What an awesome machine. :usa This unit will be headed for Chevron's White Hills Project, North of the Brooks Range. Building and maintaining Ice Roads. Let the fun begin.
Don't drop the rippers on the "ice roads" Sweet machine for sure and I do love the show ice road truckers on Discover.
Oh my! nice....
Sweet! Ahh you gonna run it or are you still trying to stay off the slope? Also how did your big dig turn out? You didn't scratch the counterweight on that new 385 did you?
Moldboard length ? Hi Randy, What's the original moldboard length ? I see you have an extension on. Hope you got her tuned up the way you want.
New toy - NO steering wheel. Hi, Randy. Nice! Thanks for sharing. If you're operating it, try to remember that the old habits won't work in that cab - there's NO steering wheel. LOL. I got to have a good look over an 'unscratched' 14M at the Best Show On Tracks in June. They wouldn't let me take it for a play in the sand-pit 'cos I'd forgotten to bring my 747-400 license with me. LOL. I thought it had great visibility but I wouldn't want to do some of the jobs with it that I have done with earlier Cat graders with that PLASTIC fuel tank where it is. Like flattening scrub without removing any of it for helicopter pads in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. It coulda bin a long walk home.
Going to put that nice new blade on the ice roads? glug,glug, guess if you're going to plunk one it might as well be first class
I sure hope it has a real big heater in the cab!!!!!
The real question, stand up or sit down? :stirthepot
Standing up or????????????? Hi, Turbo 21835. I dunno if you've had your butt in one of those M series machines yet but I can assure you that it is going to be a trifle hard on your back - and a few other things - standing up and trying to reach those joysticks while operating. They just ain't made fer it. LOL.
I don't think they will move without you but in the seat, the parking brake comes on automatically. The county that I work for has one and the operator hates it. When it was demo'd I ran it in the parking lot and thought it was great, the other day he let me run it for an half hour and it takes a little getting used to the steering as I wanted to over steer it. The older G's and H's I wouldn't touch the steering wheel, this one seemed like it would wander all over but I had my hand on the stick and should have let it go.
Fuel Tank's Just behind the cab in the Bug-Body. Yep Dead-man switch in the seat. This can be turned off with some computer trickery. Are you guy's gonna Chain the rear wheels?
nice' i wonder how much extra for the diamond tuck eng. covers especially if they say cat on them any where,just kidding nice machine:notworthy
Life is Good The plan right now is I will split shifts on this machine. 2 weeks on and 2 weeks off. When you’re on shift you run 7-12s. The dealer has flashed all 5 of the latest SW updates, which resolve the steering problems and shifting problems. That was part of the deal. They have also put Artic oils in the machine. That’s why I went up and ran it in Fairbanks before we ship it any further north. Had NO problems, but it was only 0 degrees the day I tested it. Where it’s going it will get a lot colder. I actually took it out and plowed some streets in Fairbanks and a parking lot. It’s a lot of grader to be plowing on city streets, but I didn’t run anybody off the road, so that was a good sign. In regards to the ripper; it will have a toolbar installed, which holds Kennametal cutting edges. Our shop builds the toolbar. It’s designed so we can pull the segments off the ripper and install them on the moldboard if we need to. The moldboard is 16 foot with a 2 foot extension. I know this is the MG section, but since Lashlander asked, the 385CL did fantastic. I double shifted it, two 10-l1 hour shifts for most of the job. It got greased and serviced four times a day, both lunch breaks and while switching operators between shifts. It dug approxiamately 500,000 yards in 42 ½ days. The job was bid to take 60 days and so we were done ahead of schedule. It’s parked in our Fairbanks yard right now and will get barged to Greyling in the spring to work on the Greyling Airport project. I love the machine, my only complaint is it like hydrocarbons. Burns about 22 gals an hour and when your shipping fuel to remote location it’s not cheap. I wish I could spend more time on here tonight, but I have to work tomorrow putting a 160H back together. Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving (my favorite holiday) Randy
Thanks for the info Randy. I never thought about this being in the grader section. I believe I got you in trouble for this once before. I'll try to leep that in mind.
Sure they are. Ever run a hoe on a sewer crew and your cut is at your maximum depth. Sometimes standing up and running the joysticks while you are peering into the bottom of the hole is the only way to get things done. Just had to stir the pot about that other post that wont die. I had the pleasure of running a 140M for an hour. Nothing like sitting in the cockpit of a fighter jet to blade a little dirt around :drinkup
Hey Randy, Do you have any more info and pics of the job/385, that you could post in another section of HEF so no one yells at you ? Or did you already do that and I just missed it?
That is a sweet grader! Don't want one, but looks like a real beaut to run. As above, when do we get more feedback?
The 140 M here runs just fine with me trying to stand up, not that I would want to run it that way. IF I hit the park switch while moving - in gear - it engages brakes disengages transmission stops pronto, test done in 1st gear for verification purposes only. Maybe other machines run different, but that is what happens here.
How has the Ice road Maintenance gone?