Yair . . . I have been on the road awhile and chanced to happen on a few folks watching a stickshift D7 digging out a real large stump. I parked up and joined them and listened in delight. The operator knew what he was doing and was pushing the old girl pretty hard, she'd lug down and grunt and you could almost count the cylinders firing and then he'd throw the clutch . . . but never once he stalled it. A couple of blokes were going on about how the thing was *****ed and the operator was killing it and an engine shouldn't bog down like that. They had obviously never heard a DD working and I tried to explain the tractor was running fine, the engine coupled to the tracks with no converter but I don't think they were convinced. Cheers.
G'day Scrub here's some pics of old Heidi the D7G we had at Casy Station, Antarctica. I was down there for a year in 2003/2004. Old direct drive had more levers than I ever saw before but it was a hoot to operate, we used it mostly for pulling sleds when building the Casey runway and also taking gear up to Law Dome which was 240km round trip. A couple of pics of her blizzed in, took a while to dig her out!!!
Those old engines were long stroke with a ton of flywheel, boatloads of torque and yes, they sounded like Thor's hammers when pulled down and working like an old plow horse, as you say you can almost count them firing. Stand close enough you can almost feel every pulse. The converter gives you some torque multiplication and when it stalls you have to give her more turns to make it go, higher rpm engine with less foot pounds, which is just the opposite of the system with direct drive. Direct drive and a pony motor, steam locomotives, radial engine aircraft, Lord I was born in the wrong era....
You guys are teasing this old man but keep it up!!That D7 is only 4 cylinder so when you lug it down you can really hear those jugs popping.they were made to work in that low RPM range,they were cammed to be efficient any place they were as long as they were running.The only problem I ever had with a D7 was while boxing out a road in a new housing development our "mechanic" who was one of the brothers that inherited the business from their father and probably could not spell mechanic told me that the dozer was smoking too much while I was pushing and I should not be working the machine so hard but machine had a hole in the intake manifold so the engine was getting the fuel of a turbocharged engine but was only getting the intake pressure of a naturally aspirated engine so it was way overfueled and of course it was going to smoke.The brother "mechanic" in charge of the wrenches asked me once if I thought that that hole made the dozer smoke so it was obvious that he did not understand things too well. I also got a reprimand from our mechanic "Arnold" at a different company I worked for because I was driving our lowbed with our Brockway tractor that had a 318 detroit and was gearing down for a railroad crossing and someone who was friends with Arnold thought that the the engine was turning too slow as I approached the tracks while looking to see if a train was coming but he was just jealous that that detroit could sound so good while that jake was slowing me down!!Ron G
Yair . . . Good stuff fellers, you know where I am coming from, thanks for replies. Its fascinating for me to see pictures like that! Thanks Zed. Cheers.
And the three cylinder Cats are awsume sounding under load also. A unique sound for sure. I'll try to get a video of my 1939 Model 11 patrol under load this summer.
about 45 years ago I watched a guy push dirt uphill to repair a large dam that had failed. he was running a D73T with a very worn out motor. It was about 95 degrees, I was above and behind him looking down with the sun low and at my back. he would push a load in low, pull down till you could count the pops, pull the clutch till the motor hit the governor then pop in the clutch and do it all over again. took him about three hits to get to the top. another time when I was younger yet, I watched a guy push up broadbase terraces with a D814A. it never seemed to lug down much at all, and would usually burn the tracks in second against a full blade if he got careless and gouged. that tractor was owned by a guy who was absolutely meticulous in keeping that tractor in top shape and it really ran like it. it also had hyd boosted control levers for steering which looked kind of little to me at the time, he could run them with one hand over both levers. I was about 13 at the time.
Yair . . . I love these discussions about old gear and how things used to be. So oldirt you are saying it had the Cat straight pull controls that worked back and forth in a console projecting from the dash rather than levers through the floor? That straight pull actuation felt very strange to me after thousands of hours on the Allis's which just had a simple pivot. Cheers.
When they improved the road to my land, they used a direct drive D8H with a cable scraper to haul out the clay. The operator let the clutch out and hit the throttle at the same time and it lugged right down, poured out the black smoke but never stalled despite the low RPM when the clutch was let out. I think the County still has the 2 D8H's purchased new in about 68 with the CCU's and cable scrapers. The one used on my road had new undercarriage and although it needed some work on the pup motor, ran great. They thought about trading them in but Finning was only going to give them about $10,000 a piece for them. They figured they were more useful to keep.
Here is a pic of the old D7 that smoked,I should have included it in my post but I didn't have a pic of the old long nose Brockway.I took the pic from an EC200 Ackerman that I was loading trucks with at the time.Ron G View attachment MVC-005F.JPG
Yair . . . Nope. I'm just be'in smart azz picky Welder Dave but he would have actually pulled the clutch in.( big grin) I hear and can see what you are saying though, those old girls can pour out the coal. Cheers.
I spent a lot of time on D-8 14A's and 36A's feeding crusher. Most times w/ the 36A being turbo'd if you saw smoke coming out the stack it was time to either lose part of the load or grab a gear. The 14A not so much. How many stick cat skinners know how the Johnson bar got it's name? Mike
If I would just shut up I would read the answer and pretend that I knew all along but noone happened to say it within earshot that I could hear since 1960 and I have heard the reversing lever called that since I started back then so let me hear it,it's my turn.Ron G
I stopped to watch a local guys powershift D7G working once, kind of disappointing, all I could hear was planetaries singing.
RonG, The Johnson bar was the name of the reversing lever in a steam locomotive. How it got a sexual connotation attached to it is a mystery to me. Mike
Now we all know....lol.I think I have heard that before but I will forget it again for sure at my age!!Thanks Mike.Ron G
My Dad tells a story about how he went out in the woods to pick up his Dad who was running an old D9 in the 1970s sometime. He was ripping rock deep with a single shank and he said Grandpa had it working just above idle at the point when the tracks were just about to slip, he knew exactly where that point of maximum production was. When he pulled that ripper out of the ground (it had gotten dark already) the tip was glowing a dull red.
Johnson bar goes back to the days of steam locomotives dunnit?
Yair . . . I had never heard of a "Johnson Bar" with regard to tractors until I saw it on this forum . . . somehow I have always associated it with steam locomotives and (I think) the control used to reverse the rotation of certain large marine engines. We always just knew it as the forward/reverse lever. Cheers.
I always called it the reverser.
Company I worked for more than a few years ago had three 14A, one 13A, one 17A and an old 955 direct drive track loader. Loved running them but working on the cable controls some times got painful. Two of the D8s were double drum rear winches. The last D8 was a front drum and the D7 was also a front drum. The owners would only buy junk elevator cable for these machines that were burned so bad the rope center would be extruded to the outside. It made it a problem to feed through the tubes on the rear drum units. Sometimes the cable would break inside the tube and get balled up so you could not pull it back through. A couple of times I had to use a pick up or wheel loader to drag the monster free. The seats were all bench types and all had holes so bad the operators carried a couple of pieces of old carpet with them. Throw those over the top and get to work. After a year or so that I was there we finally got the owners to spring for some repair and reupholstery for the two most used machines. The three 14A machines had Johnson bars on them. The 13A had the gear shifts and no Johnson bar. The 955 was that way also. Anyone remember what they used to call those machines with all the shift sticks. There was a name for them. The little 955 was hydraulic and had the steering booster. It always leaked the oil down into the steering clutches. We just carried a couple of bleach jugs of oil to fill the booster when we wanted to run the thing. The pony motor also didn't work and they wouldn't fix it. We used to push start the thing all the time. There was H to pay when some one killed the motor pushing into a bank and the bucket was filled. We would have to drag the machine backwards to start it again. If you didn't hit the clutch just at the right time the tracks would just skid across the ground. Loved the feel and sound of all those old dogs.
What ever he did I think he was trying to see how much torque it actually had because he put it in gear before the engine had a chance to speed up first.
Yair. . . Gotcha mate, as I said I was just being a smart azz. Direct drives are completely different to a power shift or torque converter drive . . . the only slip they have is between the tracks and the ground but the style of engine used back then was very forgiving. Cheers.
I think the Johnson Pry Bar is the origin of the American colloquialism; just about every erect lever that someone pushes on has been called a "Johnson bar". (The Johnson Pry Bar is one of those ubiquitous things like a hand truck or hand cart or hand trolley, a shoulder tall hickory wood shaft with a pair of small steel wheels and a steel ledge at the bottom, used for shifting very heavy things, like machinery, in the old days.) Darn good comments about DD dozers! Thanks to Scrub, et al!
Did you do much pulling with dd tractors Scrub? Sometimes, when tugging on a stubborn tree, I think a dd makes a difference. Throw the clutch, let the other tractor drag you back a bit, then snap it back in. Makes for a long day throwing levers though, compared to a ps.
You don't mean 'knuckle buster', do you? The mechanical graders were called that...
I have a 17a and I was using it to pile trees, after 8 or 9 hours I could hardly even pick my arms up. I bought a 10k last year and I think it about doubled my cycle times lol
From Wikipedia: "A Johnson Bar is a control lever on a steam locomotive, used to control the timing of the admission of steam into the locomotive's pistons. By controlling this timing, the amount of power delivered to the wheels is regulated, as is the direction that the wheels rotate, giving the lever the alternate name of the reversing lever. Historians have not identified the reasons why engineers called the reversing lever a Johnson Bar, but the reversing lever is described in both British, and American railway journals of the time."
The Komatsu D41 dozer was a direct drive but had a foot clutch but the transmission and the control shifted like a powershift.It has been years since I ran one but if you were not moving and the tracks were not spinning it got awfully quiet in the operators seat.Ron G
scrub.. I was young and that was over 50 years ago, so what I remember was a small console that were simply hydraulic control levers. I saw the operator holding one hand over them most of the time. I don't really remember where they were mounted, except sort of forward of his seat. I do remember listening to my dad ask him how he liked those "cheater" steering levers and he replied that it was like heaven to him. That tractor did not smoke at all. about twenty years later I was at a landfill to look at an old D7 17A (which I didn't buy) and this guy was using a D814A on a scraper. He was an old hot rodder and figured out how to increase the rpm and fuel on this old girl and I must say it put on a real show. He could take off in a faster gear (I don't know which), start a cut and before the bowl was full he was running out of power, so he then clutched and downshifted so fast it sounded like a powershift. Never went back there again, but I remember that sound.
Yair . . . Excellent to see the interest in this thread and as always if it keeps the conversation flowing don't worry about going off tropic. Gotcha oldirt . I guess if you had been used to manual lever actuation the advent of hydraulic boost would have been a revelation. Queenslander . Never did more than a few days on dd D8 . . . many thousands of hours though on Allis HD21s with hand clutch, torque converter and two speed gear-box. I reckon you are right in that the clutch tractors roll back from the load better and allow two good operators to "get in time"better than a powershift when rocking a tree . . . particularly if you had visual on the other bloke and could read the body language. I must say I always got a perverse pleasure from running dd and I reckon my best remembered job was scooping on a road job with long hauls . . . some fills were over half a mile. I was on a nice newish cable HD16 with a Cat scoop and it got to the stage where I could go up and down that six speed gearbox without even thinking. You had to time it right of course and the trick was when changing up was to leave a bit of slack on the bowl rope so you could reach across and give the winch a flick to slow everything down as you were going through neutral. As everyone says, all those sticks kept you busy but I loved it, a hundred degrees in the water bag, covered in dust in just a pair of shorts and cowboy boots and sweating like a pig. (big grin) Cheers.
great story, Scrub.. it has been fun to visualize all these different accounts.
"like playing a piano" is the description I've heard on similar things (like running a 15 ton unit shovel on a barge, running dragline to dredge a lake, and using the swing to get it out further)
Yair . . . digger doug . That's exactly right. There are things in this old world that are beyond all understanding. With machinery a certain affinity can develop between machine and man . . . the ability to efficiently load trucks with a friction dragline would be a prime example. I ran a D6 for a feller who took on road and railway cuts with just the six and a bitzer one yard dragline . . . he just hired in road trucks as needed. They backed up to him for loading exactly as instructed and I ripped and trimmed and fed him as required . . . in the twelve months or I worked for him I never saw him ding a panel. I found some times if I thought about what I was going to do . . . say a compound two stick downshift in a Pete or a Mack I'd sometimes blow it . . . if I just let it happen without thinking there was seldom a problem. Same thing with shooting. I had a little Gevarm .22 self loader and after thousands of rounds of practice I could put holes into a thrown fruit tin shooting from the hip and very seldom miss. I should not have been possible but it became instinctive and just "happened" . . . there was no real skill on my part I really can't explain. Do you or other folks out there understand what I mean? Cheers.
I don't know for sure, but I know that they called the reversing lever a Johnson Bar in a locomotive, too. Locomotives go back before crawlers, guessing that's where we got it from. Where it came from originally? You would have to ask a railroad guy.
scrub, I totally agree with your observation that man and machine can seem to become "one". I have been on some type of machine all my life and have pretty much decided I could run anything well in short order simply because I absolutely love operating iron. probably why I am so poor, but I really wouldn't trade my experiences and desire for anything. every time I get on a tractor and begin some job I love how I can lose myself in the work, even though I wear out quite a bit sooner than when I was a kid. I remember a story told to me about a local skinner who was noted that "he could beat the crap out of that cat as the sun was going down just as hard as when he started". I know what he meant.
Yep, I only know how to operate the Deere style controls and not the best at that, was once given a 4 handle Ford and the sewage engineer was standing next to the bucket telling me where to dig. I had to tell him to get out of the way because the swing being on the same hand as the bucket and moving so fast I told him I was liable to whack him with the side of the bucket like that.
Should wander up this way sometime Scrub, My son has been out on our Cat D6-8U doing a bit of fenceline work .The old girl still can do a days work .
Yair , , , Gotcha ianoz. Those old girls are are timeless and as honest as they come . . . is that a cone clutch Le Torneau PCU? Cheers
Yes Mate , It is a cone clutch Le Tourneau . Found a place a while back to get the Clutch relined here in OZ .
Yair . . . Yeah mate I wondered about that. We had them on the HD21s of course and they were just fine while everything was in adjustment . . . and the blokes all learned to how to do it. I seem to remember if they got out of adjustment they would quickly overheat which cooked the seals which leaked oil onto the clutch and brake which then began to smoke and slip and the only way you could get back to the tanker was to dose them with the dust from the pre-cleaner or tie the blade up as a last resort. Nice Caterpillar plate clutch winches often featured in my dreams. Cheers.
I am pretty sure the CC double drum unit on my TD-18 when I was in the army was a LeTourneau and I used it for blade control,what a sweet setup it was too.I was in the first platoon and we were assigned the machine for a scraper if we needed one,the other two platoons had winches on their dozers so they had to use the front control unit for their blade and they were plagued with the cone clutch seal leaking after many hours and grabbing while trying to hold a grade.Ron G
One thing I loved about feeding glacial moraine gravel to the crusher w/ the 14/A w/ U dozer was you could load it up and almost take a nap while heading up the ramp. Mike
I had the privilege of getting personal with a D-8,14A direct drive, she is it famous Pam, extra, extra long track frame, 54" shoes and a full U, it was real easy to take a nap after lunch on a long push... I absolutely love doing precision winch work with a direct drive tractor, so much feel and finesse. I would use the strech 8's to position buildings and equipment, they were my tool of choice, I had access to D-7H's and D-8R's but didn't like the new stuff for the precise movements.
I forgot to add that I would open the excape hatch for 2 reasons, to let out the heat and so I could listen to the song...
The boys over at the ACMOC site would love to here from you. Please stop over. Mary Ann resides over there and they are compiling a history of the stretch D8s that were in Antarticia for next uyears national show. They are looking for operators stories with them.