Have been working on an old(1940)Cletrac dozer.We have the undercarrage all rebuild new rollers,rebuilt slack adjusters and welded up all the carrage wear areas.The axle assembly,clutch and tranny,steering brakes are all in great shape.Dont want to rebuild the gas engine as I want to install a diesel power plant instead.Maybe an old perkins or ford diesel.Then it gets all new paint also looking for smaller pto winch.Building cab with brush sweeps and forestry gaurds also.Aksawyer
sounds like a great lil project you got going on. But where's da pics... ;D
aksawyer, I can appreciate your efforts. I have a `46 AD finally finished.
With planetary steering their pulling power is impressive for a small machine. Cletrac detuned the Hercules diesel, max. 1500 rpm, to prevent damage.
mike
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/21613/2917/cletrac_right.JPG)
Nice!!!!
Dave
i love those old dozers! my neighbor had a TD 9 he bought brand new when they came out. he sold it to someone last year.
Any update, AK? I love old tractors! And that's a beauty, magicmikey!
Ya, definately worth a "nice" . My first machine was a '58 JD 440, two banger with a winch and fairlead. I wonder which one put a blade on first, I'd guess CAT, or maybe IH. There's a few old Cletrac around here, before my time but popular I think. JD had a bent track frame, would go in a big circle real good, sold it to a guy named Jimmy Carter and it was during the Jimmy Carter era. Got a good laugh outa that.
Nobody seems to know exactly who invented the bulldozer blade, but it was generally an after-market product until about the time of WWII, after which they were increasingly designed and built in-house. R.G. Letourneau (the man they used up all their extra vowels on) ;) is widely but falsely credited with inventing the bulldozer blade, but he may have been the first to make it a wide-spread commercial success. Many of those over-head cable blades like you see on the old Cat D-7's and D-8's were Letourneau blades, but there were also a number of other manufacturers who built blades for the aftermarket, for all the major crawler tractor companies. It wasn't until around 1960 that the major manufacturers began to stop thinking of the machines as "crawler tractors" and began thinking of them as "bulldozers" but by 1980 or so, the transformation was pretty much complete, with the tractors built "with the blade in mind."
That looks nice.My brother had an Cletrac. I have no idea the model,but it was a small one. Much smaller than one pictured. Only saw it running once and not running too good either.
LaPlante -Choate ,I think it's spelled of Cedar Rapids Iowa made a lot of the older blades for Caterpillar .
Nice job on the model A Cletrac .I had an HG Cletrac at one time .Little itty two ton machine .
I still have an Oliver OC-6 which a pushing little fool for no bigger than it is .