borrowed all that at today's interest rate of lets say 8%, your yearly interest is $64000 alone. That is why the corporates are out at the moment. I seriously do not expect land to climb in value much for years now. There will be a pause until commodity prices play catchup.
Solid assessment @.RC. Similar situation here. My local climate can grow corn and soybeans, both quite valuable crops. Our average yield on corn was around 180 bushel/acre last fall, with a harvest price in mid-November of $4.15/bushel. My annual mortgage comes out to $218/acre (I had 40% down when I bought my parcel) . Property tax and insurance another $65/acre. Cost to plant, grow, harvest an acre of corn about $430/acre. Gross Income last fall $747acre Expenses $713/acre Net profit $34/acre This changes fast if you owe more for land, or prices drop. Current spot price of corn is $3.89. My net profit (on paper) is -$12.80/acre. When we had $6.40/bushel corn in the bin a year ago, we felt high on the hog. It comes and it goes. At least the milk check comes twice a month. Keeps the lights on and the mouths fed.
Only difference US is ability to write down capital expenditures and improvements against taxes at end of year. Not much consolation unless like many farms around here the new machinery gleams in the sun.
Done the same sums on a couple of blocks ive looked at. All the same results, the carrying costs with interest is higher then return on investment at $4kg. interesting you mentioned the corporates. At $6-$9 a kg and 2.5% interest, there was slaps on the back all round. Assets doubled in value and money was rolling in. At $3.40 and 7% the accounts are telling the managers that they made a massive loss.
Corporate loss column, tax dodge as still own ground and many corporations self finance, charge on paper to make look good to tax people. Big game in MO is Return to ‘Natural’ except access roads, feed lots for wildlife, special hidden observation areas and extravagant structures. This type claims to restore to native yet still mows, plants for feed stocks, invites the ‘investors’ out to thin the wildlife. Massive tax dodges. Has the coin but takes loans from personal corporation to show that deductible finance. Hauled to these people as they played the games. Most are bankers, took several thousand acres out of livestock production just in our county, plat it up big for news services in special articles on restoring native specie they really don’t. One family died out, kids wanted the ground just not the expenses and efforts, all went to saplings and scrub in a few years, now sits untended. Purina bought north of us on the plains grounds3500 acres, established five ‘Test Farms’ are essentially geese, turkey and farm Raised quail hunting ground for management. Big grant absorber for ‘Test Plots’ experiments, loads of structures heard called labs yet are more like Cabins. Weekend retreats on the Taxpayer Dole. Oh and a Purina Financed bank in a local town financed the purchase. Pretty sure is a money launder, legally.
I got some of that Cat ELI. It is really no more cheaper then the automotive concentrates you can buy. The drum does not have that Cat quality feel to it. I will let the label do the talking. I have a few machines that need the coolant changed, I will try it in them.
You don't like it's made in India? I guess it depends on how good the quality control is and the Cat specs. for it.
What'd they sting you for it?
The quality of the packaging made me wonder about the quality of the internals. I am sure it is fine. Eighty Two per twenty litres.
Looks like it’s the cheaper option. The last ELI that I bought was the concentrated version, simply because I didn’t have room in the car for four 20 litre buckets. It appears to be US made and works out at $5.50/litre.
I did not look hard enough to see that concentrate, but looking now the website saya the closest bottle is in the US. Finally got a decent drop of rain a couple of days ago (2") and I borrowed a test gauge to check pressures and the neighbours place never sold at auction rather passed in at $2750/acre. The speed clutch pressures are 360psi at full revs and 290 at idle. Specs are 375 +/- 10 at full revs. 330 at idle. Direction clutch pressures are 310psi at full revs and 250 at idle. Both are supposed to be 55 +/- 8 lower then speed clutch. I do not know what the idle speed is set at so it could be lower then it is supposed to be, thus lower pressures, or a worn pump. I also never checked the pressure at the oil filter, mainly as I went there expecting the pressure ports to be standardised and them all 1/8NPT threads. Of course the trans filter one is not even a NPT thread. The parts book says it is a 9S4191 plug which google says is a 9/16 18 UNF thread. I also did not check it at the sequence relief valve as that area is all covered in oily dust and I think you have to remove the belly plate to get to that port. Just drive it I think is the answer.
Well of course I will have to test the pump pressure. So quickly zipped up an adapter that has a bad finish and needs deburring. 9/16 UNO one end. 1/4" BSP the other.
Have checked the pump pressure, at full revs and warm oil. 390psi. At idle, about 290 at really low idle, but quickly jumps to 330 with a slight bump in revs.
Back to my problem with the track frame alignment. It certainly is in the location of the outer support. Glum suggests just stacking on more shims. Problem with this is the two pins that stick out to stop rotation of the shims and the outer plate and the nut lock, do not stick out very far. Solution there could be to make longer ones and install them. But then you still have the duocone seal squashed up far more then it should be, and a lot more rotational stress on the pins. If they shear off, then the nut comes loose, lots of internal damage could happen. OzDozer suggested boring out the taper and sleeving it. Problem there is there is a keyway to contend with, tapers have to be right, I have no dimension to what big end of the tapered hole is supposed to be. I do have the tools to do that job though. I also get concerned with if I did not get it right, the taper comes loose then again a lot of damage internally. Third option is $700 for a new one from Cat standard duty, which I expect should give caterpillar performance. I have to do something as it will just wear all the sides of the sprocket and chains. Pictures showing the sprocket seal guard to adjusting nut dimensions how they are about 12mm difference for each side. First picture the good side, second the dodgy side.
Well I have ordered a new genuine part from Cat. I have heard from another source that when it comes to these dimensionally critical parts, aftermarket can be a crap shoot. I have also finished off making another one of these thinning bars. This one is made up of 3 metre sections and is heavier then my earlier one per metre. A freaking lot of stick rods went into it. Plus I have some steel ordered to weld up a tree spear for the dozer as my next job has a heap of trees that "mysteriously" died to push over. Going to try some 4mm 7024 rods on it to get it done quicker. Luckily just had 4" of rain over a few days so things are looking pretty good.
What style of pusher do you have planned?
Just a simple blade mounted one. It has had one fitted before are the blade lugs are already there, albeit for some reason angled inwards so anything pinned to it cannot pivot up as it would jam. Ideally I would get another dozer in and a chain it to get it all on the ground prior to raking. But anyway.
We’ve ended up with three different styles of pushers, each with good and bad points. This one was made by the same outfit that made your rake. Not something that I would design myself but it is well made and meant that we could put the tractor to work straight away. Works great as a pusher but not so good for piling timber. View attachment IMG_4368.jpeg
Yes, when I got my rake, those pushers were supposed to come with it, but I asked for no pusher for a bit cheaper. In hindsight, probably should have got the pusher with the rake. If I make one light enough it should not be too hard to lift on and off as required. I did go to pick up the steel today, I rang beforehand, their computer told them it was there. After searching high and low, they are not sure where it is.
This one is certainly light, and easy to lift on and off. Possibly not ideal to be pushing from the very top of the blade but works OK for occasional use. Sometimes it does flip backwards over centre if you flop the tractor over something too fast in reverse….which is a pita because it’s too heavy to push back by hand.
Not to keen on that design as I can see damage get done if you lift the blade as you push, you could rip it off or bend something. It seems to be a recent development trying to get away from the third leg that rests on the mouldboard. Trying to also work out how far to have it stick out the front of the blade. I am thinking about 1.8m. In other news, you would have thought they could have have at least painted it. Not sure yet how I am going to get the old one off the taper, I do not have a puller anywhere near big enough. I will have to make something.
My favourite, the original and probably still the best. The load goes directly onto the trunnions where it belongs and doesn’t interfere too much with what happens in front of the blade.
Yep, that's the tree spear we all know and love. Bit hard to fit on a 6 way blade unfortunately.
Here is an unusual one. They are D7 ripper tynes mounted on opposite sides of the blade of each machine. They were pretty effective. I only saw one tree pull them up in the forest country. Also be good for pulling trees away from fence lines. Downside was they were also good at collecting vines in the thick scrub they were pulling, back in the day.
This is one of the most unique setups I have seen. It was posted here some years ago by a bloke from WA and could be raised and lowered with the ram on the rear. Might be the go for your 6way blade, Pony.
Quite an interesting crane setup in the back of his ute as well.
Smore pics I scanned in. Everyone likes dozer pics right? The 9H in the above pic with a ripper attachment
Some general land clearing dating back a fair while ago now. Eagle eyes might notice the 6C in the last three pictures, well if you look hard in the bogged photo, the blade lift rams are attached lower to the blade then they usually are. The contractor had another set of balls attached lower as the 6C/D did not lift the bull tilt blade very high compared to other models.
Use your C spanner and pipe to pull the big nut anti clockwise as far as you can, find a helper with a good eye and you each beat the tabs on the holder simultaneously with your biggest hammers (don't damage the holder or each other's kneecaps), repeat till it pops. Leave the outer nut on with some clearance to stop the holder going flying.
Finding a helper is my problem Glum. Making a puller should not be too hard, but I might first tighten the big nut and try a hammer. It may just pop off. I did a bit of trespassing today and snapped this photo, The main 6" beam is 1500mm long, it looks about a good length.
Looks good.. make sure to give it some serious dental work to stop it sliding up the tree. View attachment IMG_4372.jpeg
I got caught up with the tongue a bit today, but found some time to try to install the replacement outer support. With glum's idea of tightening the adjustment nut, and then hit the holder with a hammer, I did that a few times, hitting the locking lug and it popped loose after a bit of effort. I measured the small end of the two tapers and the new one is slightly smaller, maybe a quarter of a mm or a bit more. Also a complete surprise is the effectiveness of those shields that protect the duo cone seal. It was spotless in there, which amazed me. With this new part I also had to hit the inner bearing holder into the support with the soft hammer. It was just a good fit, the other aftermarket part it would slide in with a tad of sideways movement when in position. Putting it back on I have probably gained 3-4mm sideways stickout witht he new part. I have some more shims here at home, so will go back tomorrow and install them and finish the job. I think I will get enough to stop the rubbing on the sprocket. Photo of the old part, and then the new part installed.
there was a updated part number for the deadshaft nut too on D6D. Don,t know it offhand but know there was a service magazine telling about it in the 80s
Well I finally got it all back operating today. Had a delay as I found the solid rod push arm that holds tension against the ider was bent. So that had to come out and straighten it. The chain no longer rubs on the sprocket and is back to about it was prior to the final drive rebuild so I am going to leave it as is. As it is still not located where it should be but I do not care as it is good enough for an old machine with plenty of welds on the diagonal brace.
Now for something totally different, because I did not know where to put this, it does involve a D6 though. Doing some fencing at the moment. Not liking that bloke Manuel Labour, some years ago I thought there had to be an easier way to ram up fence posts. Some research bought up these things called air tampers, available pretty cheap from China in various sizes. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33029966859.html Some experimentation later I found a modified D6 sized tamper perfect for ramming up fence posts just an air compressor to power it. Also sick of cleaning out the holes with a shovel after digging them, today I quickly wacked up a proof of concept hole cleaner that I sort of copied from a photo on the internet. It is a bit rough as I never had any 250mm pipe, so had some 8" pipe and cut and spread it out a bit. Certainly makes life easier.
What type of fence posts are you putting in, timber ones or concrete? That tamper looks like a similar idea to what we use to drive our posts in. We use star posts for our fences with 3” pipe strainers and end assemblies, we drive them all in with a “Picket Post Driver”. I think there is Chinese knock off’s now as well of the Aussie original.
Putting in rosewood posts, with a steel post between rosewoods. Some people around here have tried concrete posts. I do like the concrete post idea a lot, but these thin ones they use are brittle and just snap like carrots and at over $20 a post, last thing you want to see is are snapped off concrete posts. We used to use iron bark split posts with our own timber, but all the good timber is mostly gone now. I have fences here only 40 years old and the timber posts are all snapping off. I have a Christie Engineering post driver here I use for putting in the steel posts.
Slowly getting there. Just don't pay me by the hour.
Not going to bend in a hurry.
That iron post looks a little superfluous
Mine is 150 x12mm I beam I had bent then spent my nights welding 12mm flat along the sides....was told box shs would fold Yours doesn't look like it's going anywhere great job love this thread
Did you use your new fangled dual shield wire?
For most of it so far. I have 10kg of cheap no name 4mm 7024 rods to use up somewhere so used them on the teeth and did one of the cross member welds as I had it in position. These 7024's run smooth and hot, but only work in the flat position. Looks a beauty. Makes me wonder if I should have gone that way as it while uses more steel, is a more simple design. I have installed this in my shed to make moving it around easier. It runs on heavy wall pipe I found in the scrap heap, but if doing it again I would get some drill stem as it seems plentiful at the moment with all the gas drilling going on.
Where would Australia be without the Cobb & Co hitch? It would have been my fastener of choice as well.
It is a bit embarrassing that one. Not my best but I was trying to do it on a rickety ladder, my father was a stickler for making sure they were tight and you never ever get the wires crossed, and that has mostly stuck with me.
I really like my 60 amp plasma cutter, it is a cigweld one. It performs outside what I expected, but I do run it off a 32 amp socket. It is even better now I identified the torch and can buy tips and electrodes direct from china for $1 each delivered (cigweld just use a generic copy of the italian torches everyone else copies), compared to the genuine cigweld ones at $5 each, only thing they did different was specify the electrodes as a UNC#12 24tpi thread while the standard is a M5 thread, easily fixed by running a die over the M5 thread, then they screw right in. here is some 32mm plate for the lugs, about at it's limit though, although I have severed some 40mm stuff, and cut a bit of railway line. I am pretty poor at cutting straight with an oxy. I would like a bigger one, but they do not come any bigger in single phase (unlike the USA), and no three phase here to run one anyway.
Lugs are tacked on. I tacked the whole thing to some flat 1" plate to make sure the lugs all line up. I have got them close enough I think, within a couple of mm or so. I am going to arc gouge off the existing lugs on the blade and refit them where they will fit this spear. I will also reinforce the top of the blade with some 5/8" plate. I am counting down the days until these days stop getting shorter, less then ten days to go.
Got the lugs finished off. I have also removed the old lugs off the blade.
For the third leg that rests against the blade mouldboard you need a curved piece of plate of a similar curvature. I cut a piece of 300X300 X 16mm thick plate and put it in a 60 tonne press with a dodgy press brake set up. Pressing it every 10mm I am quite chuffed the way it turned out. I did slightly over cook it though and have to straighten it a bit. It is supposed to be a 750mm radius.
That is some slick bit of kit right there. I'd be thrilled to have some of the stuff you have in my shop. Someday.
Thanks, but it is just a generic manual pump 60 tonne press. The "press brake" is nothing more then some plate and solid square bar welded in a haphazard fashion. I know I have a few things out of the ordinary, but my main mig/stick welder is just a china made middle of the road quality, same with the plasma. Mag drill are super handy and pretty cheap for chinese ones these days. Only a month ago I discovered those things called speed squares, they are damn handy for steel work. I got the lugs rewelded in their new position onto the blade today and did a fit to measure how long the middle leg needs to be. The curved plate fits against the mouldboard a treat. I only started about four fires with the grinder.
Looking good RC. I would suggest mounting the leg as high as is practicable. The one on our 7 is way too low, only just above the cutting edge, and really screws things up when trying to stack timber. The plus side is the pusher can be left in place with the rake fitted…if the need arises.
Yes, there is a balance with the third leg. Too high and then the leverage gets pretty great and you run the risk of bending the top of the blade forward (or rip the lugs off) if you lift while pushing, I saw this happen to a D4D, and this D6D blade has has some welding repairs where the lugs were. Too low and if you want to stack timber it is a pain. That D7G in the thinning bar video thread I posted a few days ago, it has a third leg that pins on right at the cutting edge, but it was solely used as a pulling tractor and then stickraking what was pulled. I made this pusher so it will also pin onto the stickrake itself. That is why I cut off the old lugs on the blade and repositioned them. I got the third leg positioned on today and have got the reinforcing plate of the top of the blade positioned on. Essentially just a good bit of welding to do and then a coat of paint. I got the angle of the cuts and length with the help of a string line and a bevel gauge see the photo. It lifts about 7ft high. If anything I stuffed up the position of the cross member, I should have positioned it about 200mm further back. The whole thing is probably a bit more substantial then I expected, now that it is all together and fitted.
As you like to quote scenes from movies etc. “That’ll do pig….that’ll do.”
Now he's gonna be out there, pushing trees. Saying "You want some? Do you want some?"
Not the right yellow colour, but good enough for me. Looks like I got the balance point pretty good as well.
Maybe I'm missing something but what stops the spear from flipping back on the dozer hood?
The operator. Had some rain the past two days, so today I got the blade welding finished off. Pretty much done now, just have to make some pins.
Here is how I make a lot of pins these days. Get some rod the right OD. Drill a 13.5mm hole through the centre, then some heavy flat washers for either end, made out of round or some square flat bar also works well. Centre hole in that, then some M12 threaded rod and a couple of nuts. It is easy to undo and down the track if it gets rusted in or stuck the centre hole is there to help remove it if need be. Taken it for a spin and works well, I am very happy with it. Not sure what the next thing will be with this dozer. I will drive it and see.
That's an interesting way to secure pins using nuts on each side. In a non turning application would be fine but for something that rotates the pins may turn in the bosses and wear the bosses. If pins that don't turn are greased, coated with graphite or abti-seize they shouldn't rust in place.
Been cleaning up a few trees. The tree spear works like a champion.
Good way to test the breaking strain of a shackle. We have some light high tensile for the leads of our chain. Have to use a bow shackle to get a drawbar pin through it and this is the biggest that will fit. With the 6R and 7H tugging on each end we still get a couple of hundred hours out of them… seems to be more from wearing rather than overloading.
We managed to snap one of those D's that was being used as a joiner yesterday. I guess they get stressed a fair bit, then let go. The section that snapped was 35mm chain. I think it was the size they used to use in long wall mining machines from years ago. From what I understand they use bigger chain in those long wall mining machines now and it has a normal link, then a flat looking link. With the 35mm chain we can go to the next size D's, that are around the 12-13t WLL. Although this was not my chain, but a borrowed one, I have a heap of that 35mm chain here, but no heavy stuff, which seems to be like hens teeth in Queensland these days. No I have not upgraded, this is what was on the other end.
Anyone know anything about replacing windows? So I smashed a side window, one of the few that were glass, most are well scratched perspex. I have found a shop that will cut me laminated glass to size, but they are a house glass shop and do not supply the windscreen rubber. I know someone who is currently rebuilding another D6D and they have all the glass out of their cab, so I took some plywood to make templates. I took the templates to check them on mine and I found some of the templates seemed to match what I had and some did not. Then I discovered the window rubbers that hold the glass in are different. One style of rubber I have holds the glass outside the cab frame and uses a rubber like this https://www.indrub.com.au/self-locking-windscreen-6mm-glass.html The glass is the same size as the hole Other style the glass is inset and uses a rubber like this https://www.indrub.com.au/self-locking-windscreen-1-6mm-glass.html A third style is similarly inset but has a secondary locking piece you put in but only the method of locking differs In any case, is one style (flush fitting or sticking out a bit) superior to the other for the application? The flush style rubber seems more easily available and cheaper.
Ran into this years ago, ended up the glass sizing should remain the same the ‘style’ of the weatherstrip seal closure will make no difference. Main consideration as to the glass install is to have Onerous Quantity of a Lubricant on the seal when install those glass panels, and it takes odd tooling to install the ‘Separate’ insert or the ‘Tucked in Insert’. Are nylon or plastic tools to perform this, are notably less intrusive or Potentially damaging to the Glass or seal. In your region the “Windscreens” on older HD Trucks are installed similarly.
What do you mean by "the glass sizing should remain the same" The two rubber strip seals I linked to hold the glass differently and require different sized glass in relation to the hole. The person with the other D6D I told them today about the glass templates we cut not matching the glass I had, so he checked all his glass pieces and his is a mix of both styles rubbers as well and as such his doors one side glass is sized differently to the other.
Not seen that, the local Cat House supplied generic glass for machines we worked on, the seals types made no difference
OK, so it seems Cat went their own way and designed their own rubber profile and put the glass outside the frame and used the 5P5768 seal. It could be something to do with better able to withstand vibrations and the cab flexing. The Cat style rubber looks like this. A bit of a give away is having cat in the name I suppose. https://www.alpoz.com.au/product/oz-sl265/
Now that is interesting. We use a glazing that fits the glass inside the cutout.
Yes I have some of that there as well. The glass is cut about 8mm smaller on all sides to fit the rubber. The glass is going to be custom cut anyway, I was just wanting to know which way to go or maybe it simply does not matter. The rubber you have comes in more sizes and probably easier available.
ScottsFRP in Toowoomba have a good selection of extruded rubber products.https://g.co/kgs/fu9cxKv
What I always received was what Marcus noted, just two different lock strip styles.
According to the glass man, the offset style, it is easier to fit the glass into the rubber. The inset style, if something hits the glass, there is a greater chance if a stick hits it, it may pop the glass into the cab and not break the glass. I think I will go with the offset Cat style.
My window installing experiance would agree. And the widow can be off a shade on way or the other and still fit. By shade I mean a 1/8 or so big.
I ended up making a template the same size as the hole and got a piece of laminated glass cut to size. Got it installed today, the glass went in easy as. I did a piddly bit of work while the glass was missing and the amount of dust that came in was nasty. These air cabs are nice, even on an old machine like mine.
I have found another local supplier of glass that also does in house tempering so they can supply safety glass or laminated. Safety glass is slightly cheaper and I would suspect a fair bit stronger, until it shatters of course. Wondering is safety glass would be the way to go for the side windows. The front is all laminated with plenty of pre existing cracks, and I would get the rear laminated as well. If something were to happen and you were to get trapped in the cab, you can break safety glass to escape. Laminated you would be pretty much trapped.
This style Seals can sit and Kick the Glass panel from the Frame, One Piece.
One of these things is not like the other ones. Also a worn out welded on guard. It never seems to end. Not that they will be hard to fix, just time consuming pulling the track frame off.
Are the bolts broken off in the track frame? Seems like a lot work taking the track frame off for one roller. I guess it would depend on what the repair entails. Maybe could just take the track off and jack the machine up to get enough room?
Yea bolts broken off. I probably won't be pulling off th etrack frame to get them out, but I will need to pull it off to weld on the new guard in the second photo. They are a replaceable item. 9S8257.
I'd certainly be inclined towards glueing that roller back into place with some low hydrogen rod until the track frame really needs to come off. Ten years ago, quite the opposite, blade off, split track, track frame off, do what was needed and back up and running same day.
It is only four bolts to get out, well three now and access is pretty good. Got one out. as you see the generous amount of anti-seize that was used prior to last installation and they all snapped off 6mm below the surface.
Well it is going to have to be track frame off. Tried getting another two out by welding, but they are simply snapped off too far below the surface. close to 3/8". I am hopeless with an oxy and would just do more damage. So I ordered some 9S 6326 thread repair inserts. I have never used them, but I heard they are among the best style thread repairs to use. I will do it properly and be done with it. I cannot work for long on my back upside down anyway, get nauseous pretty quick.
Some days just have to bite that bullet. Went thru that several times over the years where got lucky a few.
Have not done anything yet other then some measuring. Should be able to jack the trackframe off the ground enough to fit my mag base drill under there to drill the holes out upside down. So I made up this guide template out of 16mm plate to get the drilling and tapping done correctly. So long as the internet is correct and holes are 4.5" X 13" apart. There are various guides to fit in the holes for the different size drills I will use. A 14mm endmill to get the old bolts drilled out, then a 13/16" guide to drill the tapping hole. Then a 7/8 guide so the tap goes in straight. Plus a 5/8 guide to put a 5/8 bolt into the hole I got the broken bolt out of, to line up the other three holes. Of course I also found out a few hundred units newer then mine they went to 3/4" bolts. So I probably could have tapped 3/4" holes there, and drilled out the roller holes.
Got some time today to start on it. But then found I forgot to put the drill in the car, but got the plate lines up and stuck on after some modifications as not sure what I was thinking when I designed it the way I did. Then got sidetracked doing something else nearby, and that led to something else and not much else got accomplished. Also decided to simply drill the holes out and tap them 3/4". Why waste $40 worth of thread inserts when later units they simply used 3/4" bolts from the factory. Just have to make up some guides for the 3/4 tap and tapping drill and drill out the roller holes.
Went to town and got 3/4" bolts and washers from the dealer today. I also drilled out the roller holes to 20.5mm to suit the bolts.
Thats one flash drill you have.
It an old ex-TAFE eastern bloc style milling machine made in Poland. After seeing what someone in the UK did with theirs, I found a turret milling machine someone was scrapping and bought the milling head off them, and with some minor modifications and repairs I fitted it to the milling machine to make it half useful. The roller job has turned into a right old pain in the bum to do. Unless the broken bolts are protruding, never try to weld them out. Looks like I have made them as hard as hell and all the drill wants to do is squeal. I have managed to get a 5mm hole though the centre of each, but that is it. Then the Kohler engine on my little Miller welder generator just wants to stop all the time, then it floods itself with a brand new genuine carburettor. I am not sure why but in my experience the US has never been able to design a small petrol motor that runs reliably. I reckon you could run a Honda under water after pulling it from a volcano. They never seem to give much trouble, but this Kohler is just rubbish, up there with Briggs and Stratton rubbish. I should have taken Glum's advice and just welded the roller on. But no, I have to do it the right way.
Welding broken bolts first is risky for that exact reason. Hardens the bolt and makes it almost impossible to drill after. Vertical welding of a broken recessed bolt under a machine on the ground is probably the hardest task you can do. My order of the bolt extraction- depending why it broke. It if broke by over torque just drill it and tap it out as it will never come out. Wire brush bolt and any exposed thread. Use a pick to see if it will spin and clean thread. Use hammer and gently spin the bolt with a pin punch in a circle. Most times they will move. Drill centre. Quite often they will spin in from drilling if the hole isnt blind. I have also had luck with left handed drills just grabbing and turning out. Hit in a splined extractor (not a fan of tapered easyout) and turn it in and out gently. Don’t break it off. Heat and cool cycles will help shock it out. Then i try to weld it out. Use a copper water pipe on frame thread so it doesn’t weld to frame and earth to the bolt if possible. Reassemble with anti seize for the next person.
These are the best ive found
Can you torch them out now that you‘ve got a hole through? Or are they blind holes?
I am crap I do not normally have to deal with broken bolts so all this info helps. I am not that crash hot with the oxy torch. I would end up doing more damage. Anyhoo, this mornings efforts with sharp drills, and a bench grinder in case I needed to resharpen yielded results. Holes all drilled out to the tapping size. But being as Dad and Dave show, without one of them, of course my quality chinese taps are not up to scratch. Which I did only buy them years ago as thread cleaners, not thread makers. So off to town at a later date to pick up a HSS tap of quality manufacture. However I expect only straight flute taps will be stocked when I would prefer a gun nose or spiral flute. I am off to spray some weeds.
I think the moral of the story is. It is far easier to say you are going to drill and tap out those holes while upside down then it is to actually do it. Also anyone know why these rollers have those plates fitted between the roller and frame. I have seen an old old D6C and it has the same.
That a broken tap?
Yea. They do not like side pressure.
Have you tried using carbide endmills in your mag drill instead of twist drills? Or even good HSS ones? At this point it may be a matter of maybe going crazy oversize on drilling/boring out the old bolts to get away from the hardened areas. I can't tell exactly if you're just focused on using the existing bolt holes but what about moving the roller over an inch or so and starting with fresh steel on the frame?
I know I've told the story before, but I spent a solid week under a 7H about 20 years ago torching out at least half of it's roller bolts. I don't remember, probably blocked the memory, but I think they were blind holes. I would much rather shove an ice pick in my ear than ever do that again.
When gets that extreme drop the trucks.
The cost of the carbide along with it's fragileness puts me off. I did buy two taps as they were half price being new old stock the seller was trying to sell, so the job was finished some days ago.
Yes, carbide isn't for the uninitiated. Takes some experience to use carbide tooling without making more of a mess. But really glad you got the job done.
So this is what happens when you blab to others that you managed to get snapped roller bolts out in situ. They come and drop off their old D6C with the exact identical problem. Admittedly a really nice condition early 60's D6C. But since the operator also ripped the rear guiding guard off the track frame this one is a track frame off job. Plus it comes with a helper who actually is a diesel fitter with real spanners, not cheap chinese ones like I have.
If we go back a year I posted an image of what I had been up to. Here is a follow up photo. There has been a bit of "fertiliser" spread over the weeds to help the grass.
Getting a bit sick of this. Stripped a bolt on the idler block or whatever it is called. Put in one of those threaded inserts.
Yellow Iron becomes a monster we must feed. Been on that highway, hope your run does better.
That on the d6c or your dozer?
This is on my 6.
Finally got my act together and pulled off the track frame to replace two of the chain guiding guards. Pretty easy to pull off, crane lifted it easily and got the balance right on the first attempt. Decided to bring the whole thing home to do it here. Was a good decision as two roller bolts snapped off when removing the roller so I can cut off the guiding guard.
And repair that crack
You mean Crack 'S' as in Plural!!
@.RC. First, good job in getting the frame off. Seems like you're working by yourself so this is quite the accomplishment and worthy of a cold beverage in my opinion. Second, with the frame in an easy place to work on, yeah, you should touch up your flex joints... Best of luck with the broken bolts. At least you have experience with those
Yes there are a few cracks. What I really would like are two new track frames.
So would about every owner of any C, D, E, F, G, H, and K model Caterpillar dozer still doing production work on the Earth, lol.
Good news is those look like stress or fatigue cracks from lots of use as opposed to failure cracks from hard abuse. I'm definitely not the guy to be giving welding advice but it looks like you can add many more hours to your machine with grooving out the cracks and filling with good beads. I'm sure you can even add fish plates or other reinforcing bits/pieces to make it stronger than you'll ever need. But hey, it's easy for me to tell you what to do from half-way around the world
Things are not going as expected. What I thought was just a simple one hour welding job. Well I removed the rollers so I can weld up the cracked bent spacers (and replace the missing one). Of course the last person in here was obviously paying for the anti seize and could not afford to put it on all the bolts. Three snapped off. I managed to get one out, the others after a few hours, I just drilled the broken bolt and all out and installed one of those threaded inserts. The front roller bolt holes are ostly knackered as well (the others are in good order). So I might tap them out to 3/4 as I wonder if the first roller takes most of the pounding. I will put all new genuine roller bolts in. Most of the ones that came out were just generic grade 8 bolts. Oh and the frame at the idler end, one side was slightly bent. So I straightened that as well.
Best laid plans, been on this winding road quite a few times RC, literally always something additional. Looking well planned and will be done as well considered.
As DMiller said, you're doing as good of a job as possible. Most owners wouldn't take the time or effort to do a thorough job like you're doing. I'm pretty sure most dozers of this age wished they were owned by an RC.
The machine seems to be in a reasonable enough condition mechanical wise to do proper repairs on it. If it was something one step away from the scrap heap then something just to keep it running would be more appropriate. Anyhow, I ended up not tapping out the first roller holes to 3/4 inch as the holes were that buggered not even a 3/4 tapping drill would fix them up. So I just put in more 5/8 thread inserts. Another option would have been just to cut that entire top section out and replace it. The plasma cutter makes work like that so easy. I have been doing other stuff the last few days and I have not yet got it done, but I did just cut out the remnants of that missing spacer and found some 6mm plate and cut and bent up a whole new piece and put it in there.
RC, please pack your plasma cutter, mag drill and 5/8 inserts in your suitcase and come visit for a few weeks. I have a few D4 track frames for you to work on and sprocket rims to replace. Will free me up to nurse cows and put up some fence.
I would Glum, but I am afraid I might get eaten by a meerkat over your way. I have all the stuff back on it now. These rollers have the holes for 3/4 bolts with the sleeves for 5/8 bolts. As some sleeves were rusted out I got some tube from a local hydraulic shop. 5/8ID and 3/4OD and cut sleeves out of it. It is stainless tube as well.
It's good to see you're using Cat bolts. When I first started turning wrenches on my own stuff (machine tools like large lathes, mills, etc.), we used grade 8's from the local hardware stores as they were good enough. But when I started getting into yellow iron, I quickly realized (or maybe just believed) that Cat bolts are really that much better. It's a bit more $ and definitely more hassle to use them but I think it's worth it.
And so like sand through the hour glass, this drags on and I bore some more people with the saga. The tin duo cone seal guard on the inside of the sprocket was damaged. The final drive Guru tctractors mentioned once that these guards were essential to make the seal last a long time. So I got some 2mm think steel sheet and cut a strip 30mm wide and long story short. Welded it in there. The little bent guard that goes on top. The bolts were all that old they had rounded heads. So had to weld nuts onto them to remove them, but one had been snapped off. I tried to weld a washer and nut onto it, but failed on two attempts. the weld just snapped. Why the hell they never fixed all this up when the last person pulled that apart is beyond me. It had been recently pulled apart just before I bought it, by the fresh gasket goo on the final drive case. Any case, it is back on it's feet again now as the track frame is in position, just have not tightened the bolts up yet.
Be a good tractor when your finished with it. It's just frustrating getting it to that point.
Best to keep the small gravels out of there.
yes whoever had it apart should have rivited new guards onto the sprocket while it was off and well as fixed up the half moon bolt on gaurd. I certainly did all that when i had my D6D apart. She had done 11000 hrs when i reraced finals and swapped gears side to side. And should see me out !
Yes, Cat bolts are the best bar none. I have buckets full. I never toss one unless it's really damaged A rust pitted Cat bolt is stronger than a brand new regular grade 8. Seen it many times.
I got it all back operational today just the aircon gas needs replenishing. I purchased some aftermarket sprocket covers, but they do not even look like fitting and I will have to look at modifying them.
You have gone to a great effort to get this all back up to standard I hope she appreciates the pampering!! I will need to do some of this when I do the undercarriage on my D6H too. I should post a pic of how they stuck the idler to the track frame not sure what they were thinking. How do you find the threaded inserts? I have heard some mixed reports but I think they might not have been as precise with the prep work as you are. They look great to me but I have never used them. Do you do your own ac gas?
If your cannons are worn out, like most all 6H are, you are going to be worn out as well when you're done, both your body, and your pocketbook.
After all this pampering. Probably want a divorce now. I find those threaded inserts awesome. As the tap hole is oversize the tapping is very easy to do and easy on the tap. I know little about thread inserts and which one is best. I also used high strength retaining loctite on the insert before I put it in. I use Hychill Minus 30 in the air con. I do it myself. I found air con systems at least on these older machines are not highly complicated things. They are actually very basic. Imagine the cost to get someone out to put R134A in it. I now see in other countries where R134A used to be easily available, government's are cracking down on it. Of course those can of freeze spray and even some "canned air" are all R134A, along with those asthma puffer inhaler things apparently.
Yeah that is what worries me! The previous owners ( 2 back) had mostly stripped the bolts in the joining links of the chains, had a go at helicoils, made a mess of that, so welded them. When I looked at the machine I thought that is going to be a pain… hopefully they don’t have to come apart till they are buggered. I have now had to do both track adjusters over a couple hundred hours. We did the seals and bushes on the cannons while they were out but didn’t measure the slide guides. If they are worn out I wonder if they can be built up and re milled? It might be cheaper to upgrade the machine!
Yes I use that as well. I think it’s pretty good. AC People would have you believe that it’s super complicated black magic. I am no expert and mostly self taught, but a bit of reading and it’s pretty simple. If there is a problem in the system it gets more complicated but no worse than troubleshooting most other things from what I’ve seen so far. A guy did tell me that because it’s less dense than R134A, if the gas gets low enough (it might not have tripped the low pressure switch yet), it might not have enough to keep enough oil circulating and cook the compressor. He just said keep them topped up if they have slow leaks. Cleaning and flushing after a compressor failure is not much fun
I have heard lots of things about hychill, all from people who have R134A licences. I am sure it also makes people club baby seals to death as well. I have not had much dramas flushing air con systems, but I only have two, this dozer and a JD tractor with soundguard cab.. I just used isopropol alcohol and made sure nothing was flammable nearby.
Haha yeah that’s about the same as I’ve heard…. Maybe I should check with Greta for an expert opinion. It is supposed to be heaps better for the environment according to Hichill, but they are selling it. It’s basically highly refined BBQ gas and any muppet can get a bottle of that so it can’t be too bad. I did re-gas a ute for one guy with BBQ gas because he wanted to use that instead of pay for the HiChill. I think HiChill is pretty awesome because lots of stuff now has Ac at my place that wouldn’t if I couldn’t do it my self. The UV die is good for finding leaks too. I have only flushed the system in my Hilux and I used brake cleaner in a AC flush gun and that worked well, but I did replace the condenser and TX valve as well. I have one of the loaders to do but I was going to try to back flush the condenser in it. I’ve been told it won’t work, but I haven’t tried it?
That D6C I posted about some time back. Yes it is still here. But the track frame is finally welded back together and the rollers right to bolt back on. I found out the reason why the problem the owners have been having with rollers falling off. There is a mix of various roller brands. Some are built for 5/8 bolts and others for 3/4 bolts. The ones built for 5/8 bolts the height of the roller where the bolt passes through is less then the 3/4 ones. Add onto that an old machine from the 1960's and the threaded holes in the frame are not in new condition any more. Plus the person who installed all the rollers added an 8mm shim between the roller and frame AND they used 2 1/2" bolts. The rollers with the thick section, the ones giving trouble have about half an inch of bolt in the actual thread itself. I have 3" long bolts coming for them.
So who will break me out of jail when the government finds out what I have been doing?
Gotta do what Gotta Do!!
Why? Can’t clear your own property over on convicts isle? Lol
Is it illegal to abandon equipment in the middle of a forest? I'm sure someone would take it off your hands.
We could do anything we wanted prior to about 2001. Then the b*****d state government put a heap of restrictions on what we could do to get urban people to vote for them. For some people the government every few years has been tightening the screws on what you can clear and not clear. We got 2 D9's and a long bit of chain in just prior to the laws and got flattened what was feasible to clear. In the above photo's, that area is just on the line between where I can and cannot clear again. These two photos. the coloured one is off the government website. The blue area I am not supposed to clear, it is all too steep anyway. The white dot is approximately where the photo's were taken. The black and white photo is a govenment aerial photo taken in 1991. The red dot is in about the same spot as the white spot in the other photo. It was all cleared in about 1988. The thing that really annoys us is we legally own all the vegetation as the government sold it all to the landowner when the land went from being leasehold land (government owns it and leases it to the lessee) to freehold land (where it is owned by the owner) yet had all our rights to do with it as we see fit taken away just with the stroke of a pen.
I have the same stipulation because the proximity of a state river. I will clear what I need to clear, until a person rats me out or they see it on an aerial. Then claim ignorance. When I was in Tennessee, I built a house on the river/lake and the TVA tried to fine me 45k for talking trees down to the riverbank for a view. I claimed yankee ignorance and had to sign a primosory note and replant 50 trees or so and succumb to TVA and state inspections but I still had my view.
We also have areas we can and can't clear. We can't clear near creeks, rivers, or wetlands without approval. We cleared 200 acres several years back. We created a buffer zone for a creek that runs through and everything was good until I decided to clear an additional 20 acres on a hill. They found the 20 acres on satellite and came out to inspect and give me a talking too. They threatened to fine me but the area was fine to clear in the end.
recently a homeowner was caught knocking down 150 trees on public land to enhance his view. Hopefully he gets jail time for that stunt. a guy had a trail camera set up to watch for wildlife, and here comes a big tree sliding down the mountain!! https://www.king5.com/article/news/...quah/281-8b9f892a-8038-4946-9c58-75a4c05b7376 The county is suing the 3 homeowners for 7 million, I wish they would toss their rich white asses in jail instead. Entitled SOBs get away with all sorts of crap.
The most frustrating thing about our tree laws is that despite owning thousands of acres of freehold trees they are worth next to nothing to us. We have a couple of thousand trees for every beast we own but to receive any benefit for carbon credits and the like we would have to plant more of the bastards… that ain’t happening.
I reckon the most frustrating thing is the fact that my grandfather and probably your father paid thousands and thousands of dollars to freehold our properties so they would have the right to manage vegetation as they saw fit.(amongst other things). Then as RC says, a stroke of a pen a generation later and freehold land has no more rights than leasehold. Something else interesting, in prosecuting tree clearing offences the burden of proof realistically changes, the prosecution really doesn't have to prove you cleared the timber, you have to prove you didn't. Courts have basically accepted that no one else is going to invest the time and money required to clear land to "frame" someone. So murder someone, innocent until proven guilty, cut down a tree you own, someone decided you cant, guilty til proven innocent. Gotta love the "fairness" in that.
I didn't know the "tree" laws were so strict in Australia. If I want to watch any deforestation videos I type Australia in YouTube. I figured you guys were clearing everything.
My father drew the block we have now in 1949 as an 18 year old. One of the conditions of the lease was that he ring bark 8000 acres within 5 years. Of course he had no chance of doing that so ended up in land court pleading his case. Luckily, they allowed him to stay but you can imagine his reaction, when 50 years later, they threatened to fine him for killing too many trees. The only clearing now is regrowth on previously cleared land. There was a brief reprieve about 10 years ago when some limited clearing of maiden country was allowed for “high value agriculture”. Unfortunately, that door slammed shut after a change of government.
This seems a strange place to put a stickrake. Most of the videos these days seem to be from South American countries. Hard to find because a search in english will not bring them up.
’Tis a bit strange, fall in a hole or just come loose?
Didn't see the big tree when I went into the gully, then it is so nose heavy with it installed it does not like backing out, add some rocks to skate on and it equals fun times.
Looks like a good place to get sucked in and never be found.
Like a coyote chewing its leg off to get out of a trap, something had to go! Get a winch line on it and prepare for more fun times. You know it won't come easy and hook on to every damn root and stob on the way back up the hill.
got that bit done. Got a 500hr service to do now.
Some grass seed would probably go alright there. Iam looking at a Seabrook seeder to mount on the rippers so we can spread some seed while raking. Probably only 3 meters wide and make it so we can swap between machines. As well as his traditional agitator style he is now making one with fluted drills which is more suited to coated seeds.
I planted seed as I went, but I think not enough so am toying with the idea of seeing if there is anyone close with a spraying drone that can throw seed out. I like my seabrook seeder. A lot tougher then a drum one should a wayward stick hit it. It is a 12V one so have a 24-12V 40 amp converter on the dozer to feed it 12V. It will fit on the dozer, and the set of offsets I have. They are pretty cheap these days (the converter not the seeder) Bit over $100 for a Victron Orion brand one. But the seeder like mine with the bars is more suited to fluffy seeds. The coated seeds get churned up a bit by the bars. A combine (seed drill style seeder for our US readers) where the seed goes into a rotary elevator sort of thing would be better for the free flowing seeds. I have had the seabrook seeder lock up when it had coated seed left in it and it packed down when the seeder was not used. I will plant signal, mekong brizantha and might get some gatton panic. Bilo buffel would also love this soil, but gone are the days when you could get it for $2 a kg. Couple of photos of mekong grass as well.
Funny, as to the Mekong Grass, appearance is as what we call Field Grass here, Beef will NOT eat it, eat all around it and leave the tall, stringy stalky blades.
Great minds think alike. Just not sure yet about his new style seeder. Definitely great for coated seed but would not handle fluffy raw seed at all.
Can't say I've ever heard of it, not that that means anything. Does it grow spread out like the hat pic, or have you run over it with something?
Well the solution is obvious. Buy one of each. I doubt the seed drill type one would even handle uncoated rhodes grass. Pretty much a one trick pony. Hard seeds only I think the heifers have run all over it, it ordinarily would not have stems that thick, it seems to be on steroids there as it is in an old stickraked burn pile. Here is a photo of some other stuff. Seed is as expensive as hell though.
Well, I’ve had an interesting couple of days. Immediately after making the post above we went to muster a breeder paddock and this was the end result. Broken ribs, a nasty laceration on a leg, some bruising but otherwise OK. Our hospital system might be overloaded here at the moment but our paramedical services are world class.
Aero ambulance don't get ramped like vehicle ambulances fortunately. Hope you have a speedy recovery.
You gotta be careful around those bulls. We pull ours in 3 weeks and it's always a fight. I used to try and get them in one day now it may take a week to peel them off the cows. Once the start fighting not much will stop them. Good luck to you and hope you heal up quickly.
Sorry to hear that mate. I had something somewhat similar a couple of years ago that made me realise I wasn't bulletproof. I run about 10 bulls together in a little paddock in the off season, always mustered them on my own to the yards for semen testing every year. One time one older bull wasn't playing the game, so we had a bit of a camp draft outside and I got in a bit close, he propped and hooked at the horse and got his head under my foot. Flipped me clean off the horse and then either him or the horse run over me. Similar injuries to you although not as bad. I now no longer muster the bulls by myself. I'm not saying you did anything wrong, but that moment certainly cemented in my peanut brain that I was no longer 21 and that we are playing at a game that can have some very serious consequences. Hope you are up and about soon.
That is a bit of bad luck. I know a few people who have had close calls with bulls. They are so unpredictable. Bulls are best friends in the paddock until you go muster them, then they start fighting.
We had mustered the mob into a holding paddock and were turning them out the other side when these two started their ****. Dogs weren’t able to separate them so three of us were just waiting for them to get it out of their system. I might have taken my eye off the ball for a second to check that the cows were under control on the other side of the fence. When I looked back they had separated and were coming my way at 100mph. Could have been much worse.
Yeah RC, gotta love that about bulls. They'll have a fight over a fenceline for an hour and smash the entire strain down. Then they'll stand together afterwards, best mates, you can almost hear the bastards lamenting they haven't got hands so they can have a beer and a smoke as they laugh about what they've done.
Time for ribeyes.
Sorry to hear about your troubles Queenslander. Best wishes on a speedy recovery. My father in law got run over by a bull 20 years ago. It was just after my wife and I started dating. His 75 year old dad saved his life by cracking the bull on the head with a chunk of 2" steel pipe he carried when working the herd. The bull just walked off like nothing had happened, my father in law went to the ER for busted ribs. Lucky it wasn't worse than that.
Yeah, I don’t blame the bulls, they didn’t have a gripe with me, I should’ve given them more space. A nurse in the ED ward said she was surprised at the number of cattle and horse related injuries she had seen in her time there and most of them were people my age. Might be a sign.
I know a farmer who was saved only because he was able to roll under the bottom fence wire. Bull was about to trounce on him. He said bulls are too unpredictable to turn your head away for even a second.
I hope you get well soon. Bulls can sometimes be aggressive and hurt people.
My father had an Angus bull that hated me and every time I tried to go out back, to go fishing or hunting, it would try and kill me. One day, when I was 11 or 12 I had had enough and went out to the fence line with my Daisy Red Ryder while my dad was at work. I shot that bull, right in the eye, from about 15‘. It took off like it got stung by a bee, on a straight line, over the sand pit banking. It went ass over tea kettle and broke his neck. I went inside and started playing with my Atari game. Dad came home, went out to feed the cows and no bull. He came inside and grabbed a beer and went to look for the bull. We had about 10 to 12 acres, mixed with woods and pastures. He found the bull, came inside and called the butcher. They weren’t supposed to take dead animals but knew my dad well enough. Then we spent 2 hours, with an old 9N Ford, with a single boom loader, getting it on the trailer. Didn‘t get back home till almost midnight. I finally told him about 10 years ago and thankfully, he took it well.
And everyone had steaks
Pretty gruesome way for any animal to die.
Breaking its neck, running from what it thought was a bee sting. Good friends wife just got Titanium and screws and ruined her ankle, running from hornets. That damn bull put me against a fence, more than a few times and ruined a couple of summers of fun, when you can’t play, in your own backyard. I have lost a few animals from hunting also. Certainly try not to do it but for anyone that hunts and kills animals to eat, if they say they have never wounded an animal and didn’t get it, they are lying. Spent 2 summers at said butchers working for cash, before bolt guns. Cows were done with a 22 short through the ear. Seen some nasty stuff, that bull died easy.
500 hour service, everything looks fine.