Found cheap Cat D69U with dry clutch. Is dry clutc

There is nothing wrong with a dry clutch; chevy pickup trucks still have dry clutches and so do cars with stickshifts. The odd thing about the D69U (and other Cat dozers this vintage) is the way the machine manages vibration and power transfer. There are these five "fingers" (for lack of a better word) which are attached to the crankshaft and five other 'fingers' which lead to the clutch assembly and these pairs of fingers are in turn attached by a figure-8 shaped piece of rubber called a hypod. There is no way short of removing the entire clutch assembly to slide the clutch fingers back to replace the figure-8 shaped hypods (These are called hemoroids). You just have to stretch and bend this (VERY inflexible) 'hypod'. It is a fun job but can be frustrating.

The bottom line is, if you are mechanically inclined and up for a challenge you might love this machine. If it has a blade with hydraulic rams (up AND down-force) it can clear land very well. I think the warning you may have heard about using this type bulldozer (the correct term is tractor, full-tracked) is if it is a cable lift stay away. I think this is sound advice. If what you need to do involves 'clearing and grubbing' or what we used to call land-clearing or conversion, and the blade is raised by a cable that goes overhead, stay away from it. If you have more questions, I have a little more experience to share on this particular type machine. - Mike England
mike9760@comcast.net

I had a dry one (still not sure what happened) on my D7 overheat & go up in smoke last Aug. This one is a true low hour machine, the linings looked thick prior to, clutch brake needed adjustment, and there seemed to be some noticable vibration when running prior to it letting loose, which I'm inclined to believe was due to age, got the upper bellhousing ready to hoist out and to be honest, even though I've never done one of these, I'm sure I'll get it done, I took the exploded view diagram from the book and magnified it on the copy machine to make it easier to read, it does not look too complicated,( I've got to finish it soon ) little time consuming, have heard of people taking them apart and re-assembling or adjusting them in a couple of hours, I would not worry too much about it, that 9U should serve you well if you read up on it and give it thorough maintenance, ( take good care of that pony, keep the oil changed in it and do not run it if the oil ever gets thinned by gasoline, change it out - few other pony tips that are good to know like it needs the main to spin for coolant to circulate through the pony so don't run it for too long without spinning the main, also draining the carb. bowl or letting it run out of gas by shutting the valve from the tank so the bowl is empty and cannot leak down into the crankcase etc. ) I have habit of warning people about pony motor care, did see one toss a rod once, so don't mind me, sounds like a great find I'd quickly hand her the money and give it the same care as the orig. owner did.