New here and kinda ignorant when it comes to graders. I have a belly blade on my Mack dump truck, but am looking for something more useful. I've ran a knuckle buster a bit and a hydraulic unit once. I can live with either but do like the "float" of the hydraulic units. My biggest question is - how do I tell if a unit is 6WD or just the rear wheels are powered?? So far I have been assuming that if the front tires are treaded (not ribbed) that it is a 6WD unit. This method proved wrong at the last auction. Are the hubs on the steer axle bigger on the 6WD units?? No matter if it is 4WD or 6WD, I can't seem to find a drive shaft running forward in most of the pictures?? Is the front axle hyraulicly driven?? I would like a 6WD unit but I am working on a budget.
only austin-western and their sucessors used a front driveshaft. As far as I know all other graders w/ powered front wheels use hydraulics in some form or other. Unless you are looking at very new machines 99% of what's out there is rear wheel drive only. All Austin-Westerns are all wheel drive. Good Luck P.S. How old is the dumptruck/ belly blade rig you have? could you post some pics of it?
Identifying AWD AWD is a huge selling feature so if your looking at online listings or used equip magazines it should be obvious. It will be a little hard to tell from a picture unless its a angled shot and you can see behind the front tires. Attached are a couple pics of a AWD front axle on a Champion.
Here are some belly blade pix: http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d177/cowboybart/MACK/MackandStar.jpg I can take more if you need specifics.
I don't know how to get the pix up - just the links are showing up.
You did good, love that high desert. For short time many,many years ago lived in Carter Wyoming mainly remember the sheep and the ALCO Big Boy's
If you want to buy a good and used machine, I suggest you can find a formal dealer and assure it is safe deal
great pics,I didn't know they made them that sophisticated, I had only seen old ones,seems like it would be neat for when we deliver a load of gravel or dirt to a logging road, could deliver and rough grade with one machine, one trip
I moves loose stuff around pretty good and can smoothen a road that is rutted up. I can't put a crown on a road or blaze a path thru the sagebraush with it though.
Nice pics. Can you control each side up & down independently? We use these trucks for snow plowing logging roads & light grading in the summer. Ours are a bit different.
An option I've not seen in Australia Years ago when I was running a water truck on housing subdidvisions I would go for the blade to trim the road but didn't have one (old grader operator habits die hard) Wish I had a bellyblade back then. Nice clear pics, thanks Brandt
It is not designed to tilt L to R. I could hook the down force cylinders up on individual valves. Do to age/wear, this would only give me about 2" of tilt so I decided againt doing it that way. I have up/down control, blade curl control and an unlock (elec over hydlc) to get it to swing and kick out the loose on the L or R. I do not have the swing cylinder hooked up yet so I have to get out and manually swing the blade. I bought the set up from a salvage yard in Des Monies, IA.
There are some graders made buy Avelin Barford which are awd ,but use drive shafts and diff ,they are common in the uk as the military bought loads of them.
Also just to say make sure the awd system works properly before buying if it does not it can be expensive to fix
We just purchased an old M65 Fiat Allis to maintain our subdivision roads. I wanted to discuss the machine but am unable to start a new thread as a new member. I have read all the posts that remotely affect me as a new owner and someone new to operating this machine all the way back to the beginning of the forums. I don't wish to high jack this thread. Can anyone help me out by starting a new thread for me? I'd like to learn what I can about the machine and the repairs that it needs as well as what to watch out for. I have a suspicion that back when they made the engine bigger and more powerful than the D and the DD that they didn't make the gear box stout enough to handle the added hp. Thanks for any help. the nooby
No Worries - feel free to hijack.
Well, I bought one. I pick it up in Feb, because my truck/trailer won't be tagged until then. It is a '69 Austin-Western Super 300. I'll post pix when I go down and get it.
This is to RayfromTX. I think that they made some changes to the transmission to the D graders and the M65 over the years as there were some difference in the gear ratios in different years and they also went from straight cut gears to a constant mesh transmission at some time. You can also get good advice from the Construction Equipment section of allischalmers.com. Most of the members there are involved in the farm equipment side but there are some helpful people on the construction side.
Thanks Don- The grader we bought was the M65 and we had a broken tooth on the top shaft gear in the high low box. We have been unable to locate one so we took it out which leaves us in high range. I think this may be a serious problem. We get the machine back today and we will soon know if we can even cut our road in the low gear of the high range. This hasn't been fun so far. Does anyone have a suggestion for finding this gear other than googling things like M65, salvage, parts, and things like that?
Ray, my D grader does not have the high/low box and I would love to have it as it is a little too fast for some work. I end up running the engine at a fast idle a lot but it still has enough power to slip the wheels. There are some places like Thill Tractor and Minnpar that carry some Allis parts. The later D graders and the FA65 may have also used the same parts. Again I suggest posting on allischalmers.com as they are specifically Allis guys there. This auxiliary box may have been made by someone other than Allis as well. My parts book shows it being mounted with an adaptor plate.
Thanks Don- I joined on the allischalmers site but a search didn't turn up anything useful. I will post there later. It turns out our machine is a Fiat-Allis 65 which according to your research puts it between a '75 and a '79. It runs great, starts right up, charges the battery, is pretty tight and quiet and smooth. It runs at an acceptable speed in 1st gear but we would really benefit from getting low range back. Tires, hydraulics and blade are all in decent shape. We are thinking to continue to look for the top shaft gear or failing that, we have found the same gear in a shorter cluster that we may be able to cut off that cluster and weld to our cluster. Is it possible to build a tooth back on to a broken gear? That sounds sketchy at best but I am not a machinist.
I didn't know the M65 had a high low box. I ran one for a couple years and it didn't have it, or I never found it. It really needed one too cause the owner had put on taller military surplus tires that geared it up. Finally traded it for a Galion the same size and it had the two speed box. Had a Farmall diesel engine in it that never would start on its own cause I think the injector pump was worn out. When it did start, it would smoke pure white for about 2 minutes and run rough as hell. It was the same engine as is in a 706 Farmall (or maybe 656). Was great to run in parking lots and subdivisions around all those curbs.
Ray, a good machinist can work miracles. They might be able to build up a new tooth or even cut you a new gear.
I ran the machine yesterday for the first time and it ran fine. Like you Don I run it in 1st gear just above idle for most things and when it is smooth going, I can throttle up a little. I ran 1 1/2 miles of bar ditches yesterday as we were expecting rain last night. I graded a mile of road. I am now the hero of the subdivision. Those sections of road have never looked this good. We have 3 1/2 miles of caliche road that has only been graded once or twice a year for the last 30 years. They started out poor and never had enough maintenance material brought in. When the man that graded our roads brought in base, he used 3/4" to dust. The last couple of years the road has gone through to dirt in many areas and down to solid limestone in others. Grading is difficult because of all the rock we have and due to the poor construction of the road from the git go. Ditches are poor, crown is not right, and the driving surface is not good material. I started bringing in 18 yd loads of good 1 1/2" to dust base last year and we repaired and replaced some failed culverts with volunteer labor. There are 30 owners out here and about 5 of us really pitch in. It will take years to get the road beds built back up properly. We got the expected rain last night so after it gets light I'll go out and see how my work held up and spend the day working on the roads while they have a little moisture. BTW- 4th gear on this thing hauls butt. 3rd is really as fast as I can ever see going and is probably still to fast for real safety. Looking for advice for a guy that has one day in the seat so far.
Ray, I had never operated a grader until I bought my old Allis D grader. I bought it as sort of a retirement hobby and to make a little holiday cash on the side by doing some private driveway construction and maintenance around the small island that we live on. Yes they really haul butt in 4th. Our island is quite hilly so I don't get in 4th that much. The machine would actually be fine without a high/low box if they had only used higher ratio crown and pinion. I rigged up a heel and toe foot throttle to make it easier to double clutch when shifting through those straight cut gears when running down the road. It didn't have power steering so I have also rigged up power steering because very little of the work that I do is in a straight line or very long on this island.