Just a few pics of my old 8 in my shop, its been my rainy day project for about a month now. I am thinking after I cleaned the oil cooler out it should run a little cooler. I have never seen one so plugged with RTV and flakes of stuff.
Shop Crane Nice overhead bridge crane.
rebuilt the transmission rebuilt the torque rebuilt the steering clutches put all new bearings and seals in the cross shaft (bevel gear) new pistons and liners crank bearings water pump camshaft all new pulleys, belts and rebuilt the reversable fan rodded out the coolers and rad recon turbo recon fuel pump recon heads Nothing 40 grand worth of parts and many hours of head scratching in the shop can't fix!!!
haha thanks, i built that a few years ago thinking it was a waste of money..... can't tell u how handy it has turned out to be now that I have torn apart a few D8's
There's a hole - - - - - Hi, Catskinner77V. I hate to have to tell you this but there appears to be a hole right down through the middle of your D8 and I honestly think that machine would be a little 'gutless'. LOL. I'm with Northart on your bridge crane. There are times that they are worth their weight in gold - well, almost. I extended one for a couple of friends in their truck repair shop some years ago. Originally, it was only wide enough to span a truck with about 6'' to spare either side. I extended it so that it was wide enough to allow them to lift an engine or gearbox out of a truck. slide it across the crane and set it down on the floor beside the truck without moving the crane. It made life a LOT easier in that workshop.
Always nice to do it yourself, and have your own shop. Let us know how everything progresses. Trbo
Skinner, you saved youself a ton of coin by doing it yourself. Last in frame I did I had a field mechanic help to put it back together, by the time you pay travel time and mileage and get about 7 hours work out of him you can kiss $1K a day good bye.
you've got that rascal tore down!
saving coin Yea Pete, I wouldn't be in business if I couldn't pull a wrench myself. Just can't afford to get things done at a shop anymore. I have to get our local Cat dealer out sometimes to do some heavy press work like pressing the drive sprocket off if I ever have to get into the final drives :Banghead haha They drive out from the city, which is an hour, it takes him 30 minutes to get set up and pull it off, because I help him. Then he drives back to the city and I get a bill in the mail for 1200 bucks!!!! i couldn't believe it the first time I had them come out. after my 2nd final drive I figured out u can remove the case, the sprocket and the bull gear all as one unit, so thats what I did and just took it to them to get them to press it apart and change the seals and put it back together. much cheaper.
It just amazes me to this day( and I'm young) at how some guys hire every little repair or welding or fabrication out. There is one contractor in the area that every little weld he needs done or even build up, takes it to the weld shop, or has them come to him. Same with anything more than just routine service work. Always told guys when they asked bout working in the shop all winter. "You dont' make any money working on these things all winter but you sure do save a lot." Trbo Just a few shop pics, including our MEAN gaurd dogs.
The only thing i think you could do is steam clean that iron before you take it a part?:usa
steam cleaning? well I took the machine apart when it was about minus 40C outside, so steam cleaning is really out of the question. I just wash everything up good in my 50 gallon solvent tank as i take things apart. i know it should have been washed down properly. BUT as talked about in previous post, a young Cat apprentice was saying how dirty and unorganized another fellows repair pictures looked. well what do u think happens when you have to rebuild a final drive in the bottom OF a gravel pit, or have to pull a transmission in the middle of the bush? because I have done all those things, and you just do your best with what supplies and resources you have. your never goin to elimate all the contamination, and in my past experiance, rebuilding anything... anywhere is when you introduce the most dirt in the system, a thousand hours of normal operation will never add up to how much dirt you introduce into the system when you tear it all apart and rebuild it no matter how clean your shop and parts are..... thats why we use cheap 30 wieght and high EFF filters for the first 30 hours or so. then switch it up with with T-04 30 tranny oil..... just what we do haha.
just wanted to say one more thing, one time my cousin and I totally rebuilt the engine in a D8H. top to bottom, took the block in for machining the whole nine yards...... we put her back together and the transmission didn't last an hour. The motor and drive train wore out together and were paired up perfectly.... totally worn out haha. and when we put that fresh 342 back in, it had way too much power and totally mangled the drive train. after the tranny the left final started to pile up after that the torque went.... went from a simple engine rebuild to a total overhaul.
pictures hi catskinner77v great pictures of a job well done i wonder if the cat apprentice is still try to work the camera so he can show us how to do it properly or maybe he has lots of cleaning to do more pictures if you have them thanks graham :drinkup
Hi Deas Have you ever been to Mick Turners workshop at Nerang. Overhead electric hoists run the length of the workshop, and every bit as good as Hastings Deering W-shop. They can make a hard job seem easy. I used them a lot for major rebuilds over the years.........C ya.........Ray
wow looks good and i wish i had the over head crane in my little shop. any more picture since the snow is all gone now??? thansk KoO Published Author
hahaha i was just wondering the same thing, I think i remember him saying that he was a 3 year apprentice at a Cat dealer, I was gonna say "so that means they advanced you from a 22 inch push broom to a 28 inch???" hahaha
Hey guys, you gotta start somewhere. I think the apprentice you refer too perhaps regrets some of his statements by now. I'm a graduate fresh out a CAT training program for a dealer, but i've worked for contractors outside of the CAT world in the real world as well. Cat has some pretty high standards they set that they can't even meet. I think our appretice friend needs some field helper time. Things have to be done effieciently and that usually requires a sacrifice in contamination control. It's awful easy for someone to look in on a job and point out mistakes.... Personally i didn't see anything wrong with the pictures in the other thread of the rebuilds.
Turner's workshop. Hi, Ray. No, I've never been into Turner's workshop but I've heard that there is not much they can't tackle there. There is usually some fairly heavy gear standing around there, although he does seems to have moved out the HD31 and those 'Terrible-X' scrapers that hadn't moved for some little time. I suspect that another workshop that might be worth a look would be Don Mearns' West Moreton Engineering at Swanbank. That is the home and originating workshop of the repowered Cat D11's that pull his 12 metre root plows. He also has a bit more yard space than Turner's and a bit more 'junk' (?) laying around.