I have had this arguement many times with my dad and numerous other older operators, they all like the H better..... I for one like the K. What are your fellas opinions and why?
Don't put us in a position like this...........how are you going to choose between two perfect machines??? I think my Stanley lunch cooler fit on the K better than the H.They are both very well balanced reliable and powerful dozers,It seems that the K was a little heavier and had a little more power than the H but they were both just lovely dozers.Don't be trying to start trouble here!! Ron G
Now THIS could be a real DEBATE. Hi, CatSkinner77V and RonG. I won't attempt to choose between the two models. What I will do is to put my own observations about them and leave it up to the individual to decide for themselves. Firstly, from my observations and reports from many others, the D8H seemed to give a little less trouble with transmissions and final drives, possibly due to having a little less power and weight to load them up. Next, I personally found there to be nothing to choose between them as far as balance was concerned. If I HAD to make a choice, I would say that the 'K' had a slightly better power-to-weight ratio than the 'H' but it would be marginal in my estimation. Having said that, the controls on the 'K' were easier to use, EXCEPT for the inter-connected steering clutches and brakes. I have never yet operated a larger Cat (I found a well-adjusted Cat D5B to be an exception.) that had inter-connected steering that was as delicate in its steering as the older D8H's/D9G's. The best test I have found for this is to pick up scrapers on the run with no bump. This takes precise timing and control of the turn as the scraper is picked up. I did manage to perfect the art with the 'K' series by using both the steering clutch control and foot brake pedal together, just as I would with the older machines without inter-connected steering but I found it noticeably easier with the older machines with separate clutch and brake controls. But maybe that is just me too. The 'K' was a slightly more productive machine but seemed to have a little more downtime than the 'H's'. Maybe for operators the 'K' was preferable due to the easier controls. Possibly the 'H' was better from an owner's point of view due to less downtime and fewer repair bills. Now you choose. How did I handle that, RonG???????????
haha, how are you going to choose between two perfect machines??? well RonG i agree with you on that one, we own both a few K's and H's and for being 40 years old they still put in a hard days work, and according to government rates around here they are worth just as much per hour as a brand new T. So I guess its hard to pick at these 2 beauties, they had the REAL engines in them for one thing haha. Thanks for the replys
You were right on top of things as usual Deas.I must admit that I never suspected any braking on the clutch levers but I do confess to running other dozers WITH braking on the clutch levers that I couldn't detect either!! You seem to assume a feeling of well being running those machines,it is like you suspect that this was what the guy had in mind when he dreamed up the first dozer.It makes you feel like you are one with the machine like I told you in the past Deas,the dozer is testing you saying ask something of me that I cannot do and you just smile.Ron G
Confidence in your ride. Hi, RonG. I have never yet run a D8H or K in good operating condition that I didn't like. They were one of the more user-friendly dozers that I have ever had the pleasure of making black smoke with. Everything about them is easy and it just got better when they changed from the front hyd tank model to the side hyd tank model and even better again when they brought in pilot valve controls with the K. Personally, I would always pick a D9G or H over the D8H or K because I found that they had even better balance than the D8's, way more power and could put that power on the ground better than the D8's. Where it really showed up was if you had a D8H and a D9G working side by side pushing down a fairly steep slope. The D9G would always reverse back up the slope for the next push faster than the D8H which, to my simple mind at least, indicates a better power-to-weight ratio. A lot of operators could not see that 'cos the D9G's and H's were always a little slower to build up revs than the D8's. However, when they had the revs up was when it really showed. I did a LOT of smiling on D9G's and H's. I also felt that the D9G/H was a little more sure-footed than the D8H/K. I have never had the opportunity to take a D8H/K up an 8-foot vertical wall like I did with a D9G one night, but I have also never felt that I could take a D8H/K up such a wall. Having said all of the above, I would still rate a D5B that I operated for 2 years right up there with the 8's and 9's for handling, balance, stability, controllability and putting its grunt on the ground. I had a debate with another member of this board and the other two boards about the comparative merits of that D5B and the D10R that he commonly operated. I operated the D10R for 3 hours one day, well and truly enough for ME to get the feel of it. I told him after I got off that the D5B could put its grunt on the ground far better than that D10R. I even explained to him what made me think that way, that the D01R would get just so much material in front of the blade and then start to spin even with the tracks flat on the deck. He couldn't see it for a while but he phoned me later in the week and told me that he could now see it. Then about 2 months later, he spent 4 days on the D5B and really got to see the difference. The D5B would keep cutting, boiling material up above the blade and spilling it around the sides, through almost anything where it could get its 'toenails' to get a grip. Now some people would say that that is wasted effort but if you want to slot-doze, it sure builds your slot in a hurry. And bear in mind that that D5B was a wide gauge machine - with a wide blade. Just my 0.02.
Deas, When we are trying to move dirt in the winter time around here, like busting through 8 feet of frost with SS rippers and what have you. We weld steel ice picks on the grozers. I don't know if you have ever seen this application used becofore but We call them "corks", now when you put a "corked" cat to work in semi-hard clay in the summer time, you will burn the torque out of the old girl long before you spin the tracks. I think thats what I would call "putting the grunt to the ground" haha. We usually cut the corks off for the summer months, just for that reason, because you never know what some of these operators will do with your poor old iron and the corks just make a heck of mess everywhere they go. But the odd time one slips out to a jobsite still riding on 3 inch corks, and let me tell ya, nothing will make blue clay roll in front of your blade like a corked up D9H will. It does make it extremely hard to turn in soft ground though with all those picks diggin in so far.
I've owned both, the K gets my vote. The early K's had a little to much HP for the finals but that was upgraded. The equalizer bar set up is much better. The controls are easier once you get used to them. There aren't 25 grease fittings under the dash and floorboards to grease. I won't say anything bad about the H's though, I put 18000 hours on one that was 22 years old when I bought it. The K's like fuel a little more but they do a little more. Really a K is an upgraded H and the last of the D342 engines. The spacer plate solved some of the counterbore problems of years gone by. Some of the older dealer mechanics say the D8K was the best D8 model ever built. DP
Corks - caulks. Hi, CS. I've never had to use them or had need of them - the climate's a little more user-friendly around here and in most of DownUnder - but I know what they are and what they're for. And may I suggest that we keep our comparisons to standard, production line machines 'cos it opens too many cans of worms if you start getting into localised modifications and adaptations. Speaking of rolling blue clay in front of the blade, have you ever run a D11N. They don't do too badly in that department with STANDARD plates. I don't know about a D11R 'cos I've only ever run them in rock, which isn't quite the same but they sure put their grunt on the ground better than that D10R.
Ya the D342's are a hard engine to beat, those old long strokes just don't know when to quit. We had a D8N for a few years and the K's made it look pretty gutless.
Well now you can't really compare a D9G to a D11N now can you? Corks or no corks. And yes i have run a D11R in the tarsand pits up in Northern Alberta. And yes they do make short work of stripping topsoil no doubt about that. Never been around a D11N before, but if they are anything like the D8N then I don't want anything to do with them. I think Cat was asleep at the wheel when they built that machine.
D11N's and Cat being asleep at the wheel. Hi, CS. No, the D11N was not like the D8N. Or at least the one I ran wasn't. It could really move dirt. And comparisons between different models aren't all that hard to accomodate. You say that can't compare a D9G to a D11N. I beg to differ. If you stop looking at the overall size of the machine or the relative horsepowers and start looking at the way each handles its power and how each puts its power on the ground, balance, manouverability, stability, visibility, operator friendliness and production Vs fuel usage per hour, you CAN start getting some valid comparisons. Sure, there is no way you can compare a D9G to a D11N for total output in a working day but when you start factoring in 'handicap' you can get a pretty good idea. Another way of looking at it is to observe both machines working in similar ground and notice how each loads the blade up and how well it pushes its loaded blade. You mentioned that a D9H with /corks/caulks could really roll blue clay up above the blade. Now go back to what I wrote about that little D5B doing the same thing and bear in mind that that D5B was a wide gauge machine with STANDARD 16" plates pushing a WIDE blade. It might not have as much material in front of it as the D9H but consider track shoe for track shoe, pound for pound and horsepower for horsepower and I'd reckon it would be right up there with the D9H or d**n close to it. Again, just my 0,02.
Whats better.... D8K OR D8H I always liked the 46A, particularly the last ones built. They had very few bugs, and I rather liked the individual hand steering and foot brakes. That said, the last serial number D8K's were good too, but I never liked the cabs on them or on the late D9's either. They were a bitch to work on (and under) and didn't hold together very well, particularly the doors and windows. 77V's seemed to me to be a bit harder on the brakes with regard to wear. The 77V definitely had better roller frames, as did the 90V D9's. The 46A models were louder, but one of the ways I learned to operate was to listen to the engine and feel the machine with my butt in the seat. Ya can't do that with the new stuff today. Eh? I saw a 46A working on the beach in Santa Barbara, California early last year near the college. I sat and just listened to that ole thing for an hour. Fun! You just don't get to hear a nice diesel engine sound from modern engines. They are all sounding like a swarm of angry bees. I believe for plain push power I'd put a 8H or K up against an 8N, R, or T any day. But I operated a newer 8R last summer and it was a pretty sweet machine in it's own way. At least they have a decent cab now and the A/C worked great!!! Today I went by the union hall and paid my dues for the 2nd quarter. I told the dispatcher that it looks as though I can return to work about the middle of May. But I did tell her that I can't run no more machines like that ole D9N I had for a while last summer. When the A/C quit on it, I kept on going with doors and windows wide open pushing scrapers. Then I came down with Valley Fever, which led to coughing induced hernias that had to be repaired. This year I told her, I had to have a good machine like the D8R I ran, or I'd have to go back to the hall.
D8K or H, and D9G or H The best tractors Cat ever made. The only bad thing about them is if you don't have the overfill in the transmission bevel gear compartment, if you go up a steep hill frontwards, you can run the risk of sailing backwards. Not fun on steep high rock.
I believe for plain push power I'd put a 8H or K up against an 8N, R, or T any day. Amen Joe Amen..... we have a K on 28 inch pads, and it will push with the best of them. Sure made our D8N look like a dogger when we were slot pushing in the gravel pits.
Overfill Hi, Folks. Did I hear a 'voice in the wilderness' mumbling something about having to overfill certain Cat dozer transmissions or run the risk of running backwards down steep slopes. Funny about that. I have worked a LOT of steep slopes with these machines in my life, have NEVER yet overfilled a transmission and have NEVER yet had that happen to me. I have had the transmission stop on me when I have gotten on a steep slide slope with a Cat D8H but I understand that feature was designed into them to help stop over-courageous operators rolling them. When it happens, you can apparently only select reverse in the transmission to allow you to back off the slope. I have heard of overfilling the engine by 10% when working on slopes to avoid having the oil pick-up come out of the oil in the oil pan. Just my 0.02.
Ya I was wondering about that post too, The only way a H or K would go rolling backwards uncontrolably would be if the transmission first failed and then the brakes failed as well and if all that failed you could probably stop by simply putting down pressure on your blade....... Seems fairly unlikely to me. Perhaps Dozer was mistaking this fault with his famous Komatsu's? lol
I fixed it.
From his earlier posts, I never would have thought I would agree with much D-575 says, but in this case I do. In my first year operating D-8K dozers I took 2 harrowing trips down off of the hill backwards. Both times, the trans was at the full line, and both times, with the addition of a 5 gallon pail, the old girl climbed right up over the same spot without a wimper. When they bail out of gear from lack of prime in the pump, you loose brake pressure as well, so you cant stop or turn except whatever bite you can get with the blade while waiting for the rippers to get set into something to get stopped. The second time it happened, I finally got a tooth hung in the ground when one track was hanging about 5 or 6 ft out over a pretty long drop. On a side hill, they would just whine and slip when you laid her over a little too far, and would most of the time reverse out of it with a little shaking from the blade. I never had that happen on the H model, and it became the only one I would use for the really steep pioneering jobs we took. That said, we had 3 D-8Ks and 1 D-8H, and my favorite was the H. To me it was a little better balanced, and I could cut a nicer grade with it, even though the blade control on the K was easier with the pilot hydraulics. The H in question was a 30,000 serial number, so it was almost a K anyway. We did not have a great selection of iron, so the dozers were used for nearly everything. I knocked down fill for scraper spreads for a great number of hours, and with the H I could catch a good grade, and travel through a 1500 ft long fill without touching the controls. I never could get a K to balance that well. I agree that the K has more power, and would get more done at the end of the day, but give me a 46A any day and I will be happier. I think my favorite time on a 46A was when the governor broke on it one job, and I made it through a month of spreading fill on a canal job. It was not all bad, as it would over fuel the engine, and you had to hold it back or it would run away and blow up. When you got it going though, it would boil dirt as high as the hood in 3rd, and took the place of 3 tractors in the fill. I have a lot of fond memories on the H and K series, and they are still a good machine, but I am glad to have a D-8R and a D-8T now.
Whats better.... D8K OR D8H dozer575 is correct. If you are going to operate a D8H or a K on a steep slope, you best throw an extra five gallons of oil in the tranny. The reason is that the pickup tube for the transmission pump is located to the front of the housing. When the tractor goes up steeply, all the oil runs back into the bevel gear compartment thus starving the pump. This triggers the springs and spools in the transmission control valve into neutral. The result is that you have no gear selection, and even worse, only manual pressure on the brakes, which is like saying no brakes at all. So down hill you will go, very quickly in some cases, and there have been examples of other vehicles getting run over and people hurt. Putting down pressure on the blade only slows you down a smidgen, but it's about the only thing you can do till you get to the bottom, and hopefully you haven't backed over a stump or a big boulder on the way down. Now, if you back up that same slope, you won't have this problem, as the oil runs to the front and the pump remains happily submerged. If the pump does run out of oil, the tractor has to move to some spot that is more level so that the pump can reprime. As JDOFMEMI recounts, this can be a real hair-lifting moment and one you will never forget....... D9G and H's had this same problem to a lesser extent. None the less, all the ones I maintained in Kentucky coal mines and elsewhere if slopes were involved got the extra five gallons. This does not hurt the tractor and it eliminates what is ultimately a very dangerous problem. Overfilling the engine for slope work is something that I heard some folks did, but I never had any problems in that area with D8's. We did maintain some D9's in the oil-shale operations in Colorado that were over-filled, but these were generally tied off to another D9 that prevented them from plunging off the slope altogether, that was some mighty steep work and I was glad I was not the one in the seat on the bottom machine.
Thank you guys. I think that over fill is also mentioned in the operators manual. I guess we know the ones that have been on some steep ground now. It just happened to be a D7F that I was on when I first learned it. It would have been along ways down if I hadn't got it stopped, wow then you guys wouldn't have had to put up with me. If that oil level drops then of course the steepness of the hill that you can climb becomes much shallower. Its pretty agravating to be way out in the woods and have that happen. And yes if you can get it to move and don't have a stump or a swamp behind ya, then you can turn around and back up it.
I vote for the D8H... I recall a few stories from people recalling that period that there were big problems with the D8K in comparison with the D8H and that it cost Caterpillar some business and the D155A and D355 gained some ground. About the oil level, there was a different dipstick and modified breather recommended for older D85 Komatsu's when working on really steep slopes to add a few gallons to the transmission/bevel gear case.
I think the mode of failure being described is that if you lose oil pressure the transmission will not stay engaged and the brakes will not apply.
Oil pressure activates the clutch packs in the trans. If there is no oil supplied to the pump there are no gears. The steering clutches and brakes work off of the same pump so if you lose oil suction none of the functions work and away you go. I always run transmissions extra full. The engine has 3 oil pickups one in the front of the pan , the main pickup in the center sump and a rear pickup in the rear of the pan. If working on steep grades I make sure the dipstick is on or a little above the full mark, never had the guage flicker. DP
Well have been around equipment for a considerable amount of years and I discussed this with this father. He told me that he has never seen it happen either, you have to be on one heck of a slope for this to happen, like one that pretty much impossible to push up. And every good operator knows you always back up a really steep slope so you DO have some control if in the event of a run away, this technique is a MUST on icy slopes aways put the heavy end of the cat on the low end of a steep slope, but what would "yall yankees" know about working in the frost? hahaha! Funniest feeling in the world is when your first time on frozen ground and your walking along in 2nd gear and she starts sliding away down a 1 percent grade. Plain grozers are useless in hard frozen ground.
I must have always run equipment that was overfull because I have never lost control of one due to cavitation.I am in no way saying that it will not happen but a dozer can climb a slope that it cannot back up and I have worked them many times on grades that they would never be able to back up because the weight of the blade on the front idlers will cause them to just dig a hole while trying to reverse up the slope.The high drives are even worse trying to back up a steep slope,especially if you do not happen to have anything for a counterweight on them like a winch etc. I have aways found the high drives nose heavy unless they were equipped with a ripper or something to move the balance point toward the rear. That is compared to the oval track dozers.I like the high drives but they are somewhat clumsy in certain situations that the oval track seem to be comfortable with.Ron G
Just a thought. My boss would get mad if I backed up a steep slope. And he was correct. Just like stump splitting you don't want to power into it. Even on fairly new tracks you can slip the sprocket. And it loads the idler and recoil spring a bunch and that is why the sprocket will slip easier, that top part of the track pulls the recoil spring back loosens the bottom of the track and also you don't have alot machine weight holding the sprocket engaged with the pins on a steep slope in reverse either. It doesn't take much of a underfill to cause that problem that loss of psi. I guess you guys always ran good top shape equipment. I have worked for alot of Gippos, and they didn't like to put much $ into maintenance. There was one out fit that I worked for about 7 years ago, that had to add 5 gallons to one of their D8's transmission about every 4 hours, that is if it was operating at a nose high condition. They had numerous mechanics trying to fix the torque converter seal leak. The TC was in and out maybe 7 or more times. I got tired of it and one day ran with the flooring off, and watched it. Yeah it would pour out. I looked at the distance of the output flange and compaired it to the other D8, it was too far out. Well the main frame was repaired at one time and the engine alinement dowels in the rear, one was broke the other missing. And the engine would move forward especially when grabbing reverse and thus pulled the yoke out farther. Anyway they finally got it fixed. Funny how some of these outfits would rather throw oil at it than fix it or find someone that could fix it. You guys say it would take a very steep slope. Thats it around here we have very steep areas that we work on at times.
Reversing up slopes - and when you can't Hi, RonG. You have put it in a nutshell about reversing up steep slopes. That was a part of the problem with the D7F - it WOULD back up a steeper slope than it would climb face first 'cos that 6-pot donk was substantially lighter than the D7E's 4-banger - made it too light on the front end which also made it a dog to trim with. As mentioned in a previous post in another thread, I once took a ripperless angle-blade D9G up an 8-foot vertical wall. I did this face first. I KNOW there is no way I could have done THAT in reverse. I have backed hi-sprocket machines up slopes just as steep as I have backed oval-tracked machines up but, as you said, with a rear-mounted ripper to counter-balance them. One point that has occurred to me is that the hi-sprocket machines, especially the larger models, were designed from the ground up to be dozer tractors whereas the earlier machines were drawbar tractors fitted with dozers. If a bare tractor is balanced fore and aft and you hang a blade on the front, it stands to reason that you will have to hang something substantial on the rear to restore the balance. I also agree with your statement about hi-sprocket machines seeming clumsy or unstable in some situations where oval-tracks seemed quite happy. CatSkinner77V, I don't know if you are aware of it or not but I have been told that ice is the most frictionless substance known to man, followed by the teflon family of plastics. Tracks would probably get better grip on slabs teflon because they would sink into it slightly. Quote from Guess Who: (No prizes for getting this one right.) "I guess we know the ones that have been on some steep ground now." Unquote. Without wishing to say that anybody's experiences/stories are invalid or incorrect, I would point out Mother Nature DOES make slopes steeper than can be cut AND trimmed with a dozer UP on the slope. THAT is why there are some places that you just can't take a dozer unless you first modify the slope to suit. Having said that, I have done my fair share of cutting and trimming batters, steep or otherwise, and working in steep country. I have over-filled the engine a couple of times when working in these conditions 'cos engine overhauls don't come cheap and prevention is way better than cure. I have never, repeat N-E-V-E-R, had a transmission cut out on me when working up and down a slope. This is not to say that it can't happen, only that it hasn't happened to me, YET. And I HAVE been trimming 1-in-1 and 1 1/2-in-1 batters up and down with D7E's (Slow up), D8H's and D9G/H's as well as smaller dozers. I have worked both trimming up the slope and driving up/dragging the blade back down. When some-one comes out and makes the statement quoted above, it just shows to me that they have a rather closed-minded attitude and that perhaps they - and the rest of world - might benefit if they took some time to re-evaluate themselves and their approach to life. May I suggest, Komatsu D575/D8Bob, that you take some time to 'contemplate your navel', so to speak? It's not that you don't have valuable experiences and information for forums such as this. You do just occasionally make some sense. These moments are welcome. Where the problem lies is that you seem to have a rather Muslim extremist attitude. The Muslim extremist's attitude is that EVERYBODY is going to be either fanatical Muslim or DEAD, and they don't care which or how amny they kill to achieve their goal. Your attitude seems to be that everybody on these forums is going to believe EXACTLY what you tell us to believe or be dead wrong. Well Sir, I will make up my own mind what to believe and I think that most of the members of this forum and other forums like it are very much of the same mindset. Quote 2: (From same source.) "I guess you guys always ran good top shape equipment. I have worked for alot of Gippos, and they didn't like to put much $ into maintenance." Unquote. I may get a kick in the backside from an administrator for asking this question but I'm going to ask it anyway. Komatsu D575/D8Bob, is the reason that you have worked for a lot of 'Gippos' due to your attitude causing the good companies to not want you anywhere near their prized good employees? Maybe there is something for you to think about there too???????????
Deas, I'm sorry I come across the way I do. I guess I am just too harsh at times when writing. To answer your question at the end. Actually I have a great attitude when out dozing. And the bosses always seem to like me. Ron G has said what I've been trying to say for years, but he said it much quicker and simpler than I do. Hey actually I could be happy in a hightrack as long as it weighs over 70,000 lbs and doesn't kill my back. Also I know I have been in some places that I was glad it wasn't a hightrack. And I have been in place where I wish it was one, Mud. I have run them lots, I have had them on some pretty steep areas too and was suprized they hung in there. I have worked on them with wrench in hand. I love the way the transmissions come out. It is a very quick transmission R+R deal. It took longer to make the special tool to hook to the trans than it did to remove it. Very nice not having to pull the seat and controls and a bunch of hoses, contols, belly pans etc. I liked the new D9 I sat in awhile back. I guess I'm slowy giving into them. I agree with what alot of you guys say about, having to spend your whole day in a nice seat something the old ovals never really had. And the nice cabs with easy controls. And I have to admit I liked the tiller control over the joy stick like Komatsu uses. But whether it be a Komatsu or Cat, I'm still not fully sold on that steering. I still think the clutch brake is faster and you would have to see the situation I can't explain it, the new steering is easier to use on the hands and arms. And in a full load push they both steer about the same. If power is taken away from a track the other slips till you relieve the load.
Aha! Hi, Komatsu D575. Now that is the BEST post I've ever seen you put up. Not because of your apology to me. I don't care what people think of me. What I liked about it was the fact that you appear to have taken a look at yourself and your posts and maybe seen some of the aspects of both that could and do offend people. It's also a breath of fresh air to hear you admit that there might be some merit in the hi-sprocket configuration. While I still think there have been some sacrifices in the changeover, I also suspect that they are here to stay so we might as well get used to them. D7H's and up all ride quite a bit smother than their oval-track predecessors due to the front and rear idlers and their adjacent roller bogie being on rocker arms. I see that the Brand X people have adopted a rocker system of their own design for their bigger machines, at least for the track rollers. I have used the Cat tiller system on the D8R and liked it immediately. I haven't seen what Kummagutsa has come up with by way of an answer. I also like the Cat fingertip lever system on the Cat D10R's and D11R's. WHEN it is properly adjusted, it works very well. However, I would still feel more comfortable with a D9G picking up scrapers than with a D10R, unless the steering in the D10R WAS properly adjusted. There are a number of things about the hi-sprocket machines that make for easier serviceability and you have mentioned just one, the transmission removal. Final drives are another 'biggy'. Hydraulic drive fans as opposed to the old belts. Fold-away radiators. Tag links instead of the old sway brace arrangements on the blades. Old seats and new - I spent 8 months in a D9H with air cab and air suspension seat. That seat made that particular machine the most comfortable oval track D9 I have ever run. The only reason that the hi-sprockets are any more comfortable than that old girl, in my opinion at least, is that rocker arrangement for the front and rear idlers and their adjacent roller bogies. Re tractors killing your back - I have for a very long time now maintained that any machine is only as rough on the operator as the operator is on the machine. If the machine is giving you a kicking around, slow down. If the boss complains, suggest to him that he spends 12 hours in the seat running the machine the way he is telling you to run it and see how he feels at the end of it. If he tells you it's his way or the highway, I'd be taking the highway. I don't need to work for anybody like that. I faintly suspect that a LOT of people would agree with me when I say that more posts like your last one would be very welcome here.
The killing my back deal is partially operator, but mostly terrain like rocks. I just never liked to get stuck on a small machine. Its funny how the smallest of rocks or a stick will feel like a boulder. Those nice big dozers will smash that sorta stuff and that helps smooth the ride. Talking about cabs, I don't really like those old cabs like they put on the D8K's and D9H's. I'd rather the hightrack ones over them. And on a hot dusty day, or a cold and freezing day. I would take a brand new hightrack over the old open cab. One other thing that really impressed me the day I spent on a new D6 hightrack was the good no glare windows in the cab. I've run others where the windows must have been some other kind of material that glared, and you had to run with doors open to see a thing. That D6 was so nice with AC and no dust. Gosh I miss it. I haven't done any bulldozing in about 2 years now. Just got tired of killing my body for a wage. I would like to buy a dozer and rent it and me out. Just not interested in being a contractor, don't want all the headackes. Yeah it is the easiest and most satisfying work there is that has the potential to pay a decent amount.
Dozer575, I have run dozer in a northern winter climate (that means cold) for the past 10 years now. And I have run both the old flat tracker's with no cabs, and I have also run a brand new D11R for awhile. And it really doesn't make a difference to me, infact if as long as there is no wind, it can be minus 30 and i would prefer the open cab. Visibility is alot better, and I was raised by my father to just appreciate the MACHINE itself and not get all softened up like some yuppie whine and cry when your lips get cracked a dry on a hot windy day. Just remember, you could have been in constructon a hundred years ago, and insteady of using a dozer to pop stumps out all you had was shovel. How do you think your backside would fare after a day of doing that? People nowadays to MAN-UP! or we are headed for some serious trouble, society is in a downward spiral. Somehow people have slowly put a bad taste in there mouth about actually "working" for a living and want everything for free. Like look around your jobsites, how many young guys (25 and under) are getting into construction? not many. Nobody wants to get thier hands dirty anymore.
CatSkinner, I agree with part of your post but not all. I have a lot of difficulty in finding employees that truly want to work in the labor field. You are correct in that they want their income handed to them for the least amount of work possible. I don't agree with your opinion on improving the work environment. I've been plowing snow since 1967 and started on an open Case VAC farm tractor. I had to brave the elements, and get off the tractor to manually change the blade angle. When I was 18 I bought a Chevy pickup to plow with and I thought I was in heaven! Not only did I have a heated cab, but also a power angle plow. Did this make me a softy? I don't think so, but it sure increased my production. Today my truck has the full complement of luxuries, AM/FM/CD player with XM, power windows and locks and the latest plow design. I've never been as efficient as I am today and am still ready for more when the work is done. Is this a bad thing? I don't feel that anything you can do to make yourself more comfortable or more efficient makes us any less hard.
Glare in cabs Hi, Komatsu D575. I have actually had more problem with reflections from inside the cab onto the windscreen or windows. The first cabs I worked in where this was a problem were excavator cabs. There were reflections from the control levers and pedals and even from the seat mounting getting in the way when I was trying to dig down a trench or hole. Annoying to say the least. I finished up painting everything inside the cab matt black on a couple of excavators. That seemed to fix the problem Earlier than that, I discovered that the front glass in a grader cab could also be a problem but it wasn't due to glare or reflection as much as the glass itself distorting the view when trying to trim. Then Cat cured that problem with the sloping front windscreen in the Aussie-built Cat 12 17K series - 70D series over your way. Then I got into my first dozer with an air-con. cab, a Cat D8K and everyhting inside the cab was matt brown. I worked that machine in daylight and at night - and I loved that matt brown finish inside the cab for its lack of reflection. Somebody put a little thought into that. Re killing your back, I worked out very early in my operating career that my career was likely to be shortened by anything that caused me pain. Consequently, if something caused me pain, I either found another way of doing it or refused to do it. I think that I am currently healthier than most men my age. People are constantly surprised to find out how old I really am.
Whats better Watch out, old fogy memories coming. In 80 or 81, I was working for the Cat house out of Grand Junction up in the oil shale projects around Parachute. Gilbert-Western had a bunch of Cat equipment up there, and on top it was pretty cold that winter. I watched rather awe-struck as a nice new D9L started down a long straight access road from the top and then started to slide on the icy roadway. Fortunately the skinner was a pretty good one, and after he tried to get er stopped with the brakes (no effect), and the blade (picked up speed), he stuck the nice new Ateco ripper down, that I had just installed a couple days before. That at least kept him straight, but the roadway was so hard and frozen that he couldn't get much penetration so continued to slide all the way to the bottom, about a mile and a half. We welded bolts on grouser bars the rest of the day on every Cat up there. A day or so later, I was stickin a set of heads on a 992C in GW's yard on top by the shop when our clerk came running over to me yelling something about having just run over our crew Suburban with a D9H. Seems there was a little swale and ledge just below the shop where we parked the Chev every day when we went up to work. This kid was moving the D9 along the edge of that frosty swale and it just ice-skated off the side right into our only ride back off the mountain. It smashed up the entire right side of the burb and all that sides glass was busted. That was a damn cold ride back to Junction that night I can tell you. Fortunately, we had plenty of plastic and duct-tape. I've skidded plenty with a Cat on ice and snow or frost, and hard rock too. Steep slopes. Oh yes. When you are clearing mountain-tops in a strip mine in the Appalachians, you go over the side and down with your feet on the dash, and hope some fool hasn't cut an old access road below you with a vertical pitch that no one has seen because of the trees and undergrowth. I've had to hook onto more than one Cat that was standing completely vertical on it's blade there. The operators usually wanted to back straight up rather than turn around and go up forwards doing this work. The D9H's had a problem with that as they didn't have ripper's on them that helped counter balance the machine. Very hard on front idlers and roller frames. D9L's did better, and they had the rippers and were more powerful, just seemed to back uphill better. In Vietnam we cleared hillsides with TD20's and Eimco's, tho the Marines usually let us Seabee's do the really steep stuff as the Eimco's were top-heavy and were touchy on steep slopes. Anyway, we would also literally stand on the dash board going down and with the 20's, there was no question about backing up the hill. They didn't have the power nor any weight in back that would have allowed them to do so. You had to make sure when you got to the bottom that there was at least a little solid ground to turn around in. If you ended up in a rice paddy, you were SOL! We hit one hillside that was riddled with old French fighting pits and bunkers, all covered with thick brush so thick you couldn't see the ground at all, the first pass was the worst. If you fell into one of those bunkers you could wind up on your nose easily, or you could hit a big ole chunk of concrete and just come to a stop and couldn't back up. We spent a lot of time pulling each other out of situations like that. When re-claiming coal (and other mines), many times you have to push up a steep slope, sometimes 60 degrees or more. This is especially true when there is a shot-gun toting private landowner keeping you off his land at the top of the slope. High-wall operations nearly always have to be backfilled from the bottom and top soil pushed up and then "tracked-in". I have a lot of respect for those skinners that have the patience to sit back and push miniscule amounts of dirt uphill all day. Most of the tractors I've seen doing this work don't have rippers attached, many do have counterweights. Strangely, not many have winches mounted. In the mid-eighties, Aspen Ski Corporation leased TD25G's for slope work at the Aspen ski area. Their operators tried new Cat D8L's and were scared stiff by the way they felt on steep slopes. They had always used D8H's or K's before. I was raised in northern Michigan's cold weather, and worked even further north within the Arctic watershed, and I can say running an open cab Cat D8H in -30 temps or lower is no fun, especially if there is any wind at all. If it warms up enough to snow as well, your day gets really miserable. Plowing snow with an open-cab TD24 right off Narragansett Bay in January is no picnic either, with the wind and humidity coming in off the water and ice. I always had trouble keeping my feet and legs warm, even with a winter-front on the tractor. So give me a nice cab any day! Open ROPS cabs are even worse than no cab, all they do is create a shady wind-tunnel effect. Nice in summer, very bad in winter. No question that the high-sprocket tractors with today's cab are more comfortable and operator friendly than the old models. BUT, you get em in the hard rock and they become a back killer all the same, maybe just not to quite the same degree. I admit to feeling that many of today's operators are a softer living bunch, but they are allowed to do so by the machines that we older fellas helped develop. As I can probably lay a lot of my current and recent past health problems on operating and maintaining the older machines without the amenities that are available today, I say more power to the younger guys and creature comforts. Maybe when they get to my age they won't be as crippled as I've been, and won't have to prostate themselves financially for medications and treatments just to be able to get out of bed. One thing to think of when mentioning Cat's tiller steer system and rotating forward-reverse control, is how hard it is to twist that damned thing when you have a fairly bad case of rhumetoid arthritis in your hands and wrists. Especially if the Cat has a few hours on it and the control cable is stiffer than usual. Newer models are now electric I believe, which should make this much easier for a geezer like me. Deas Plant has a point about operating at slower speeds, but when you are working in a boulder patch or clearing stumps, one of them will sneak up on you and compress the hell out of your spine and neck. Seats bottom out, then propel you up to the roof in the blink of an eye. That's probably the major reason I don't run scrapers anymore, although I'd rather do that I think, than have sex. Running a big scraper in a finely tuned production operation is about the most fun you have with your clothes on. At my age, you can run a scraper more often than have sex any way.
Deas, Im sorry I guess I also meant reflections as well. I know what you are saying there. I've seen some outfits use plexiglass when those original windows get damaged and that is much worse, along with glare and reflections its full of scratches oh what I have had to put up with. I don't like running other peoples machines and putting up with the stupid things they do to them or don't do, I have only had maybe one or two dozers with full cab screens when clearing, other wise its just maybe a rear screen. Not a safe thing in the woods with branches snapping at you, it makes the job a bit more time consuming having to attack a small thing that was going to smack you in the face. Surfer, You have got to do some very cool stuff. I would love to work doing reclaimation or clearing off mountain tops for mining. Sorry to hear about all you pain and missery, an old fella years ago told my dad, "yeah gettin old is not for sissys". I know what he means. Though I had more problems I think in my 30's than now I think heavy equipment and mechanics on them, helped my back. Though at times it was hammered pretty good in the small cats and like you guys say when rearing up on a rock or stump. I've been hit hard enough by the back of the seat to get the wind knocked outa me and thought I broke bones. Yeah been there, with the feet on the dash going over a slope, and a hand up on the ROPS frame to boot. The sad thing is it seems everytime I was doing that slope work, the cat had no seat belt. If it were mine I'd use a harness of some sort. And another smart thing would be to use a deal like those nascar drivers have to support your neck. Even strapped in and rolling down a steep hill, I think the wiplash would kill ya. After loosing a good friend in a construction accident it has got me thinking more saftey minded. So you where a Jungle Eater, that must have been nice not having to clear and keep all the debris clean for buring or chipping, man a guy could really do some clearing in those conditions. In the cold, actually with the fan blades reversed it wasn't too bad. But around here it wasn't cold enough to warrant flipping them. I'd rather wear more clothes and take a stand in front of the radiator break once in awhile, cause as the day warmed up you'd get all red faced and over heating and have to find places to put your layers of clothes. I don't know about you guys but one of the reasons I kinda hung it up working for these construction outfits, was because of long term health effects of jarring and bouncing around. I always wondered if it could cause retina probems. Anyway I would rather make the money that the machine and operator together get, rather than harm myself for a wage and someone else getting rich on it. Yeah getting older doesn't help for doing any job no matter what it is. 54 here how about you guys?
Whats better More memories. In Wyoming in the early winter of 74, about mid-July I think it was, no, just kidding, it was late October and my maintenance crew started turning fans on 8's and 9's and installing winter fronts. To everyone's amazement, on one of the first ones we did, the fan took off from the hub and smashed it's way into the sand grid and rad right after the engine was started. Seems that the retainer bolts had come out sometime in the past and the only thing holding the fan on was greasy dirt and the force of it blowing back against the hub. When the boys turned that critter into a sucker fan and revved her up, it took a minute, but when it came off it did it up in style! After that, we double checked every fan hub to make sure they were bolted down solid. What a mess! Yep! The golden years, they ain't so golden!
I thought I would ask you dozer guys on what was your thoughts of the Cat D8L & D9L dozers, how were they comparred to the other D8 & D9 models that were available as well as being the first high drive D8 & 9 tractors. Until surfer-joe made mention of them, I had forgotten about them.
Whats better CAT245ME, in answer to your question.... Early D9L tractors about ate my lunch when I was down in Kentucky helping to mine some coal. We had six of them, half with straight dozers, half with SU's. These machines were in the very low 100 serial numbers, so, some of the first built for production units. The roller frame to chassis geometry was quite different from current production machines, with the tracks coming almost straight up from the rear idler to the drive sprocket. This put a tremendous amount of strain on the links and caused severe and rapid bushing wear. There were lots of other problems, a big one was the bolts holding the fuel tanks on were too small and tended to bust off or fall out. This caused the tank to slew and fuel lines to pinch and bust, this was when the tank didn't fall off entirely. The sheet metal over the fuel filters was always bent, and the filter housing brackets were secured with mechanics wire as the bolt holes didn't line up after that. Rocks getting wedged in under the fenders by the tracks bent everything in these areas all out of shape so nothing fit right. Early fender retainers were too small and busted or fell out. Cat had a hell of a problem with the 8L/9L and D10 steering clutch and brake seals, and with the Bellville springs in the brakes. I'd done a series of tests around 1980 or 81 in Colorado on early D10 seals and springs and rebuilt several final drive assemblies with brand new parts straight out of the factory. A factory engineer and I spent the better part of a week hand testing old and new springs in a hydraulic press in Wagner's shop in Grand Junction. Bit of a quality control problem there. We used the latest design seals FedExed to us from Illinois, and even then had to tear down some already rebuilt units to change them out to even newer designs that another engineer was flying out with. We later on took some of those and hand modified them with a jack-knife as the engineers tried everything they could think of. I thought it strange that four years later, Cat still didn't have a fool-proof setup in the steering and brakes for the 9L's. Early 9L roller frames were weak and the recoil tube yoke seals and bearings were too small. The frames tended to bend, crack, and break, and the attaching pins and bushings at the roller frames were prone to extremely rapid failure due to lack of lubricant. The factory and our own group of people at the mine tried everything we could come up with to keep them intact. The early track roller seals and bearings were too small, as were the bogie cartridge pin assemblies. These were as nothing though, compared to the hardbar problems. These were too small as well, and Cat tried to go with a permanently lubricated fiber bearing in the middle where the bar attached to the frame. This didn't last long, but when you tried to press the pin out, it wouldn't budge, even with 100 ton presses and pullers. We cut most out with air-arcs, and you had to literally melt the entire damn pin before it would move. Not fun! The hardbars tended to wear thin and break at the ends on the roller frame. New hard bars (no rebuilt's then) were hard to come by and very expensive. As most know, these tractors had a hardnose mounted to the frame with four pins. The nose could be tilted forward to perform maintenance work on the front of the engines and the radiator area. Work here was common. The pins were too small and wore fast, thus allowing the hardnose to shake the radiators till they broke. The fan drive hubs were too small and the fans would break off and tear up the sand grids and rads. The idler pulleys were too small and when the bearings went bad, the pulley came off and the belts and pulley went thorough the rad, or tore up the front timing cover. I've even watched them pop out to the side! Did I mention that the hardnose pins came out very reluctantly. Many time they had to be cut out. The rads in these machines wouldn't hold coolant any better than your average macaroni strainer. Cat always had a newer model on the way, and we changed some out for Masabi cores, and I later did a D8L the same way in Maryland. Good units those Masabi's. Cat had a hell of a time with engine and transmission cooler cores leaking. I spent all Christmas day in 1980 freezing my butt off on the hill at Parachute, Colorado replacing one. I was working by myself at the insistence of the Cat house manager and Gilbert-Western's Equipment Supt. They just had to have this tractor up and running. There was one little bolt down under the flange holding the cooler assembly to the block that was a real SOB! No good way to reach it from either above or below. If this bolt was not tight and the o-ring straight, the cooler leaked. I finally had to take the belly pan down and it was way after dark when I left the place for Christmas dinner, but the derned thing was fixed. Only consolation, this was all triple time!!.... There were scads of other problems. Heater-A/C fans and motors wouldn't last. Wiper arms and motors fell off and doors did too. Door latches lasted no time and everyone used bungee cords from door to door to keep them closed. Hydraulic pump drive shafts used these little rubber bushing vibration dampener flanges, which used to fly apart with stunning frequency and violence. Fortunately, they were under a fairly sturdy floorboard and mat. Oh yeah, bushings in the steering/brake control rods were -- you guessed it -- too small, and when they wore down, shifting, steering, and braking became a real art as you tried to coax the critter to do what you wanted. Adjustment length of the rods was critical, but tough to manage if your cab was loose. Did I mention cab mounts that wore out too quickly or came loose (bolts fell out!), which also affected the above mentioned items. Then there were the rear engine mounts that became fatigued and busted out, this caused a driveline alignment problem & rapid driveshaft U-joint failure, not to mention converter front seal problems and failures. I can't even begin to mention all the problems with the steering/brake control valves & it's innards. Then there was the spell when we had several machines with worn out rails that tended to shuck the tracks off the sprocket to the inside, where they promptly bent the fenders up & jammed in so tight we just had to cut them out with a torch. All this said, the 8L's and 9L's were powerful tractors, far above those units they replaced. The 8 eventually became the D9N, and the 9L became the D10N. Of course, almost nothing from one model would fit the newer unit. 9L's would doze and rip like crazy and a D9H beside them didn't stand a chance. For stripping operations on hillsides the 9L would go down hill like a racehorse, that big U-blade overflowing with trees, brush, Copperheads and Squirrels. Backing up was a problem though as they were heavy on the front, light on the rear. D8L's seemed a bit better but not much. They shared most of the same problems as their bigger brothers. But my oh my they could push! I ran one in Maryland tag-teaming a D9G pushing 651B's on a big cut on Routes 2&4 near Lusby for a week or so. It pushed as well as the 9 by itself & the two of us together were heaping dirt over the sides of the bowls in less than fifteen seconds. The 9 was set up as a pushcat with the C-dozer and a push-cushion. The 8 had an S-dozer and a big counterweight & drawbar. In New Jersey a year later on Stewartsville Dam, we had to rent dozers from all over the place & they were hard to find & expensive. My boss found two gray-market open cab D8L's fresh off the boat from Saudi Arabia & we put them right to work. Course, pretty soon track wear became an issue & the oilers reported to us that they couldn't get to the track adjuster zerks. So we tore them down & discovered that our Saudi brothers had installed the adjuster assemblies on the wrong sides. There was a right & a left and while they would fit in each others place, the damn things could rotate just enough to make getting a grease gun on them impossible. They had to be torn down completely & the adjusters resealed & moved to the proper sides of the machine. How did we know these tractors were from Saudi Arabia? Because they had Arabic tags and stickers all over them in place of the usual English ones. Also the ton of desert sand in every compartment. It proved to be impossible to run these machines for any length of time, so we let them go off rent. An interesting problem cropped up at Stewartsville with several D9H's we rented. Seems these machines had never been equipped with the lower final drive housing guards. When the housings wore thorough, the oil ran out and you know the rest. The housing is an integral part of the bevel gear frame and not easy to repair. Being thin, busted, oily, and in a bad position to reach for welding, we had a tough time fixing them up. A couple had to have the finals rebuilt as they had run with no oil for too long. I ran an older D9N last summer shoving 631E's with some dozing and a lot of ripping. The A/C quit working on the three hottest days of the summer, and the fan drive pulley's were worn out so the belts slipped like crazy, causing the old girl to overheat a lot. Of course, the brakes dragging had a lot to do with that, a problem that I eventually and helpfully explained to Ecco's mechanic. This was being caused by the foot brake linkage sticking, and a little oil applied at the right places took care of it, mostly.... Cat had severe teething problems with their new electrical systems thorough out the eighties, and the dozers were not exempted from that. More than one machine had blinking red lights smashed, bulbs removed, or black tape laid over them. Coolant flow sensors were really bad! Others here can probably ad to this epistle, but the ones being produced today are way better than the early models in nearly every category.
Surfer You mention the track chain being pulled up at that rear idler and the load on it. I don't see how it is any better on the newer ones these days. I have noticed the scalloping wear pattern on the rails, and how that is caused by the pulling of the track over that rear idler. Where on the standard oval track machines it is a straight through shot to the sprocket. I don't want to get everyone mad about a oval vs hightrack debate. Just a compairison between the two. I was told at the time the hightracks first came out, by an undercarriage salesman that they ate up tracks pretty fast, yeah he was an after market person. I guess he liked the extra sales, but didn't like the complaints that the tracks weren't lasting. That is interesting that you got to work with Cat engineering that must have been a fun deal, and a good learning experience. You mention how certain items were too small for the application. What is it with all manufactures that try to conserve so much on a high stress item or something that is going to be exposed to a damaging environment, like the fenders and covers etc? Weight on a dozer is a good thing. I noticed that when I first started working on equipment, to me they seemed to use too thin a material for some of the components. Like those main frames, why didn't Cat ever beef up the main frame by using thicker material? The last D8K I worked on the cross member was pretty much separated from the mainframe, and since it wasn't doing a thing the flywheel housing got the brunt of that work, and filled it with cracks everywhere. And then there is the fenders, its a rare thing to not see a bent fender on any cat dozer size of that era. The last time I looked at a new D8T it looked like they are finally addressing the strength issue in that area. So has Cat pretty much eliminated all problems in the offerings they have now? I know they still wear those rails though.
Rail life wasn't the biggest problem with the early model high-sprocket U/C, pin and bushing wear was, but it was all related. Links that were too small, allowed too much torque to distort the bores for the bushings. (These were all SALT tracks you know) The distorted bushings then didn't seal properly and ran dry. A high sprocket tractor also has considerably more rotational motion in it than the old style. (Flex) This increased the wear factor. We found that cutting a couple of inches off track shoe width helped us extend pin, bushing, and link life. (28" down to 26" for example) This decreased the torque stress across the links. A "must do" every day on production high sprocket tractors included checking for hot pins on every track at lunch and shift breaks. Had to be careful and not burn your hand. Sometimes, at night, this was easy to do as the pins were red-hot and plainly visible. I used a heat detector gun for a while too, but a hand was more dependable and a hot pin is a hot pin. On early D10 76W and 84W models we felt pretty good if we only had to have the dealer people come out every three months to replace worn and damaged pins and bushings. This could be anywhere around 400-600 hours run time. D9L's did better, particularly those with 26" shoes. The 10's all had 28, 30, or 32 inch shoes. Too heavy for anything narrower. I remember having to turn pins and bushings at 1000-1200 hours on the 9's. But our 9H's didn't do much better in sandrock. (More on D8H track life in a minute) ICC, Industrial Constructors Corporation, a division of Washington Group out of Missoula, experimented with Cat and IPD rails for a while in the early 90's. We would run a Cat SALT track on one side of a D9N, and a IPD SALT track on the other. The tests checked for a number of things, total life and total cost were two of the biggies. We found that the IPD links lasted nearly as long or longer than the Cat, but they were off the tractor more often for repairs or replacement of bad pins and bushings. Life after turn time was shorter for both than expected, with the result that we generally did not turn pins and bushings but watched them close and ran them out. Link height was the key here. Both companies were searching hard for the ideal dimensions that allowed every component of the rails to give the longest life possible and wear out all together. Lots of variables as you might expect as these tractors worked the entire western part of the country in many variable soil and rock conditions. As I recall however, we were experiencing track life in excess of 7500 hours, and I remember one set that I changed in Grand Junction that was over 13500 hours, and never turned. One item I found that required replacing sooner than anything else was track shoes. Grouser and shoe wore out so evenly in most cases that rebuilding grousers was not an option. My pals at Quinn in California tell me that they are exceeding that today with the latest setups. Good question for the crew here at the CE forum, how many hours are you getting out of a set of rails on your D9/D10 whatever? To go way back, in early 1974 I was working for DeWind machinery in Ft. Lauderdale. DeWind was an Allis Chalmers dealer and we had the corner on the loader and dozer market in Florida at the time. HD11's, 16's, 21's, and 41's were common as dirt as were the 545, 645, and the newer 745 loaders. We had a lot of 261 elevating scrapers out too. SJ Groves had the dirt contract for I-95, which was just coming into north Ft. Lauderdale and all the fill was trucked in from coral-sand pits all over Broward County. Coral sand, for those that don't know it, is just about the most abrasive sand in the world, and it's also extremely corrosive as it's full of salt. It's made by blasting a pit into an old coral reef on land, then digging it out with a big dragline and piled up to drain. From there it's run thorough a crusher plant and comes out as sand. I worked many a lonely night at a second job rebuilding crusher rolls with manganese rod for a while. Anyway, Groves had some Cat D8H dozers spreading this sand and they were getting about 300 hours to a turn on the rails. Most of the wear was internal, and these were not SALT tracks. Just sealed. We happened to have the 2nd biggest track shop in south Florida and we did a lot of work for Groves. One of the things we did was to try leaving the seals out when we turned the pins and bushings. The thought was that this would allow that abrasive sand to get out as fast as it went in, instead of just staying in. That didn't work so good, but it was no worse either. The next thing we did was some machine work and swampy engineering to a set of HD21 sprockets, which were then mounted to a Cat D8. Next was a set of modified rollers and idlers. Last was the installation of a set of extreme service HD21 track assemblies. This came about because our own AC HD21's, working right along side of the Cats, were getting 1200-1500 hours to a turn. It was a lot of work, but the end result was longer lasting undercarriages, and lower overall costs. Believe it or not, we used to build up worn out drive sprockets and sprocket segments in those days. There was one welder in the shop that did nothing but this five days a week. With the newer configurations, there is less bushing contact on the sprocket due to the different angle from the rear as the idler sits further back. I can't answer for why Cat used components and hardware smaller than they should have. I suspect that because the high-sprocket machines came out in the early stages of CAD software, that their computer models were not as precise and as well detailed as they are today. But a lot has changed besides that. Metallurgy has advanced tremendously, as have machining and weld techniques. It may all look like plain old steel painted yellow, but it ain't your grand-dad's steel. Cat doesn't admit to much being wrong with their iron, never did. I suppose that what they are building today still has some bugs in it. If you checked out the pics of the 992 and 993 loaders at the BAUMA show, you might have noticed the little info paragraph about the 993, with the old style boom assembly noted as being useful for extreme service digging. The new 992 still has the excavator style boom. The 993 is a much beefier machine where it counts.
THAT wear problem Hi, Komatus D575. There is a REAL simple answer to that wear problem and it's working right here in sunny Queensland, DownUnder. They were designed and manufactured by a local contractor who just happens to have their very own track repair business as well. They have a D11R fitted with these idlers on the back end and no scallops in the rails. I 'useta' have some photos of them during installation but the files have somehow become corrupted. These idlers are faceted so that the rails sit flat on the faces and present flat face to flat face. It seems to be working so far.
Deas that sounds like a good idea, I hope they patented it. Just thought of something, how does it wear in abrasive materials, like wet or oil sand? Also do they seem to always engage in the right spot all the time? Surfer, when they were testing all those track assemblies, did anyone ever do a hardness test on them ? It would be interesting to know what the difference is of the Cat stuff to the Ipd. Yeah U/C would be difficult to engineer for wear. If the components are too hard they will just chip away, and if too soft they will wear fast. Has anyone ever tried that carbide inpregnated hard surface on rails and rollers? I think that is what is in it.
Cat and IPD both had their metal research people going full bore. I see that IPD has retreated from U/C parts in the last few years and now concentrates on Cat engine products. That's too bad, as IPD did make some good GET stuff. I'd like very much to see the D11 pics that Deas Plant had, as I'm sure Cat would too. The scallop wear however is not a great problem and never caused me much concern. The other problems I noted always were more prominent and took priority. How about it Deas, can you get more pics? I tried some rails that were rebuilt by submerged arc welding by Alban Tractor in Baltimore years ago. Wyoming Machinery and some other dealers did this too. Quality control was a big problem and getting just the right combination of metal to weld in was tough. The ones I tried tended to be too hard and brittle and they would chip and crack like crazy. That didn't affect the pins and bushings, but the links looked like hell and you had to be careful checking bushing wear by hand so you didn't get cut or stabbed by a splinter hanging out.
Joe You certainly have brought out the "worst" in the D-9L. I have one still running, and can relate to most if not all of the problems you mentioned. With that said, It will outpush any other D-9 model, since as you pointed out it is nearly a D-10N class machine. I have had much better luck with the D-9R. It is much better balanced, and has the manouverability of a smaller tractor, while pushing only slightly less than the D-9L. The dependability of the R is a huge improvement, although it still has some weaknesses. The undercarriage issue has improved some with the N and R, but as much as anything, I think it is the quality of the steel. I run only Cat UC components, as I have never had any good luck with the aftermarket. IPD was probably the best, but still suffered from many more hot links and bearing failures on the rollers. We work in a variety of conditions in SoCal, from sand to clay to cobble to weathered rock, decomposed granite, and pure shot rock. Oh, and some occasional plain old dirt here and there. When we were running D-8H and D-8K with aftermarket UC, the best I remember was 3500 to 4000 hrs on a track group. This year, I just replaced the whole UC on a D9N with 5800 hrs on it, no bushing turn, and original pads. They were all worn equally, and there had NEVER been a failed roller on the machine. Our D-9R just got the same treatment, and it had right around 6000 hrs on it. It would have gone a little farther (not much), but it had to be downed for a trans overhaul due to high copper. We just did the UC at the same time to be ready for the next job. This tractor spent nearly its whole life in the rock. Once again, NEVER a bearing failure inthe rollers. The wear pattern seems to be that the bushings and rails wear out at nearly the same time, so it doesn't make any sense to turn the bushings. The weak link in the N and R series D-9's seems to be the Equalizer Bar. in the last three years, I have replaced 6 of them between 2 tractors. They usually break in half right at the center pivot point. Another weak spot on the N and R is the trunion cap design for the dozer arms. It is secured by a round plate with 4 bolts, and when in rocky ground, if not carefull, you can get a rock between the track frame and the push arm, and it will pop those 4 bolts and leave your push arm on the ground. This tends to happen at the worst time, such as when you are already stuck in a mudhole, or high on the side of a mountain pioneering a new road. I will say that I have never had a high track run away like a K or H model would. At least if you loose pump pressure for any reason, the brakes apply. This is not always a good thing either, but a substantial improvement from the freewheeling down the mountain as mentioned above. Out of time, so maybe more on this later
Pivot shafts were a bear! Either the ends or the center as you say. In WV we had a machine shop bring their welder and boring bore up to the mine and we repaired the bad end right on the machine. Of course, if they were bad in the center you were SOL. We tried leaving the seals out and just greased the ends every shift. That didn't work so good, but if you left the seals in, the oilers would pop them out with the grease anyway. Cat has tried a lot of things to keep pivot shaft pins and bearings alive, not sure they have it solved yet. Interesting on the trunnion caps. I never experienced that problem, though I'd find a bolt or two busted off that little retainer plate once in a while. The 9L was a pushing son of a gun. In the downhill clearing operations in Kentucky we'd often find the pusharms bent outwards. We kept a spare set that had been straightened in a machine shop with a big press. We tore a few trunnions off too. I liked running a decent 9L with an S dozer. When I have more time I'll write about what happens when your Hi-sprocket tractor engine is dead on a slope, and what happens when you pull the quill shafts out of the finals so you can move it.
Joe I sure hope you had something stout hooked onto it when the second shaft came out. If not, "LOOK OUT BELOW" would have been in order.
Had a D8H spin the splines on the final drive pinion flange on one side, tring to get it loaded and unloaded and in the shop with one independant track was bad enough. Spun a hooker comming down the lowbed ramps no control but no harm done. DP
Reminded me of brakes. I did a scraper gig one time on a D8L, and those brakes were the worse. There was no inbetween, they were either on or off. Anyother large hightrack Ive been on I don't remember if it was the same or not. I just know the older Cats with the band brake had more feel and was alot nicer for fine control. Those bolts and the equalizers, same old problem. The fix is to make it bigger and stronger. I think most all big dozers that now use that pivot shaft arrangement have problems with them and the equalizers. You can't pin solid in those track frames with the geometery that is happening there. Something has to give. Its been awhile since I've looked, are the new ones solid pinned? That is why on the old dozers the equalizer sat on a pad and allowed movement, yeah that is both good and bad. As you can see if you draw it up on paper, as the equalizer moves off its zero degree point, and moves up or down creating an angle, the distance shortens and would tend to pull the track frames inward. Putting lots of pressure at that pivot bar and the equalizer bar. Engineers at times just don't get it. They can calculate the various loads for the various parts, but they just don't plan on rocks getting caught and such things as that. I wish they would let some of us independants test the products for them. Is there such a program? I'd like to show them areas to beef up. Fenders are the first place to start. If a rock or a log gets caught there it should stop the track not bend something. The next thing I'd suggest to Cat is that it is very stupid to weld a major wear item to the main frame. If it is something that is gona need to be replaced at some point in time, bolt that sucker on. I'm talking about the blade cross support strut pivot ball or what ever it is called.
I promised JDOFMEMI I'd tell about the quill shaft removal from a high sprocket tractor on a slope. Gilbert-Western had an 84W D10 pushing 631D's and 637D's on the hill at Parachute. (Exxon side) It was sorta tired and sure enough, that ole D348 blew up headed downhill. So of course, everything quit and the brakes locked up. They wanted to move it to their shop, about a mile away on top of another hill, so they took a D9L and tied it off to the back of the 10 with a 1" tow cable. They moved a D9H around front and used a couple of chain come-a-longs to raise the blade, then removed the quill shaft from the right final drive. The 10 moved a little, then stopped. So GW's mechs then tried to remove the left final quill shaft. It wouldn't budge, not even a little. So they fussed with it for a day or so, stripping out the puller bolt threads in the process. One of my Cat house buddies and I were changing out a 637D front engine right above them, maybe 100 feet away. We sorta kept one eye peeled on those guys, as you never knew what they were going to try next. So we're bent over when my pal swears and says, "geez, will you look at that". So I stuck my head up and looked over to see the D9H moving around to the left side of the 10. Seems the GW boys had welded a puller bolt onto the end of the quill shaft and were going to giver a pull with the 9. Well, that didn't work, not right away. Surprisingly, the puller bolt and the weld held, but that little shaft wasn't budging. What happened next was hilarious. One of our favorite GW mechanics was sitting in the 10, never did figure out why. The D9H skinner backed up a little, revved up, and slapped the trans into 2nd gear. Well, that popped the quill shaft out alright, but it was what happened next that split our sides. For some unknown reason, the D9L with the tow cable had backed up a little bit, enough so there was maybe a foot of slack in the cable. The second that quill shaft came out, the 10 took off down hill and when it hit the end of that tow cable it kept right on truckin! It was about a quarter mile to the bottom of that slope and the 10 just kept on going faster and faster! It finally fetched up against the opposite hillside and went up it maybe 100 yards, then back it came. This happened three or four times and it finally came to a stop. I never again saw tracks bow up like the ones on that 10! All this happened in just several heartbeats. Our GW pal was froze to the seat, they had a heck of a time getting him to let go and step out of the cab. He claimed that he kept hitting the hydraulic controls for the blade and ripper trying to get something, anything to go down. But they wouldn't of course. It took us nearly the rest of the day to stop laughing and go back to work. Eventually, GW got their act together and with two D9L's attached, pushed and pulled the 10 up to the shop. They brought in a spare engine from someplace and their guys swapped them out. This was one of the funniest things I can remember about that project, but it could have been deadly had there not been another hill in the way. If the tractor had turned just a little bit to the left going down, it would have run off a 2000 foot vertical drop, likely killing our friend. A similar incedent happened at another customers shop, only not so hairy. They were trying to ease a dead D9L into a bay for engine work -- quill shafts removed -- and were using a 966 loader to push with. Once they got the 9 up and over the little incline into the shop, it just kept on going nearly right out the back. The back wall of the bay was destroyed, but again, everyone was lucky and no one got hurt. I came across another crew one day pulling a Cat 235 excavator with a dozer. Seems the hydraulic pumps were shot, so they removed the final drive quill shafts and were towing it along to a wide flat-spot where they could replace the pumps. Oops, a little down-slope in the road and the excavator tried to pass the dozer, but the dozer operator quickly moved over in front to block it. He did forget about the bucket and stick being way off the ground and stuck out front -- untill the back of the bucket came into his cab thorough the back window. All these things happened because of a little ignorance and lack or shortage of forethought. No one got killed or even hurt in these incidents, but it wasn't for lack of trying.
Great story surfer-joe. Sounds like it could have been me in that getaway dozer. I'd like to take a try at operating one of those bruts.
The old D10's were powerful and fun to operate, but D11's are better. For some odd reason, I don't care much for the new D10's altho I haven't run the latest series yet. Sigh! Maybe this summer..............
Surfer-Joe: You are absolutely correct about those steering tillers when the cable starts to jam up! We had an older D6 that had the cable sticking, thereby making the twisting of the tiller darn near impossible; arthritis or not. Well, the lads were complaining to me daily about it. I explained that it was on order and that they should just quit being "Nancy Boys" and suck it up 'til the part got in. This was a fine idea UNTIL I went to take the old girl for a spin! I had to use both hands, and even then I pretty much needed two feet on the dash and several minutes to effect any direction change. Now it's a different story - this major malfunction had to be fixed IMMEDIATELY! When I mentioned to our service man that a person needed a pipe wrench and a come-along to make it go, he gave me the look he always did when he was having a rather large "brain wave". Smiling, he returned from his truck with one of those vise-grip chain wrenches and directed that I wrap that around the handle, tighten it down, and use it as a lever!! WOW did that do the trick! The new method worked so well that he went on to replace the vise-grip, and instead, attached a short lever to the handle (I think it was a cut down one from a Case "3 lever control" back hoe). You could flick it back and forth effortlessly with your hand, or even your thumb! It was like having a miniature "Johnson Bar" from the old days. I hate to admit it, but even after we had the new cable installed, we kept that lever in place. This despite the cross-eyed look we got from the Cat field mechanic!
Welcome to HEF gym2! :drinkup
That's pretty good gym2! I'll have to remember that if I ever get another tough control handle.
whats the difference between D8R and D8T?
yeah bro i'm in the market for a dozer right now. i was thinkin D8H but others have been telling me to check out an 85 komatsu. any thoughts?
D8H or Kummagutsa D85??????????????????? Hi, Sledgehammer. Welcome to the forum. For mine, it'd be 'No Contest''. The 'Kummagutsa' D85 is not a bad machine as 'Kummagutsas' go but nowhere near in the same class as a D8H or K. The D8H is a heavier, more pwerful machine and has a HUGE reputation for reliability, operator friendliness and getting work done. Not one 'Kummagutsa' machine has ever been able to match that reputation. Probably the closest to it would be the D375 which is a couple of sizes bigger than a D8H. I always found the D8H's to be very stable on batters and slopes - loved side-cutting batters with them - and they had good fore-and-aft balance too, especially with a rear-mounted ripper to counter-balance the blade. I only ever ran one with a U-blade and, even though it had a paralellogram ripper, it was not quite the same as running a semi-U blade. There's not a lot of extra weight in a U-blade but it's enough to notice. I have run only about 4 'Kummagutsa' D85's. (Thankfully) They handled well on the flat but I didn't like them on slopes or batters. They seemed to be too light on the back end, even with a ripper fitted. They seemed to be continually wanting to lift the high side sprocket off the ground I actually liked the D155's that I ran better than the D85's 'cos they seemed to have far better stability, but that's just my $0.02 too. On top of that, the people who really use earthmoving equipment, the civil engineering, mining and quarrying industries, seem to be coming to the conclusion that 'Kummagutsa' machines in general commonly have only about 2/3 of the service life before rebuilding that an equivalent Cat machine has. They also only seem to last about 2/3 the distance between rebuilds. Compounding this aspect is the fact that the 'Kummagutsa' parts and service network just doesn't measure up to Cat in many parts of the world. Hope this helps.
sledgehammer...I don't know exactly when the D8H ceased production but I would guess mid-seventies so are you looking for a newer smaller dozer or am I off track?
I have no idea what happens down understralia but the The 'Komatsu' dealer in Manitoba is the probably the biggest Komatsu dealer in North America and their service is excellent.
What's in a name??????????? Hi, Wulf. I sorta git ther impreshun that you ain't alltergether happy with mee callin' 'em 'Kummagutsas'. Now what would give me that idea? I admit that service and parts availability can vary from one dealer to another. Maybe your 'Kummagutsa' dealer in Manitoba got to be that big 'cos they DO offer good service. The local outfit here in South-east Queensland does not seem to get many rave reviews.
Welcome to HEF sledgehammer! :drinkup
thanks everyone! i ended up getting a d8h in good condition really cheap. just needs a little tlc. there is fuel seeping out of one the injectors between the injector itself and the head. would that just be a seal problem? what kind seals are in there? thanks
If it's coming from between the injector threads and the injector line retainer nut, the nut may be loose. The ferrule on that end of the line may also be cracked, a very common problem caused most often by over-tightening. It's possible that the injector capsule is loose in the pre-cup assembly. You would need to remove the injector line, the capsule retainer and capsule, and clean the carbon out in the bottom of the bore in the pre-cup. Then reassemble making sure the injector capsule fits snugly into it's seat. Don't over tighten the capsule retainer nut. Use a new seal at the top when reinstalling. Then attach the injector line and snug up. I have seen the injector line cocked out of proper alignment under the nut, causing a leak. Also a crack just behind the ferrule on the tubing itself, but still just inside the head of the retainer nut. Sometimes these cracks are real hard to see, remember you are working with fairly high pressure stuff there, be careful!!! Good Luck!
thanks. you're a gentleman and a scholar!
Good find? Hi, Sledghammer. Hope you got lucky there. That dozer looks as if it may have been used for clearing trees at some stage of its life, from the extension to the top of the blade and the brush canopy. Got any more photos? Best of luck with it.
it spent most of its life as a highways cat. its only been in the bush for the last 3 years or so. i just pulled it in the shop today i'm gonna change ALL the oils and fluids, just so i know where its at. sorry bout the bad pics i took them with my phone
Hi, So whats really cheap? $3000??????
a little more than that..... anyone know what the valves are supposed to be set at on that engine?
If I remember right, 15 on intake, 30 on exhaust.
subject Well guess I will start another debate.If you had included the 8N,I would picked the N.We have 3 of them and I like them pretty well,when I get to operate that is.Mostly I load and haul em to jobs.So I dont get a lot of seat time.:usa
thanks chief!
how many horse is an old d8h i've got conflicting answers....
Standard 46A was 285 HP, but there were variations for different applications.
I think I am correct in thinking that the D8H 46A and the D8H 68A were the same dozer just that they were built and sold in different parts of the under different serial numbers, the 68A was 270 HP. I stand to be corrected if I am wrong? The earlier model 22a and 68a were 235 HP
I suspect you are correct. As I said, Cat would set certain machines to different ratings not only for the work they were expected to do, but also for altitude and other factors.
I have spent many hrs on a 46A model, and as I recall, they were RATED at 270 HP. I believe the high power model Deas showed us was the 285 HP, but I could be wrong there. I spent most of my time on a 30,000+ serial number 46A, and it was a real good tractor. I do recall one time when the governor went bad, and let it overfuel. I had to finish the project, and ran it for about a month like that. I held it back with the decel., but when under load, it would outpush a D-9H we had on the job. I kept it together for the job, and when it got taken down for repair, we found one of the weights broken off of the governor spring, and that let it keep pouring on the fuel. When it was set right, that old cat would go 13 hrs on a tank of fuel, but when It was running like that, it would only make 7, and I had to splash it at lunchtime to make the day. I liked the 46A better than the K models though, even though the 77V had an extra 30 horses at 300. I have to admit, I am spoiled now with a D-8R and a D-8T in the game. I really like the R, and the T is great, but now and then has a bug in the elec tronics. Recently the ripper either will not pitch in and out, or it will do it on its own with no operator input. At least we don't have to rip much, as it is only a finish dozer. I have said how much I liked the 46A, but the R is a whole new game, and I have performed pioneering work with the R in hours in places that would have taken all day and then some with the 46A, just because of the speed and manouverability with the tiller steer, and being able to keep both tracks under power, instead of clutching to turn really helps you keep control when the going gets steep. The 46A will go on a steeper side slope, but thats why we hang a slopeboard on the side, so we can keep from wearing out the rails and rollers always working on a side slope. Well, Ive gone on long enough. Have a good one
Yup! The 46A CAT was my favorite too. Seemed to have better balance than the 77V, and the exhaust was further away from the operator seat, so it was cooler to run tho a bit louder. I liked the sound of it better. I have to admit, a 8R is a far better machine than either of those or the 8N. Pioneering with an 8R in rocky ground where you can't go outside the tape is a dream. When I was a kid, a local contractor had a piece of interstate near us and he had some 8's that were goosed up for pushing DW20's and later on 621's and S24's. I think they were late model 36A's.Those baby's were bad smokers and really got with it shoving cans in the sandy soil that we had in that area. Later on he bought some D9's with the fuel converters and pushed with those, but the operators didn't like them. Another outfit south of there had a couple of Euclid TC12's equipped with push dozers. Most of his scrapers were S24's and AC 460's. But, I always liked a good International TD25C better than any of the standard 8's.
Surfer-Joe, what's the "fuel converter" thing about? I haven't heard that term before.
Diesel torque That would be diesel torque converter, the 19A D9's had that set up you could the D8H with it also, if I remember correctly it was only on the 235 HP model 68A not the 270HP. I never ran one but my father did, I seem to remember him saying that if it happend to run out of fuel you had double the trouble.
I am with you and Surfer Joe, I think that the D8R is a fantastic dozer, though I also liked the 8N I will say that the last new N I had, just before the R came out was the best of the N's I ever ran, not sure if that was due to being so close to the change over. I only had it for about 2 months before getting an R and I loved that dozer straight of the bat it had great power to wieght ratio and unlike a lot of the other dozers that CAT produce, out of about a dozen R"s that I ran only one performed mediocor. I worked with a guy in the Philppines that bought 12 D8R's in one hit but later when their currecy crashed he had to sell some of them, I never get over the coincedence that I bumped into one of them again in Kansas, small world I suppose. I also agree with you when it comes to the D8H and the 8K, I never saw the allure of the later. I have been on 8H's working alongside K's dozing and vise versa and never noticed any differrence in output. I also ran both pulling 463 towed scrapers and the result was the same. I have never had the chance to run a slope board, I have never even been on a project where there has been one, I hope that I get the chance one day. Just out of interest what age are you 2 guys, I will be 52 in December. P.S please tell you did't like the Euclid/ Terex dozers!!!!!!!!!!!
Correct. Cat and International both used diesel fuel torque converters with standard transmissions for a while. I don't know if AC ever did or any others. I operated several of those machines and they ran very well. Also correct that you had to keep a 10 to 15% fuel reserve in the fuel tank. This was to help in cooling the TC, but also to have enough fuel to run it. The fuel seemed to work very well in place of regular oil lubricants such as C-2 or ATF. These machines had a standard clutch, which was coupled to the TC on one side and the tranny on the other. You just slipped the clutch in, then let off the de-accelerator and away you went. Very smooth. I suppose that some folks forgot the reserve fuel thing and burned the TC out, but for whatever reason, around 1965 the fuel converters sorta went away. I think that's about the time the 1st powershift transmissions came out and of course, they were the cat's meow. Well LDK, I almost never met a dozer I didn't like, but I did in fact like the Euc C6 and the Terex 82-50. The C6 was a nicely balanced machine with adequate power and a nice steering system. The Detroit engine, tho a bit loud, was very quick and responsive. Hydraulics were powerful, only one lift cylinder on the front so the blade was fast. The 82-50 was very powerful with the 12V71 Detroit and was otherwise a great machine. As I recall it did not stand up so good in hard rock as a Cat. The transmission/steering/brake systems in these machines were way ahead of their times. GM had some real sharp transmission people at Allison and they made a transmission that was very precise and long lasting. When it did break was when the trouble started as you had to have factory training and lots of special tools to work on them. I never got around the 82-40 models. My brother's partner for many years was a dirt super for a contractor out of Saginaw, Michigan and he ran the job building some of US 10 near where I lived in the early sixties. He had one of the first TC12 dozers on that job and often told the story of the day it busted apart, with one side going one way and the other side going another. Said it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen. I can't confirm that story tho. When Cat came out with the 77V with the new ROPS cab, I hated it from day one. I didn't like that cab for starters, it was difficult to get in and out of, hard to see out of, and when you had to work under the floor, it was a real bitch to get it hinged up out of the way. The doors never latched right after the first day and the windows shook right out of the frames. The heater-AC units burned up with some regularity and were very difficult to replace or repair. Nope, didn't like em at all! That was about the time I went to work for a Cat house in Colorado and I spent a lot of time in the guts of 77V's. I didn't care much for 90V's either for the same reasons. You guys pushed me enough on the HP ratings on the 8's that I went out in the garage and found one of my Cat Performence Manuals, no easy task. It lists the HP for a D8 35A at 235. A 36A was 235. The 46A was 270. 77V was 300. D8L was 335 to start with, 400 later on. D8N was 285. 46A was about a 48000 pound machine, 77V was around 70000lbs. Original D8 was 110 HP. A 2U was 148. My brother and I owned four of these at one time around 1967. Two cable, two hydraulic. I know we tweaked the fuel systems on 8's for altitude in Colorado, then the contractor would take them back down to the flat lands and they'd run like hell. We also reset the fuel upwards for agricultural machines that only pulled plows and big discs, most of these were standard trans machines. In California many of the D8's there were set up to 300 HP or more for pulling root rakes and rippers. I'm just a month or two shy of 60, but most days feel like I'm about 120. Arthritis and other ailments, and being a maintenance manager for many years has got to me. That's why I only operate equipment these days, too burned out to deal with people all the time.
Thanks LDK & surfer-joe for the explainations. I'd read something about about this type of system before, but didn't put the connection together with "fuel converter". I'm not positive, but thought what I'd read about this type of system concerned the older/larger AC dozers. Could be wrong though.:beatsme Thanks again for the info!! Jeff
Hey Joe, I have been on a few dozers that I didn't like but you are the only person I have come across that admits to liking those green unicorns. Just hearing that screaming GM puts me off. I will be honest I have never had to earn a living with one but I have been on jobs where they have been and they were getting no love from anyone. The only single ram I ever ran was a 9G with a sprung blade, now that I liked. Take it easy.
The Terex 82-30b and the later version D-750's were great dozers. I have a D-750 that will out work a D8K
I have been taking it all in, The D8 H-K thing is somthing I can realy set on ,the H and the K are so nearly the same banger its untrue, the track frames from a K will fit an H (I have done it) the torque is the same inside on both models the transmission is about the same, the final drives are the same apart from the outer bearing carriers,but ether will fit with a bit of brains, (I know there was an early change to the inner bearing on the dead shaft but it all swaps about,Ive done it) the biggest change was to the location of the equalizer bar both ends and in the centre , but both model tractors earn cash for there owners in different ways, just the other day I fitted a De-accelerator (foot pedal and all the bits) to a D8H 22a (Glasgow Taxi ) this is a manual G/box clutch machine, the driver said it would make the old girl "sound", to hear this driver feeding in the gear changes (like an E/Fuller Roadranger) wilst pulling a 463 box (Pan) is untrue, these lads are running on not the best of ground and are not loading the boxes sky-high, so they are running light and fast,most importantly they are not wasting fuel,they are also using straight trough exhaust pipes ,as it helps keep the engine temp down. A D8K needs to be set on hard work with shorter runs with boxes loaded to the brim as they weigh a good bit more and use a good bit more fuel, the later K's fitted with the spacer plate motor also had a better blade that seemed to be able to take off a 1/2" with no trouble. I have been repairing D8's now for 37 years so I should " Know My ****", the best fan to fit is the "TROPICAL" blower, you cannot turn a blower into a sucker by just turning them round, Cat made an expensive reversable fan assembly that was a pain in the backside. No bolts loose tctractors
i wish that some of the old frogs that i was around {im 36 started at 19} when i first started running scrapers were computer literate enough to enjoy this sight, i called them old frogs cuz they gave me so much grief for being young. ive heard this same arguement many times usually after too many budlites down at the bar. clarence now prob early 70s loved the 8k for the power but said they had too much power went through alot of head gaskets,he was a dozer hand extrodinaire.
In 1974, early fall, I got a D8H on the job in Wyoming that had been back east for the summer. It was starting to frost up a bit and the operator of this open-ROPS 8 wanted the fan blades turned so he could get some heat. This tractor had some hours on it and had not been cleaned in a while. The boys went ahead and took up a roll of canvas and stole some rod buster's wire so they could build a winter cab for this Cat. They went ahead and while one turned the fan blades, the other cut canvas and made up a nice deal that would funnel the warm air from the rad back into the cab area. After checking over their handiwork thay went on to the next job, and the operator came along and jumped on his Cat. He fired off the engine and after a bit he dropped the tranny in gear and slipped his foot off the de-accelerator. About the time the engine hit full RPM, the fan launched itself off the hub and ate it's way into the sand grid and radiator. Tore them both all to hell. Turns out, while working as a blower fan, all the retainer bolts that held the fan to the hub had loosened and fell out. So when the blades were turned, that big fan just did what comes naturally and headed north. While I was working in New Jersey one late fall, we rented some D9H dozers from a local contractor. These old girls were not in tip-top shape, but as there wasn't a thing of any size available on the east coast that year to buy or rent hardly, we put them to work. Well, same thing. The operators wanted the fan blades turned so they could get some heat, so a crew of mechanics went out and turned the first one. Yep! Just as soon as the engine was started and run up a little, the fan came off the hub and ate the radiator. My boss got to the other crew just in time to prevent them from starting the other 9. It too, would have come apart. Down on McPhee Dam in lower Colorado around 1984, as spring hit and things warmed up, the operators there wanted their fans turned into blowers. A couple of younger field mechanics went out to one and, coming back into the shop later, remarked that they had some trouble but got-er done! The Cat overheated badly almost immediately and cracked a head, so it was brought into the shop and my helper and I got busy getting the hood off and removing the various pipes and tubes and things to get down to the heads. While doing this I happened to glance at the fan and noted right away that it was not a reversible type. Those two knotheads had simply reversed a regular fixed sucker-fan assembly and bolted it back up. The two "field" hands became shop hands for the duration of the project. All too often I've come across reversible fans where the springs stuck in a released position after the blade was hammered in so it would turn. Then the blades would not stay fixed in place when pulled up. I don't remember how many of those type fan assemblies I've had to swap out for new when they did that. I know that we supposedly fixed a couple with penetrating oil and heat, but the springs were damaged from all the dirt and rust and being forced and they were not dependable. Lost some more radiators when the blades rattled loose and turned by themselves. Gilbert-Western mechanics tried welding the blades in place on the oil-shale job in Colorado one winter. That worked for a while, but the welds created stress fractures and busted out with the same result, more ruined rads. In northern Ontario one winter, a couple of lads were operating a pair of Cat 637 scrapers doing some road building while the muskeg was froze up. We got a warm spell and one of the operators was by the shop twice a day wanting us to turn the fan blades on the front engine so he could stay cool or warm. It wasn't an easy job turning those blades on a 637 and those of us detailed to do the work were getting a little brassed off at this guy. I couldn't really blame him as you either cooked or froze on the dern things depending on the weather which changed rapidly then. Apparently all the banging around and turning caused some metal fatigue in one of the blades and as this operator was tooling along at high speed down the haul road one day one of those weakened blades launched itself right through the side of the engine compartment and up through the console just to the right of the steering wheel. It then bounced off various things in the cab for a few moments, shattering most of the glass and finally exited out the lower door window. The operator wasn't hurt, but did have to go get some clean skivvies. He never asked us to change the blade position again after we got everything put back to rights. I think he probably still suspects we caused the mishap somehow. In Grand Junction, Colorado for a while, I knew a guy that made a decent living repairing reversible fans. Most Cat dealers wouldn't even try, but this guy took them all apart, cleaned the pieces and put them back together with as many old and new parts as he needed. After a coat of black paint he shipped those fans all over the place. He got a good price for them which was way cheaper than a new one and they carried a six month warranty. I looked at the pile of used fans he had stacked outside his shop one time and couldn't believe how tore up some of those fans were. He did nice work however and I even bought one from him for use in a D8K.
Hot and Cold. Surfer-joe, I loved your fan blade antic's, it did not take me long to work out that the reversable blade fan was a non starter, I think the cost of a new one 20 years ago was around the £2'000 - $4'000 mark, I have spent hours patching up all the little locks that keep the blades in position, I can recall an advert in the Resale Weekly once, offering a reward for information after having a reversable fan stolen, they where that costly, I soon started fitting old car heaters from scrap yards onto the deck plates then fiddled the 12 volt thing into one battery, this always made things a lot better for those in the seat, the head cracking thing is always involved with all sorts of tails to its cause, the pallets stacked high with knackered heads at Motorways Plant Stratford upon Avon will always stick in my mind, I still spend about 4 months a year working on D8H/K's avoid High drives, they Calf Down all day long. tctractors
Surfer-Joe, your story about the disabled brakeless backhoe and dozer sounds familiar. Did you ever see the Cat safety film, "Shake hands With Danger"? They had to get the idea somewhere! Happy new year to everyone. LOL!
Alan, I sometimes thought that the Cat "Shake Hands With Danger" films were written with things that happened to me in mind. So many of the situations that they show were almost exact duplicates of things I've done or participated in over the years. I even have a boot-legged copy of one of the films, though it's different from the one that Cat did. But actually, one has to remember that with Cat's large customer base, they had no shortage of true-life stories. If they were to be adapted by today's screenwriters, there would be lots of blood and gore and frantic screams of course. Those are real-life events that I've seen too much of. Today's machines are so much safer even with being bigger and more productive. Accidents and incidents still happen however, that get people hurt or killed. You always have to be on your guard when around the big stuff of something like that portrayed in the films will happen. A couple of weeks ago on the job I'm on, a large tandem dump truck started to hoist it's bed which was full of dirt. The lady driver recounted the details for me at the company Christmas party. She had the load up about 3/4's of the way when the hydraulic hoist cylinder busted in half. These trucks weren't exactly built with dirt hauling in mind, having been set up for wet concrete hauls. The frames bend like crazy and the rear springs are weak, so the loaded bed tends to lean dangerously to the heavy side. I've always hated to watch these trucks dump because untill the load starts to move, they would get so far out of plumb. In this case, as soon as the hoist cylinder snapped, the bed just kept going over to the left and it took the chassis with it, laying everything on it's left side down in on top of a culvert backfill. The lady driver was shaken up and bruised, but being seat-belted in and being so close to the left cab door, she wasn't hurt much. She was extracted safely, and the truck was up righted quickly by a Volvo 330 excavator and a Cat 950G loader. It was then towed off the immediate site and the spilled diesel fuel and hydraulic oil cleaned up. The driver says that the company has told her they are going to fix the truck at a cost of approximately $12,000.00. The rest of us on the crew are surprised at that, as these are older trucks and not worth that much money if sold. The lady driver -- who is now driving another similar truck -- says she will not get back in the repaired unit. I can't say I blame her, I think she has remarkable fortitude for just driving another of these old and tired rigs. This gal was lucky this time. There are places that we have had her and the others dump that were right on the edge of some pretty tall fills. Had she gone over one of them, this story might be different. I no longer put these five trucks on the edge like that, fearing that this situation may happen again, and with worse results. She wasn't actually on my fill at the time of the accident, having gone over to the culvert fill with another truck for just a few loads. The question comes up, could this have been prevented? The answer is; very likely. There are approximately 40-50 machines on this job. There is one mechanic, and one oiler, and they also cover another project nearby (16 miles away) with a like number of machines. No maintenance manager or maintenance foreman. The equipment is not mechanically checked every shift by a competent person. The operators and drivers are not required to perform walk-a-round pre-shift and post-shift inspections nor fill out any paperwork. Minor problems are let go even though reported, till the machines will not move. There are a few of us -- older -- that do walk around our machines and that do report problems noted. I keep a daily diary that details these items and any action or non action taken. You might say I've learned to cover my ass. Had a competent person looked at this truck every shift, they might have seen the crack or fatigue that allowed this situation to happen and maybe stopped this accident before it occurred. In other words, this company has a very poor system of maintenance called "break-down maintenance" This is expensive, it causes lost production. But above all, it's dangerous for the hands in so many ways. There is more to this of course, but I think one can get the idea that operating equipment and trucks for this company is a crap shoot. But they have done this for quite a while and gotten away with it. Someday this will bite them hard, and then Caterpillar will have a new item to include in it's next series of "Shake Hands With Danger."
bump
Hello all, just bought a 1986 D8K Cat dozer, in fully operating order, but can't find the Serial number, on the usual places where it should be, engine number I can, but not unit Serial number, so of course when ordering parts I am in a bind, any suggestions on how to get this elusive number? it starts with 77V and was told it could be 5996 after, however 77V5996 does not work. Sandblasting and repainting took care of the number on the back of the unit, left side. Inside in cab right side nothing either. Seller is an old guy with lots of experience, lots of units but has laid off all staff, and records on the parts purchased for unit are harder to find then money...
Do you mean in the online Cat system.? If so try using 77V05996. However be prepared for the system to contain no detailed information on a machine that old. Where exactly are you looking.? Got photos to show the locations.?
That would be a rare one, made in 1986, as at that time they had been making D8L's since 1982.
77V5996 is a 1976 model.
Seller sounds like a shyster. Did he mention the machine is in premium condition and the last one he's letting go but all the manuals and repair orders got thrown out? There was a guy selling used machines in Alberta and I think Sask. as well claiming he was retired and selling his machines off. He did own or work for a small contractor at one point but the machines he was selling were just machines he found and was reselling. He wasn't a very good b-ll$hitter.