funny cat story

where I live there is an old 1941 cat D 8 bulldozer that has benn sitting for quiet a few years and today my friend came by and I showed him a picture of it and when he saw it he was amazed because years ago he sold it with a farm and some how it ended up miles away to near where I lve now

so it's a small world isn't it

That has a LeTourneau angle tilt dozer on it, hydraulic conversion for lift, those were originally cable operated, you don't see a lot of those old LeT blades around, it was built before caterpillar started building them in house.

Hard to say where the hyd set up came from, could be a LaPlante-Choate mounted on their, cylinders are brown, been sittin a long time, someone should take an interest in it and see who owns it, before a scrapper finds it, if the tracks have some life left, motor not stuck, might be useful.

I'm familiar with that starting motor, some things to know about them, they like clean fresh oil, have to watch out carefully for gas leaking in, can thin out the crankcase oil cause to it seize up, high rev old tech motor, also good not to let the diesel overspeed them, pinion has to release at the right time or you need to kill it when the diesel fires. Need a clean fuel supply and the magneto needs to be hot, solid conductor wires, non-champion type spark plugs, usually run fine when in decent shape.

One that has sat as long as this, have to check out the fuel system, see what's up in the tank and what's coming out of it, filters, injector pumps, have to make sure nothing is rusted and stuck in there, condensation over years, lots of oils to change etc., kind of a project, if the diesel is not stuck, might be worth fooling with, keep the scrap man at bay.

It's nice to see rain caps on the exhaust's, though condensation can still get em I believe, one I retrieved years back, that belonged to us, had the exhaust covered, yet was stuck.

You never know, it's kind of a different hobby, and if you don't have to do any major repairs to get it running, obviously the components are large on these, just hate seeing em scrapped out, and that is what may very well happen with the prices of scrap today unless someone takes an interest in it, even if just for parts. You have 2 great forums beside this one that support the old caterpillars, ACMOC & ACME.