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I love that question, I've heard that debate many times, although I've ran many of that era Cat's never ran an D8H, but did spend a lot of time on 8K's. On the bustin your knees were they pedal steer like a 977L or did you have to use both pedals and the levers to steer on those H's like the old ones ? Thought they were the same as K's with the pull levers out of the dash. I've seen on em on jobs and in a few quarries but never got to run an H. Every operator has a preference based on performance and operator comforts but I think the guys that would have the most valuable input are the mechanics that know them both internally, especially these 2 series. That and contractors who have run both, comparing reliability, that is an age old debate. It always goes back to the motor in these, apparently, and I've never experienced it, there were some problems that were inherent to the 8K, there was a remedy, the spacer plate motors, I'll stop there, or make a fool of myself, don't really know what the problem was there. A lot of contractors had them rebuilt through the certified rebuild program, still cost effective to run, those guys in the UK sure believe so. I had not experienced the problems people have mentioned with these, they seemed very reliable for the most part. I pulled on off a job site once that they ran the undercarriage to destruction, and I mean distruction, lucky I did not lose a track getting on or off the trailer, it left a trail of roller parts at Foley's yard in NJ when I unloaded it, $30,000 worth of U/C work when I picked it up, we had 3 8Ns and 2K's out that summer, and a bunch of 627s out on site. Ask that on the ACMOC and ACME discussion forums, there are some large contractors still running those in the UK, and they keep rebuilding them that frequent them, ask for Tony Coates (tctractors) from the UK on the ACMOC board, don't worry they'll chime in on that question, and I wonder what Bob from Ont has to offer on this one too. I liked the 8K with the 4bbl single shank ripper, have push loaded 627 scrapers, TS 14 scrapers, stockpiled, ripped rock and frost, sunk one in an open field once, hauled them on the lowboy etc. Ran 8N's too but that is another argument LOL ! Some of those government surplus 8K's I've seen on auction sure looked nice with hardly worn or new undercarriages, although they can be missing things, have to look em over, I'd look at those, so many of these bigger ones are hammered by contractors,nice to find a clean one on auction. Dealers grab em, the local one here was doing that with D7G's, that were olive drab green surplus ones.
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