I really would like to hear from some of you what your favorite machines to operate have been, which pickups and big trucks have you liked best and why? New or old, all welcome. Pictures are a plus.
Bigger is always better with yellow iron, whatever shape it may take!
235-245--------Kenworth---------and any pickup that starts and stops.
Out of all the gear we have accumulated, my most pleasurable drive is a little Case 570LXT skip loader. Just a very agile little loader, if you use brakes, it’ll turn nearly as good as a skid steer, very responsive hydraulics...torque converter makes for much smoother and quicker direction changes compared to the farm tractors we have with loaders. With drought raging here, we have been cleaning out a few dams/ponds and this little loader will work on steeper and slipperier slopes that our 950H loader can only dream about. The better half even uses it to take lawn clippings away.
Any model John Deere 450 angle blade dozer. Or, any model Caterpillar D8 with a hydraulic blade.
I will tell you what, those little Deere dozers, especially the H’s, are way up on my list as a finish machine.
To start with I was never an "operator" so that tells you something but my two favorite machines to run and or work on would probably be Cat 966 C before ROPS cabs and a Case 1845C Skid steer loader. And a close third place would have to be a R-35 Euclid with a 12V-71 Detroit, have to get a two-smoke in there! Any one of the three will work for years with next to no problems with just common sense maintenance. Maybe not the fastest or the smoothest of each type equipment but you don't have to be a rocket scientist to trouble shoot or repair them!
As far as cool factor goes Peterbilt 359 with 2 cycle Detroit and a twin stick. Wasn’t mine but maybe someday. Had an old 5yd Trojan ( or was it the Euclid?) loader with a Detroit. I like those 2cycles. Mash your foot to the floor and you're off. As far as practical goes CTL's are the most versatile and useful for me. Tons of attachments and very capable machines. Would like to run a big combine someday. Harvest a 1000 acre field. Nothing like that around here.
I have an old 310 Deere backhoe that I use on my small farm. I absolutely love the thing. It's slow, underpowered and getting pretty loose in most every joint, but it starts easy every time and has been extremely dependable and it's really fun to operate. It's useful for so many things. There's no way this thing would be competitive on any job site today, but we seem to be a pretty good match for each other as we go off into our golden years.
Oh man... I really have to think for a while. Too many possibilities here.
I am no kind of trucker or anything, but a 359 with the round dash would be my truck of choice for a lowboy truck or hay hauling truck.
Oh, not me. My favorite Pete was the 74-75 359 with the flat top dash. I'll dig out a pic. This was my little grain hauler in the early 90s, It was a 359 before it lost a rear driver. 12,160 lbs. with full tank of fuel. It got 34 ton net with a set of super lite double hoppers.
That is just the KW in you talking!!
What about the tractor NEXT to the truck. I really do better on a tractor....less rules to have to worry about abiding by in the wide open
That is one of those 4894 Case all wheel steer jobbies. We were waiting to grab a set of trailers and hightail out of there. Had an ex brother in law driving for me at the time.
Looks like fun times!
Ok, I'll try to get serious. Excavator: 320 Cat or Hitachi 160 Zaxis Scraper: 333FT Wabco… or maybe Euclid TS-24 with the V12 upfront Dozer: D9H Grader: 16G Tractor/loader/backhoe: 780 Case Truck... yeah I like the Pete 359. Pickup: F250 Super duty , I prefer gas power. Dodge with a 12V Cummins engine is good too. Enough for now.
As long as you are getting serious I guess I should too. My favorite dozer based on the work I do mostly chasing tractors and buckets would have to be a D61 or D6N. I really prefer the Komatsu, Volvo, or Deere excavators. We all learned on Cat graders....although I have run a Dresser briefly. I would love to try a Komatsu and Volvo grader but I do not get to steal anyone else’s grader that often As far as what I know the most, run the most, love the most, it is hard to beat a Case IH 535. They are rough. If you want smooth maybe a Case IH 600. There is nothing that runs quite like a 535 though....especially with Pittsburgh power on it.
Like kshansen I was never an operator. Always on the end of a wrench or running a group of mechanics, welders and such. But I do have some favorites. My all time favorite machine is a Cypress 7280C Grapple yarder. The Madill 124 is my favorite machine to wrench on with the 7280 right behind. My favorite truck would be a Pacific P16, K19 600 HP, Allison 6061 trans with Clark 121,000 rear ends Favorite truck for a service truck would be a FL80 Freightliner. I did like the Mercedes with the 7 speed spicer. My favorite pickup truck would be a 1979 F-250 Supercab. Wished I never sold that truck.
Learning more here. Thanks!
Bigger dozer ; 35A D8 with the fuel oil torque converter and of course cable blade. For sheer joy and ease of operation, 8K . Small dozer ; old straight blade 1150 case, or 450 John Deere. Crawler hoe; spent a lot of hours in an old 1500 Insley. Both hands both feet all day, but it was fun. TLB; any of them with 2 sticks. Scraper ; Old open top double barrel 24 with V12 up front. Finishing with a Blademan, I liked the visibility from the seat of an E200 Trashnational. Grader ; Well, I thought I was in heaven on the first 12F, no more swollen wrists from the arm busting straight 12's. That clack clack...clack clack of the 12F is an enjoyable sound. A Cat pony motor cracklin on a cool fall morning, and the singing of the clutch discs on a well adjusted Cat cable control unit. Pickups with manual trans, lockout hubs and floor shift transfer case. For some of you, all of the above has no meaning, for some of you the above tells you that I am an old Dinosaur. So be it.
Most of my time was wrenching but I did run some stuff enough to understand how they were supposed to be operated. I loved the old 14A D8s with either the front or rear line controls and Johnson bar shifts. You could do a whole lot more with the 46A but they were boring compared to the manual machines. It's probably the same argument we have today with the electronic machines compared to the manuals. Toyota pickups for the stuff in the mines. Ford pickups for the woods. I started driving dump trucks on old Fords with 3208 Cat and two stick five and fours. Again, you had to be aware and thinking all the time in those. The ten and thirteen speeds just got boring after they became automatic in your head. In wheel loaders I liked the early Komatsu WA600. For smaller loaders, nothing beat a 950 or 966 in any model year. As for graders, the only make for me is Cat in G or H model. On the scraper lines, I've worked on and ran some Letourneau and running them was like being the ball in a pin ball machine. I've worked on TS24 Terex units but never got to run one. The crane in my avatar was the most fun to operate. The shovel front was removed shortly after that photo was taken and a boom and clamshell were installed. The machine ended up at a company that I worked for years later and they had installed a drag bucket instead of the clam. I ran that at times pulling coal fines out of a settling pond and enjoyed it thoroughly.
Big Dozer, D9T preferred it over any 10. Nimble by comparison. Rarely have I been so comfortable with a machine. It would make grade if you just thought about making it flat. Small Dozer, TD7E great machine. Wish I had one now. Track loader, 977L 14X with a Petersen bucket Blade, 16M Sorry I have no love for an antler rack... or ratchets (") Wheel Loader, 980H... small place John Deere 444 with a 4 in 1 Crane, 110 ton Krupp (now Grove) TLB Ford 4500/550 The 4500 would dig like crazy but was a club loaderwise. The 550 was a breath of fresh air... then there was the Dynahoe 190 Trucks Anything produced by Paccar will be fine however when I am spending my money it is a Peterbilt Pickup Dodge/Ram... Do they make another one?
A-14A for John C.
Because I'm mainly a truck mechanic and was a owner operator years ago I only like old stuff. Kenworth W900A-LH with a 3408 and straight pipes, Cab overs K100's and Pete 352's, But I have a real love for old Petes pre-1973 with the low cab. I know I have posted photos of my old Pete before and some of you are probably sick of seeing it. That truck handled winter conditions better than any rig I have ever driven, it was a sure footed old girl. And it was a first off aluminum tilt hood {Oct 1966}. Even though it needed a paint job real bad it was still a looker because it looked old. Everywhere I went the radio was a-buzz with chatter about my old fender flopper Pete. Everything under it was in real good condition and that Big Cam III would run, I liked nothing better that passing a shinny new rig with Cat power.
Dynahoe you say? I have only seen pictures thanks to the wonderful Mr. Keith Haddock and a few for sale. Those really looked like a remarkably we thought out machine for their time. I need a few.
I do not think anyone around here is going to get tired of looking at that! That is a beautiful machine for sure and for certain! The 8 looks good too.
Here is a picture for you of my Grandfather’s D6B. She is still around. That is from a couple years ago. First dozer I ever ran.
Bring earplugs if you get to run one.
of all the heavy equip.I have operated the 983 cat track loader is still my pick. and 955l is second choice, little 613 cat paddle pan is a fun mach. to run and will do a lot of dirt movin, john deere backhoes for me work best. i did run an 8240 terex dozer for a couple weeks but prefer loaders, much more versitile. dodge pickups ,kw&pete
How did you like the 8240? I always wanted one of the small frame Terex’s.
really had to watch the 40 0n soft ground could stick it quickly 12x5 semi u blade and no winch made it nose heavy other wise a real mover 6-110 detroit powered
6-110? The only engines I remember in 82-40's were 8V71s. Not saying it never happened. Got to play with an 82-50 with a 12V71 once, I kind of liked that one. Also had a local guy that had an old Euclid TC 12 twin powered Dozer, It ran but the poor old thing really needed some expensive love to be anything more than yard art.
Dynahoe was a machine I grew up with... it is amazing I can hear anything. Those 353's can really bark. Dad was a Dynahoe guy. I was 10 or 11 when the first one showed up and they were with him for a long time. 190's and a 160. I see them tucked up in peoples wards here more frequently then I would think. Mostly 200's here. Stay out of the fish fields with it if you run one. the 190 weighed just short of 20,000. I found this one when my Dad was sick. Near as I could tell it was one he ran for a guy he worked for. I framed a couple of them. He referred to them as photos of the "office."
this one had an 8 that came unglued was transplanted. campbell bros. n va. area had about 40 pieces of euc,terex eq. ranging from early 50s to when e&t quit building.they could pile some stuff together
washington gas light co. had a herd of those
The Dynahoe’s were Bucyrus-Erie owned were they not? I remember reading about the big 4x4 model with the four equal sized tires. That looked like quite a machine! Since I am already thinking of B-E, does anyone have any experience with their all hydraulic excavators of about the some time period?
There was sure a FINE looking Insley for sale not all that long ago over in the desert, AZ or NM maybe. The owner had a clam shell, a dragline bucket and the shovel front for it in very nice looking condition. I am not up on my Insley nomenclature, so it very likely was not a 1500.
Hy-Dynamic Co then B-E.
Dozer Cat D10-84W Loader Cat 992C and 988B