last of the sled train tractors

[reride82]

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

[loggah]

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

[Al_Smith]

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  .

[Okrafarmer]

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.

[loggah]

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

[Al_Smith]

 

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 .

[loggah]

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

[loggah]

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

[Al_Smith]

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 .

[Okrafarmer]

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

 

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.



 

[Al_Smith]

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 .

[loggah]

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.

[Al_Smith]

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 .

[Al_Smith]

 :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 !

[loggah]

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