Went and picked up my DW-21 retirement present today. It was only 80 miles and prices were understandably high to haul as over width and over weight permits were needed in two states. We spent some time a few days ago starting it up, checking and filling all the fluids and gave it a good greasing. Today we went and fired it up and cruised home. Attached is a short video for your enjoyment. Took 27 gallons of fuel and 3 hrs and 45 minutes to make the trip. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=whJISCOvLEs
Runnin' sweet and making time! Must have good tires, no blowouts and it didn't seem like much of the usual bouncing dipsy-doodle ride. Congrats! :drinkup
Well done mate That would have raised a few eyebrows along the way for sure
It did some square tire syndrone, loping, bouncing, dipsy-doodle the first 5 miles or so, then smoothed out. We got lots of waves from folks, mostly older folks.
Nice looking machine. Looks like the brakes work too. I don't think I ever operated one of those that had working brakes.
Nice paint nice ride as i watched the video i was wondering if you stopped for coffee seemed like a Sunday morning drive . I didn't notice if you were wearing your seat belt. Beverage holder or aviator goggles . Looked like alot of fun. ...Great video!
No seat belt currently on it. A new seat frame that had not been installed yet came with it to replace the rusted bucket on it. Stopped once after 2 hours for a quick relief walk in the woods, and once more after 3 hours to check the oil. My water bottle resided on the floor next to the seat. The brakes work decent although it has a little pull to the left. They got better as I used them. Lots of dust and crap came out the first few times. Not sure you can see it but there is a tire tired up under the bowl just in case an emergency stop was necessary. Did not want to peel up any asphalt. It was a nice Saturday morning drive. Even had a tail wind most of the way. LOL
Good scraper hands used to keep one hand on the bowl lever no matter that the ride was like or even if roading... not as effective on asphalt, but dropping the cutting edge was the only brake most scrapers had back then. To me as a mechanic it was a measure of the owner if his scrapers had brakes or not, the guys I worked for just laughed at the idea, one of the competitors went so far as to make sure the brake lights worked before letting them on the job!
That reminded me of the time I was the chase vehicle when we roaded a Terex scraper, don't recall the model but it was a pretty good size machine believe it had a 12-71 Detroit. We ran it around 170 across New York State on US-20. This was no new machine and the three of us doing the move had never seen it before the day we left and the two drivers who took turns had never run one before! One image in your picture that rally brought back a memory was seeing those railroad tracks. We were running through a town, actually right near where the three of us grew up, and while going flat out, forget but that thing did move pretty fast for it's size, came upon a set of tracks across a fairly new section of road so no thought about them being that rough. Well when the front end hit the tracks and bounced all of a sudden there was a squealing of tires sounding like a 747 making an emergency landing on short runway. The machine bounded a few more times with more squealing of tires. Luckily there was a wide shoulder and the driver pulled over and stopped. When we asked why he stopped so fast he said "I didn't! Then we noticed it would not shift gears. Shut it down and it would not restart. That's when we found out one of the cables had come off the battery. This thing had an electric shift Allison and when he hit the tracks it must have caused a interruption in the power to shifter causing it to go from high gear right to low gear causing the machine to slow down way too fast. Surprisingly all we had to do was clean up the cable clamp and reatach and it was as good as ever. For about a year after that you could still see the skid marks on the road!
Did you get a permit or just take off running? The time I wrote about moving the Terex scraper we had a permit but forgot the plates, boss brought them out to where we had the problem with the loose wire. After getting it fixed we went to Micky Dee's for supper. Cam back and took off again. Did not realize till we stopped for the night that we never put them on the scraper, passed a few LEO's but no one gave a second look.
I saw a slow moving vehicle triangle on the back, in my state I think that's all you need, unless you cross a bridge with a weight restriction.
Just a slow moving sign on the back. Not allowed to exceed 25 MPH with the slow moving vehicle sign. If hauled I would have needed permits in both states.
I remember my dad telling when he was moving the dw21 scraper to a new job site. Roading the scraper on a down-hill slope and the light turning red. He was thankful nobody was hurt. It was one of those events that he never forgot. Have fun Terry
Thanks for sharing the video. When I was a kid, I remember when they were building I-95 in Rhode Island they had three of those units working on the job right next to the Pawtuxet River. Some kids drove two of them into the river and if I remember correctly, all you could see was the exhaust stack sticking out of the water. The police caught who did it and their parents had to pay to repair them. It was a big deal, made all the local newspapers.
Reminds me of when I bought an old grader a few years ago. Had to road it about 25 miles to get it home. Bushing went out in the high range of the tranny after about 10 miles. The dude I bought it from came and got it, took it back and fixed it. A few days later, I set out again, and the only problem that time, was no power steering. Made for some interesting tight corners. Ended up just being a little worn piece that moves the hydraulic valve, so it was a simple fix when I got it home.
ive never roaded a DW 21. I have roaded some TS 14 Terex. we roaded them from near Delaplane ark to Cordovia Tenn. Went right through Memphis. They built Lake Ashbaugh in 1980. Dry year and ran 24 terex scrapers 24 hours a day. When we finished we mad two convoys of 12 machines to tenn. Ive also roaded cat 621,s and 631,s. Ive hauled plenty of scrapers on a lowboy.
Roading scrapers was very common back in the day. The contractor I drove piling for back in 1978 roaded a convey of 660s, 666s, DW 20s, DW21s and a couple of near new 657s from southern Minnesota to Buelah, ND a distance of just over 500 miles. The 660s and 666s traveled at about 43 to 44 MPH while the 20s and 21s only made 24 to 25 MPH. They were roaded right down Interstate 94. No one bothered them at all except for the people who would pass and then park at the side of the road to take pictures. The big boys made it to within 50 miles of the job the first day when darkness overtook them. The DW series machines got to the job the following afternoon. All of them, 17 machines total made the trip with no issues. I wonder if anyone on the board was part of that move.
One thing about roading those big machines I could never understand some of the nut cases in cars that pull right up behind or next to them going down the road. It's bad enough when driving a car or pick-up when someone gets in you blind spot, the blind spots a guy running a 666 is dealing with is about the size of a small city! Would a driver in a 666 even know if the rear wheels ran over a Toyota?
Seems like, years ago I would occasionally see a scraper going down the highway on a scraper dolly. Just the front of the machine on the dolly, and the rear tires rolling along. I haven't seen one of those for many years now.
Yair . . . . I never heard of that Clawed Backster . Trying to get my head around the steering, would they need a cross over valve between the rams to allow the bowl to track? Cheers.
Hope this made sense. Somehow I wrote my relpy in the middle of your quote. Must be bedtime.
I never thought about that. I am sure that they would have had to do something to allow it to swivel.
Yair . . . Gotcha fellers. It used to be fairly common to shift D8 size tractors by driving up onto the float and leave the scoop/scraper wheels run on the road . . . I suppose it would be frowned on now even if there were any of them still around. Cheers.
I've moved 641A's and B's with the tractor on the lobed and the can on a 2 axle dolly under the stinger. As I recall there was a small cylinder up in the hitch that controlled feed back to the hydraulic system. All I had to do was un pin one end of it and the steering was released.
Do you have any old photos?
LOL I've known farmers that roaded equipment long ways but never a scraper! Rick
Yair . . . An interesting old picture I thought . . . 1960's Belgium . . . . Cheers.
Great Picture Scrub, Thanks for posting. And cabs on them also. Never seen cabs here in the 60s. Thy came about in the 70s in the coal mines and then most others followed.