The Forestry Forum

Some of you here have seen my post about my Lombard log hauler ,and sled train logging, well Great Northern paper co up in northern Maine used Lombard tractors up to around 1940,then they started hauling there logging sleds with bulldozers ,they made the roads with the dozers and then pulled the sleds with them.In the 40's they used TD-18 International bulldozers to haul the sleds. In 1952 Great Northern bought 2 Oliver Cletrac model FDE  crawler tractors,these machines weighed around 20 tons with the big carco winch attached.They were powered with a 160 H.P. Hercules diesel. These tractors were the last ones used for sled haulage before Great Northern switched over to haul trucks. I got this tractor out of northern Maine around 30 years ago,it has had the cab removed and a homemade nose for a cat d-7 blade ,but it still has the hardwood "sliders" Great Northern put in to replace the top roller assembly, here are some pictures of the tractor with a Great Northern 1959 calender showing it working,and  yours truly !! ;D Don


(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/29767/Oliver-_6227.jpg)

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/29767/oliver-calendar_6272.jpg)

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/29767/oliver-calendar_6273.jpg)

Very interesting. Thanks for posting, and keep'em coming.  8)

Dave ,Heres two more pictures,in one you can see the complete Great Northern calender.in the other one a big ugly gomer holding it!! Don

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/29767/oliver-calendar_6274.jpg)

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/29767/oliver-calendar_6275.jpg)

Those are great pictures loggah.
I was born and raised there and am familiar with Great Northern.
That machine is moving a lot of wood. :)

I've never seen a big Cletrac down here. Just the smallest ones, even a few "F" models, which I like. I like the TD model IHs. We had two TD-6s, both are gone now.

Dave, I have a few smaller Cletracs also, actually 4 of them. The FDE was the biggest Cletrac built, then in 1952 Oliver was finishing up with the FDE model and came out with its OC-18 which they changed quite a few things more horsepower and about 3 tons heavier ,with total air steering. Don

Amazing the amount of wood it is pulling  :o

I'd never seen that set up before, that is really something. They are pulling a lot of wood with that dozer.

Love the pics. Living in N.C. I can't even imagine snow like that all winter, much less working in it!

Great pictures. It nice to see the past remembered. I would imagine they still used axes to some extent back then. The good days of yesteryear.

Great pictures. How do they get a big train like that started ? Can't imagine the initial tug it must take to break free. Start off headed down hill probably but once you get going there is a lot of weight to hold back. Amazing what they did in those days.

g man, lombard parented his own sled irons, you could buy sleds from him ,or just the irons. the nosepiece irons and reachpole irons all had bigger holes in them then the pins they used resulting in a bit of slack just like a railway coupler. when the tractors spotted a train of sleds for loading they would back up taking the slack out of the castings. When the tractors started out they were only breaking them loose a few at a time.If they had to stop a loaded train they did the same thing back up a few sets of sleds . The sleds Great Northern used averaged 7 cords of pulpwood to the set,i think there 15 sets you can see in the pictures  just the sleds alone weigh close to 2 tons a set.I see your up in northern VT,lombard tractors were used up there at Wenlock,and Maidstone. Don

2 tons/set x 15 sets = 60,000lbs of sleds
assuming spruce/fir at 4200/cd x 7cds = 29400lbs of wood per sled
29400 lbs  x 15 sleds = 441000lbs of wood
441000wood + 60000sled = 501,000lbs!

a half million pounds!

Maine372,good to hear from,how's that baby doing?

loggah,quite the insights you have on those haulers. Lots of history with them.

Maine 372, Those are the sleds we can see ,im sure there are more out of sight. The old steam lombards were capable of moving 150,000 board ft of hardwood on sleds and their sleds probably weighed three tons to the set.  Don

 That is way kool, never knew cletrac made a crawler that big.I owned a td 6 for a few yrs,cost me $$$ every time i started it  ;D :D ::) .

My brother had an old cletrac,maybe made in the '20? just a small thing,I think it would fit in the back of a pick up truck. He brought it for some reason,did not run good,I don't know if he ever got it straighted out or not. He was always buying something old to make it better,but at the same time did not want to spend any money to make it better.  ::)

Quote from: thecfarm on January 06, 2013, 10:29:40 AM
My brother had an old cletrac,maybe made in the '20? just a small thing,I think it would fit in the back of a pick up truck. He brought it for some reason,did not run good,I don't know if he ever got it straighted out or not. He was always buying something old to make it better,but at the same time did not want to spend any money to make it better.  ::)

Heck I didn't know we were brothers!!  ;)  Those are great pictures loggah, can't imagine pulling those loads, I'd be willing to bet the old pucker factor went through the roof a time or two.

Don: I guess there is a reason they called them trains! I got to experience logging with a crawler but we used a two cord trailer made out of a truck frame. dad always said you could move more wood that way than with a skidder when you were in small wood. cutting swamp fir and coastal spruce you could fill ten chokers and only have 1.5cd. and you spent most of your day tangling with cable.

Cfarm: babygirl is 9mos now and fairly mobile. very social and growing like a weed. I was over your way ice fishing new years day. limited out on brookies.

I enjoy looking at old logging pictures. Ever thought of putting together a book of pictures, history, and stories?

Maine372,they are hitting Norcross hard. There was 12-14 cars there the other day. Compared to a few years ago ,there would only be 2-3 there. The neighbor set his on Mosher. I don't have a license,but will go down to visit with him.

 I'm not capable of doing it!!I do have a friend in Windham Maine who could be capable of doing it he has written about lombards  and Railroad history.I do have the photos and experiences, he has picked my brain all ready about a lot of this history. Don

I am very interested in the old logging equipment, thanks for posting. There is a tracked dozer very simular in a logging display in my home town of Big Falls MN . I remember someone had it running when I was a kid. I will try and get some pictures and post them when I get back up there . I live about 65 miles away now.

Great pictures loggah.  So, were the roads watered before each trip?

I know with the Steam and gas Lombard log haulers they had  water tank,sprinkler crews. Usually they did the watering at night and basically they had the water openings to open over the sled runner grooves. With the higher horsepower full-crawler type tractors i'm  not sure ,they could have still been using icing sleds. I know when you pull a fully loaded sled over the snow it makes its own ice where the runners travel. Don

I remember hearing stories about icing the tote roads here in michigan.  This was in the horse drawn days and maybe some little olivers.  Some of the roads are slightly visible in places. Corduroy swamps etc.  I've cut over several old camps in the past ycouple years.  There's usually some earthen outlines of buildings and a dump of some sort.   Ran across this in april.  17 miles into the bush.   

 (https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/23720/2012-04-16_15-52-51_391.jpg)

pretty neat, did the old pump work ??

Very interesting! I could spend hours looking at old pictures and listening to people talk about them. Anyone interested in this thread should get up to the Logging Museum in Patten, I highly recommend it. Don, I bet you could be the tour guide up there.

Ed

I was up there years ago when Lore Rogers the founder of the museum was still alive,he was 104 then !!!! ya i pretty much remember all the stuff that was in the museum, including the 10 ton Holt tractor, i had 2 of those also,ex Great Northern tractors ,but i sold them on E-bay to a collector from Florida.

Quote from: loggah on January 06, 2013, 08:00:55 PM
pretty neat, did the old pump work ??

No but there was water in the point, so im sure with a new set of leathers it would have been pumping again.   

Heres a picture of some of the "OLD IRON" in the backyard, Cletracs, Linn,cat 35, Allis Chalmers model "K" , and a couple of potential Lombard engines. most of the small Cletracs were used in the logging industry. Don

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/29767/old-equipment_6268.jpg)

You have a mighty fine looking back yard.

Well there is another cletrac,huber maintainer, lombard chassis ,and a unit 12-20 cable crane just out of sight !!!! Heres a picture of the front yard ,of my mini-museum building. Don
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/29767/building_6243.jpg)

I'll
Just put it out there that if you wanted to host a gathering at yOur museum I'd bring supplies

My collection of crawlers pales in comparison.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/20442/marshall_rd_october_12_010.JPG)
Nice iron you've got there.

Great Pic's all. Got to love old iron. wants me to go get one out and play. Never to old to play  :snowball:

A mighty fine looking building. What's that derrick,I think,sticking up in the background? Looks like a cover to a boiler on your building,above the 2 windows?

Well thats the crane boom on my unit 12-20 crane, and that is a  boiler door from the old Draper corporation sawmill that was in Beebe river  about 2 miles from here,there were three of the big Dillon boilers there ,the boilers were made in Fitchburg Mass.Don

You don't see many Cletracs in running condition any more .I have an OC-6 gasser which is fairly rare .

They were used for ag purposes because they were light on the ground pressure and could track over a muddy field that a person would sink to their knees in walking over .

I've never seen any of the larger Cletracs except in pictures .The earlier,I think A and B models were about the size of a D4 Cat and the OC-6 about the size of a D2 with more power .Then the little ones models HG and OC-3 which were tiny little two ton units .

Al, i have a AD,partsBD,  2 BGSH models and the FDE. They were the preferred tractors in logging because of their ground clearance,and having traction to both tracks at all times. When i was a kid we used a 310 case logging, the case used the same differential as the cletracs. i never owned any of the oc series. Don

Loggah,
You have great collections. 
I couldn't pick out the Linn in your pic.
Is it a half track with skis on the front?
The Town of Blenheim in Schoharie county NY used one like that to plow snow in the early 60's
Pete

The planitary type differentials on the Cletracs did have the advantage of keeping the power on both tracks .However you could not zero turn them .

I've never seen one but have heard on one model of the OC series which was after Oliver took over Cletrac they made at least one model that could spin turn .From what I gather it was the OC -4 which was intended to be a bull dozer from the onset not an ag tractor .Evidently in addtion to the planitary it also had a set of steering clutchs .

What I've found at least on the few I've owned is Cletrac used single flanged track rollers where Cat used double flanged .If the track got the least bit loose on the Oliver Clectracs they were real easy to walk off .Now the fun begins getting the danged track back on especially knee deep in a swampy field ,been there .

Those models were small enough unlike like the A's they carried no top roller .You need about 2" of sag .Too loose you walk off  too tight you knock out the bearings on the finals or the front idler .

They are a different breed of cat so to speak if a person is used to running a manual steering clutch Cat or International and certainly a challange for someone used to a 450 John -Deere with the brakes on the end of the steering clutch throw .

 (https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/20442/used_vic_005.JPG)
Here's another shot of my Oliver oc-3. It's an ag model with the wide track stance, HG-68 I think

Note the lack of a top roller.

I'm not certain if there was any difference between the OC-3 and the HG other than the OC3 was painted yellow and the HG green .

Al, im not sure of the differences either,i know most of the bigger OC models could spot turn ,OC12,OC15,OC18 ,at least thats what the brochures say. Peter, the one i have has pneumatic tires in front,the "LINN LOGGER" had the skis on front and had a longer frame. My Linn was originally a plow truck for the city of Morris N.Y.  built in 1925, later around 1932 it was rebuilt at the factory and shipped to Ford & Smiley a Buick and Linn truck dealer in Skowhegan Maine. The Linn and snowplow were sold to Joseph  Chinchette who was the original founder of Chinbro, a big contracting firm in Maine.Here is a picture of the Linn,I need to rebuild the cab. Don

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/29767/linn_6276.jpg)

While on this subject for those interested there is a book ,"Endless Tracks in the Woods "coauthored by James  A Young and Jerry D Budy published by Crestline. It covers the golden age of tractor logging .Very interesting with tons of pictures .It covers from steam tractors clear up to the big D8's etc .I'm not certain if it's still in print or not .

I got my copy years ago when Surplus tractor of Fargo North Dakota was still in business .Do I ever miss that place .

Al, that book drove me insane on all the inaccuracies about Lombard and the origin of the crawler track. They didn't research that subject  to well. Don

But it's a very nice book if you don't know any better. I brought it for my Father many years ago. I have it right behind me. Lots and lots of pictures in it.

I did think of a couple of historic tid bits about the later series of light crawlers made after Oliver took over Cletrac .

The smaller models namely OC- 3, HG and OC-6 were favored among produce growers and often fit with narrow tracks so they could straddle the rows of produce .I met a fellow who owned 26 of them at one time and coincidently was at one time a large produce grower in of all places St Johns Mich right were good old Marty is.

Evidently who ever made the crawler frames and  tracks for Oliver  also made crawler frames and tracks for gang drills used to bore blast holes in quarries .Over the years they wear out and it was worth more to scrap out the little crawlers for parts as to sell them intact . They were the exact replacements for the quarry drills and there were no new replacement parts .

Yup,Joy corp out of Claremont N.H. used Oliver undercarriges 0n there airtracks,oc-3,oc-4. Don 

In 1959 my father bought a new 0C-3, Oliver, gas motor, nice little cat. Then he bought a Hill Lake, dray with a knuckle boom to pull behind. This was a nice setup for strip skidding.

Those little crawlers will drag more than they look like they can .

Thanks Loggah,
Morris is not far from me about 70 miles east.
Pete

Great post, loggah! :) I'd like to see some photos of the inside of your building, too.

Well i may post pictures  of one  floor in the general forum,  i think guys around here might be getting sick of looking at "old stuff" . Don

There is a Linn tractor on display in downtown Morris. Its just over a couple of hills from here.

Quote from: loggah on January 09, 2013, 05:34:21 PM
Yup,Joy corp out of Claremont N.H. used Oliver undercarriges 0n there airtracks,oc-3,oc-4. Don

My aunt and uncle live in Claremont.  :)

Quote from: thecfarm on January 09, 2013, 05:19:20 PM
But it's a very nice book if you don't know any better. I brought it for my Father many years ago. I have it right behind me. Lots and lots of pictures in it.

I have it too, and I have spent many hours pouring over the photos. Yes, the inaccuracies are legion. I have thought several times about starting a thread about the book, and going through it page by page to analyze it and figure out the truth about all that is shown and said in it!

I got my copy when I was about 14 or 15, and I made many corrections in pen in my copy. Later, I found out that some of my corrections were incorrect!  :-X But most of them were at least more accurate than the original mistake.

My wife told me to get a hold of them and straighten them out on Lombard ,i said "NO' it took me 40 years to gather what little knowledge i have on the subject and i wasn't going to give it away. I did post pictures of one floor in my building, 2 other floors,there also. Don

loggah (Don), My friend is in the process of restoring a Holt that was marketed as a logging unit. It is complete and needs some rebuilding. The last report was that he had machined a new set of valve guides as the old ones were worn out. He is a skilled machinist and his grandfather had assembled a well-equiped machine shop. He is located in Ashby, MN in the west-central part of the state. He feels it may be completed for our annual tractor show in early September. I know he would like to hear more about Holt logging crawlers. I also have a copy of ,"Endless Tracks in the Woods". I was unaware that it was so inaccurate!
Sparky

The Holts weren't the most successful logging tractors out there, the 5 ton and 10 ton tracks  were 2 piece with a hinge pin in the center,this is where the term caterpillar came from watching the way the tracks  moved up and down going over rough ground. The problem came in a hard pull the tractor would rear up,because the track frame wasn't rigid, you didn't have the front of the track frame weight helping hold the tractor on the ground. When Holt and Best merged in 1925 to form Caterpillar tractor co they took the Holt  trademark and were called the "BEST CATERPILLAR" co. In 1926 they kept the 2 ton model Holt, and the Best 30,and Best 60 tractors,doing away with the Holt 5 ton and 10 ton. The Holts are neat tractors years ago got a ten ton running and ran it around a bit,i will say they moved out !!!!  4 cylinder 6 1/2" bore 8" stroke they really sound off under a load.  ;D Don

Loggah, I started to write a novel a year or two ago, that involved sled logging with the steam Lombards, circa 1910 or 1912 or so. I never finished it, but if I ever get to writing on it again, I'll have to hit you up for some more information.

If you are ever interested in writing a book, and would like some help with it let me know. My mom is a professional author, and my dad was a copy-editor for many years (and edits her books now). It runs in my blood, as does my love of logging history. I would be thrilled to be involved in getting a good book about Mr. Lombard and his machines, as well as sled trains in general, into publication.

Well i do appreciate the offer, i have tossed this around quite a bit, and figured there wouldn't be much of a demand for it. My wife used to own a printing business and she actually printed some small books 120-140 pages  soft cover. I actually have a copy of a manuscript a deceased  friend of mine gave me,titled Lombards, inventors along the penobscot. he spent 50 years putting it together with interviews with the lombard family ,its legal size double spaced typed with an old Remington type writer, Us in a small circle call it "THE LOMBARD BIBLE" ;D He left no stones unturned doing his research. there are only 2 copies of this manuscript ,the other is in a museum in Hinckley Maine.

I grew up across the river from Hinckley. I'm not sure just how much wide-spread appeal there would be for the book, but I'm sure they would sell it at the Maine State Museum, the logging museum in Patten, and other such places. I've also noticed that one of the best ways to sell a book in large numbers is to have a great cover-- should be a color action shot of your subject in action. I know a lot of people in Maine would buy it.

I know I would love to be able to read whatever info you have on them. Crawlers, tractors, and Lombards are part of my family lore and I have a special affinity for them.

As I mentioned on your other thread, about the Cletracs, you've got to make the pilgrimage to see Landis Zimmerman some time. It'll be well worth your trip. Enjoy the sites of the Pennsylvania countryside at the same time.

You can still find a few Cat 60's at steam and tractor shows .If I recall correctly  they start with a big bar in notchs in the flywheel .

Cletracs you might find few A's and  B's and occasionally an HG or OC-3 but that's about it .

Probabley the largest show of that kind in the midwest is in Portland Indiana I think in August .

At our local Labor Day weekend farm days, there is usually a 1938 D-8 with cable-operated scraper, a D-7 with overhead cable blade, an Allis Chalmers model L, a TD-9 IH, and various other smaller crawlers from D-6 size on down. And about 300 wheel tractors, of course! They also have a Frick sawmill they fire up with a big old primitive internal combustion engine and demonstrate sawing. I believe our FF friend Charlie gets involved with that mill a good bit. Anybody who wants to make a trip down here for LDW, come on down for a fun tractor show with sawmill, antique vendors, etc!

Any book is all about the pictures !!!! unfortunately  there are no photos in the manuscript, but i do have most of the pictures he references, i have probably 1500 lombard and  linn pictures squirreled away. I had a 1936 9G series D7 with a letourneau cable blade once upon a time along with 2 2U D-8's and a 13A D8 + 2 D9's  18A and 19A series , I got rid of that big stuff a while back,my buddys said i was upsetting the orbit of the earth !!!! ;D ;D Don

And no doubt throwing off all the navigational compasses in your zip code.  ;)

Quote from: loggah on January 10, 2013, 07:10:24 PM
i think guys around here might be getting sick of looking at "old stuff" . Don

I really doubt that. and if they are they don't have to read your posts.   ::)  keep them coming. I may not post on your threads but I'm a reading each and everyone. I don't have nothing to really add to your "old stuff" but I sure do enjoy reading and seeing it.
The day is not that far off when guys like you will be gone and than guys like me will step up to the plate with misinformation and no one will know it.  :o

I haven't posted in this thread because I know nothing about these machines. However I check in at least twice a day. Keep posting. I think this stuff is very interesting.

loggah

Quotethere are no photos in the manuscript, but i do have most of the pictures he references, i have probably 1500 lombard and  linn pictures squirreled away

It will be some work, but hopefully you don't take all your collected knowledge with photo's and manuscripts with you. ;)  You may be the only remaining good link.

My father has a d7 with the overhead cable op blade. Its a 40 something model.  I used to ride with him on there till I fell asleep to the rumble of that big engine and the smell of fresh dirt.

I used to ride on the TD-6 when I was a toddler. My dad was skinny enough that there was room for a kiddo beside him. The armrests were high enough to provide a certain measure of safety. I can remember being 2 or 3 years old and riding along, and being thrilled when we would push down a tree. Of course the TD-6 couldn't easily push down very much of a tree! Now I drive a JD 350, and it is similar sized to the TD-6.

Loggah and Okra, IMHO a book like that needs to be written, so future generations can have a true understanding of the history of what built this nation, so our kids and grandkids will have a sense of how to rebuild it once more, when the time is right.  The truth about our history needs to be preserved, no better way to do that than a good book! BTW with a library of Congress number, maybe it will become a source reference for a future text book. You just never know how much your knowledge can impact future generations. I am really grateful for your willingness to share all your boring "old stuff" BTW, keep it coming and thanks loads!!

Thanks loads? Fifteen sled-loads?  :D :D Those old crawlers sure were "whack" haulers, weren't they?  : ;D

Quote from: WH_Conley on January 10, 2013, 10:02:37 PM
I haven't posted in this thread because I know nothing about these machines. However I check in at least twice a day. Keep posting. I think this stuff is very interesting.

I concur! I love old Iron and I'd love to have an old dozer. I do have a Farmall A if that counts  :) Dad has a couple of Allis Chalmers crawlers, a wd-9 industrial, regular wd-9, 560 IH, 660 IH, a pair of 4100 IHs, Massey Ferguson 35?, Wagner 17, Versatile 900, and then the newer line of machinery as well.

Levi

My buddy has a Farmall A, we use its  flatbelt pully to power my 24" lane lagbed planer.

Some of that stuff becomes a challange to find parts for .It isn't like you can just trot off to the parts store and find a piston for an old Cat or John-Deere .

I looked high and low for a cylinder head for a 1940 Cat 7J series D4 to no avail then years later with the advent of flea bay found one in Maine of all places .Cost me 90 for the head and 90 to ship it .I considered myself lucky to even find one  .

With the advent of the internet, finding parts for these things is getting easier. Sometimes it's the newer stuff that's harder. I can't find a front end support for a Massey Ferguson model 30 industrial tractor.

For the more common models, though, parts are fairly easy to come by for most things. Good luck trying to find the parts that had trouble, though. Like final drives for the International T-6 / TD-6.

Okrafarmer, Thats to weird!!! the tractor i got to run my Belsaw is a 60 H.P. Massey Ferguson industrial 30 ,has the number 54 loader on it , and no i will not prop it up at the mill and send you the  part you need !!!!! ;D ;D Don

Quote from: Okrafarmer on January 11, 2013, 11:41:44 PM
 

Like final drives for the International T-6 / TD-6.

Some machines just had notoriously weak parts that never got addressed during their production runs .I can think of several and one being the stub axles on TD -14's .

Some of the big Allis crawlers were plagued with final drive problems also .Most of the little Oliver gassers like the OC-3's also died for lack of finals usually caused by the Timkin bearings getting sloppy which it turn was from having the tracks too tight .

It's the old story of the battle being lost from lack of a rider due to lack of a horse that  lost a shoe because of one shoe nail .In the case of Oliver it was because of single flange track rollers ,bad plan .

I was just remembering when i found this big Cletrac. I was riding around in central Maine  back on  in the early 1980's and was driving thru Monson and spotted this tractor way up on a knoll in back of Clarence Turners  construction co. I pulled in and looked up the owner  Clarence who was a look alike for Slim Pickens !! I asked him about the Big Cletrac, you mean the "MOOSE" he replied which was his knickname  for it, i guess it could be was his reply ,i asked why it was way back on the hill ? He replied so no-one would get in trouble with it!! I had to ask, Well he said the last time i had it running i almost drove thru my house, scared the "S--T" out of me. Evidently they pushed started it with a D-7  and it fired right up in high gear, well then he found out the master clutch was stuck, oh ya and it has air steering assist and no air pressure!!!! well hes charging down the  hill toward his house ,no clutch,no steering,he is bouncing so bad he cant reach the fuel shutoff which on these tractors is about 5' from the operator ,fuel tank and battery box between you and it!!! he is getting real close to the house when the guy on the D-7 catches him and slams the blade into the winch and manages to turn the Cletrac away from the house into his parking lot where it was smooth enough so he could finally reach the fuel shutoff and shut her down. About that time i almost had tears in my eyes from laughing at his story and antics !!!!!! ;D ;D Well i did buy the machine from him and when it got on the lowbed it was pushed on in "NEUTRAL" !! Don

Al, Around here those old TD internationals were referred to as "CAST IRON" bulldozers!! ya the old A-C's could cut an axle off pretty quickly, bu snapping the steering clutch out under load. Don

Growing up in rural Ohio I've ran my share of equipment over the years .The largest dozer was big old cable D8 series 14A I think .It would walk though about a 30 " oak tree usually . If it wouldn't the cable blade was so slow you could bury the dozer spinning the tracks before the blade would raise .I never did get the hang of running a cable lift .

Only one thing ever kind of scared me and that was a twin engine 20 yard heaped Cat pan scraper .That thing would run about 30 MPH on the road with basically a D6 engine on both ends . I helped a buddy dig a 3 acre pond with one .That job took a lot of diesel fuel and a lot of beer .

Took me a while to figure to make the cut come out the full length of the run instead of filling the bowl in about 50 feet taking 18" at a time .It dumped out exactly like it came in ,18" at a time .About wore him out trying to blade out those big clumps I left with a JD 450 .

We traded out after a while .I can run a dozer but I doubt I'll ever be good on a pan .

This AC L (owned locally here) might have made a good sled train tractor.

 (https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/22845/3027/Dacusville_09_045.jpg)

And here is the '38 D-8 with scraper (oh, and myself and an offspring posing, too). An annual display at Dacusville for the Labor Day Weekend show.



 (https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/22845/3027/Dacusville_09_047.jpg)

Unfortunately just the mere costs of transporting large pieces of equipment to those tractor shows has caused many who might have them to not show them .

I know in my own little life when I actively participated just my own stuff ,the largest being a 14,800 lb D4 Cat it took a full day prior to the show and a full day afterwards just moving the stuff .

The Allis-chalmers model "L" and "LO' tractors are kind of rare, they were about 90 H.P.  the early ones had a steering wheel,later ones were clutch lever and brake pedal steer. I have only seen a couple ,there are none around here. The "K" and "M" models were around here. The "L" would have been a good sled hauling tractor for sure.That tractor is sure a beauty. I had 3 different "K"s one had the baker bulldozer,the other a Baker v-plow with wings. The only A-C i had was a HD7 with a 3-71 detroit in it. Nice 1H D-8 with the slidebar transmission ,neat toys !!!!!!! ;D ;D The problem like Al pointed out is moving them around to the shows.

I once tried to deal on an HD 5 I think that had a 2-71 Detroit and some monster of a crawler that died in the middle of what became a field that had a 6-110 .I think it was an HD-20 ,21 maybe about the size of a D8 .It expired in the middle of a woods they were clearing out and they just left it there .Looked odd in the middle of a cornfield .

I offered the guy scrap prices for them but he would not budge .When he passed on the scrappers torched them .

Even at scrap prices just how in the world would you move a dead dozer that likely weighed over 25 tons ?Certainly not with a skidloader or 3 dozen even .Best deal I ever got is not to have gotten them .

 :D So here I am,day after a show loading the last piece of equipment which was an OC-6 Oliver crawler .Broke the rivets out of a brake band half way up the loading ramps .Stuck can't go forwards can't go backwards .For those who don't know those planitary differentials have a mind of their own if the brakes aren't working .I mean real squirrely .

Blocked the tracks ,chained it down .Took the top off the tranny pulled the brake band .Took it to my shop ,repaired it .About a 4 hour ordeal all said and done before it was up on the tri axle trailer behind my old 1957 Ford  F600 with a 272 gas V8 engine .Memmories !

Big dead crawlers ,require big equipment to move them ,skidders,dozers, and preferably excavators!!! the HD 20 had a 6-110 detroit engine, and the little HD 5 had a 2-71  ,the starter was as long as the engine block ! ;D planetary differentials dont behave at all when you loose a band,every now and then when we were logging with the old 310 case a band end would snap, a real pain because the cover was behind the winch. Don