Bought my wife a Caterpillar D4

[JOhnH]

Sweet! Drove and operated some heavy equipment in the Air Force, always fun. Kids and wife look like they're having a blast! Better watch them or they'll knock down all your trees!

I thought that was the daughter and grand daughter.

 

[mscard88]

I thought that was the daughter and grand daughter.

 

[Checkout_my_Six]

welcome to the family....here's me and my son.

 

[Chip Sylverne]

Manuals are just another mans opinion....

Not when it comes to heavy equipment. You only want to do a repair once, the right way. The parts are heavy, the oil is heavy, the quarters are tight and filthy. You don't want to be tinkerin' at the same repair two or three times. Cat's manuals are good, use them and save the skin on your knuckles.

 

[paflyer]

That thing should make one helluva airplane tug.

It can push the hangar away from the airplane.

 

[Ted]

Your local dealer should be able to get you anything. If they say they can’t, PM me.

Yeah, $45 for brass fuel valve that can be had at the local hardware store for $7.99. Cat dealer is supplier of last resort.

If the Cat dealer can actually source the parts at all, I consider that to be pretty impressive. Especially considering how I see aircraft OEMs (not) supporting their legacy aircraft that are several decades newer.

I owned acreage, mostly flat, that I wanted to make into a landing strip. It had a few ditches that needed moving, some fences that needed to be torn down, a few trees that had to go, and a few woodchuck holes that needed filling.

I first bought a farm tractor with a back blade/disc/plow/box blade...super easy to use.

I bought a bobcat type front loader (Mustang)...super easy to use.

Then I bought a backhoe...super easy to use.

So then, thinking that I was some kind of earth-moving expert, I bought a dozer (D4 also)...holy crud was that thing hard to figure out! After unintentionally turning my property into something that resembled a motocross track, I had to call a buddy that did earth moving and confess my screw up(s). He came over, returned my property back to "smooth", and gave me some pointers, including the advice: Don't expect to get good at using a dozer for six months or so...

Good luck!

Your friend's advice is well taken. By no means would I say I'm "good" at it. The nice thing is that the primary purpose of the dozer at this point is we have it 1) for fun and 2) for getting tree stumps out. We have a lot of other prep work that needs to get done. It won't surprise me if at some point we have to get a grader in.

Cute picture Ted of your daughter. I have a similar one of my then little girl helping me wash a VW Bug Convertable I had for awhile. They grow up fast, enjoy them while you can.

The girls right now are a real hoot, coming up on their 4th birthday in a few months. Personalities in full bloom and very busy. We have a lot of fun with them.

 

[Checkout_my_Six]

let the drama begin.....lol

 

[tawood]

...Your friend's advice is well taken. By no means would I say I'm "good" at it. The nice thing is that the primary purpose of the dozer at this point is we have it 1) for fun and 2) for getting tree stumps out. We have a lot of other prep work that needs to get done. It won't surprise me if at some point we have to get a grader in...

I should have mentioned, my friend gave me another great piece of advice: back blading is your friend. By just letting the blade float on it's own weight, while moving backwards, you can really cover up mistakes.

 

[Ted]

I should have mentioned, my friend gave me another great piece of advice: back blading is your friend. By just letting the blade float on it's own weight, while moving backwards, you can really cover up mistakes.

I appreciate the advice. I'd had that thought as well, so it's good to have some affirmation.

 

[NealRomeoGolf]

If the Cat dealer can actually source the parts at all, I consider that to be pretty impressive.

I need to find the story where a collector came to us with a 1920s (I think) vintage tractor that had broken the brake pedal (it still ran). There were no parts to be had on the planet. So we 3d printed the mold and poured some castings. Not sure what they charged him, but he was a happy guy. Supporting our equipment is one of our legacies. But to Chip’s point, it can come at a premium.

 

[Ted]

I need to find the story where a collector came to us with a 1920s (I think) vintage tractor that had broken the brake pedal (it still ran). There were no parts to be had on the planet. So we 3d printed the mold and poured some castings. Not sure what they charged him, but he was a happy guy. Supporting our equipment is one of our legacies. But to Chip’s point, it can come at a premium.

At this point there are a few known things I need to take care of on the dozer just for basic functionality and getting the diesel engine running right. The pony motor is also a priority, but less so than the diesel, as you'd expect.

 

[NealRomeoGolf]

At this point there are a few known things I need to take care of on the dozer just for basic functionality and getting the diesel engine running right. The pony motor is also a priority, but less so than the diesel, as you'd expect.

I assume it has a D315 in it?

 

[charheep]

Paint it Deere green... Maybe it will run better.

 

[NealRomeoGolf]

Paint it Deere green... Maybe it will run better.

Reported

 

[Ted]

I assume it has a D315 in it?

I'm actually not certain which engine variant is in it, but I'm guessing you're right. I need to look at the data plates.

 

[rsleeds]

Dozers are fun to have around. This D8 was left in the woods on 140 acres I bought after the previous owner cleared some paths through the property. Included it in the deal and we changed the batteries and adjusted the tracks and it served our purposes for a year or so before we sold it to the local heavy equipment graveyard guy.

 

[Gerhardt]

Dude has no idea how spoiled he is.

 

[MauleSkinner]

View attachment 66491

Dozers are fun to have around. This D8 was left in the woods on 140 acres I bought after the previous owner cleared some paths through the property. Included it in the deal and we changed the batteries and adjusted the tracks and it served our purposes for a year or so before we sold it to the local heavy equipment graveyard guy.

My grandpa used to say that if you buried something with a D8, it was buried for good.

 

[Ted]

Dozers are fun to have around. This D8 was left in the woods on 140 acres I bought after the previous owner cleared some paths through the property. Included it in the deal and we changed the batteries and adjusted the tracks and it served our purposes for a year or so before we sold it to the local heavy equipment graveyard guy.

One other dozer I was considering (and really liked) was a D7 with a winch. I probably would've bought it except for the fact that at ~25k lbs and 9' wide it needed a semi to transport. After searching around a bit, the end result was that it was going to be rather absurd price wise. Plus then that would also mean that if I ever needed or wanted to transport it elsewhere (or sell it) would also require a semi.

The D4 I can haul on my trailer with my Ram just fine.

 

[gkainz]

One other dozer I was considering (and really liked) was a D7 with a winch. I probably would've bought it except for the fact that at ~25k lbs and 9' wide it needed a semi to transport. After searching around a bit, the end result was that it was going to be rather absurd price wise. Plus then that would also mean that if I ever needed or wanted to transport it elsewhere (or sell it) would also require a semi.

The D4 I can haul on my trailer with my Ram just fine.

Geez - didn't you know a guy that owns (owned) a semi? Start another thread ... "Thinking about (another) semi..."

 

[Checkout_my_Six]

meh....mine needs a semi to move....and it ain't all that spensive to move. Plus...no one wants to borrow it.

 

[Ted]

Geez - didn't you know a guy that owns (owned) a semi? Start another thread ... "Thinking about (another) semi..."

When I sold it I was definitely thinking about this exact sort of scenario popping up. However, we were all happy to see the semi go, I think me most of all.

I fly an MU-2, but that Kenworth? That scared me a bit. Especially after the wheels fell off. I suspect if I was driving something that wasn't a complete POS that I would like it more.

meh....mine needs a semi to move....and it ain't all that spensive to move. Plus...no one wants to borrow it.

This was about 250 miles away. The cheapest quote I was able to find was $1500. Total cost would've ended up being about double what I paid for this one when you factor that in.

The point another friend of mine made was, let's say I have to take it someplace to get serviced for something that I can't do. Now I'm paying whatever that ridiculous cost is to move it on top of whatever it costs to fix. Now reality is if the thing ends up that broken, I'm probably not paying to fix it. But the point remains.

So in the end I figured the D4 would do what we needed it to anyway (at least mostly), and be a lot easier to move when the need arose.

 

[GeorgeC]

Find the "transform" button yet?

 

[Ghery]

The girls right now are a real hoot, coming up on their 4th birthday in a few months. Personalities in full bloom and very busy. We have a lot of fun with them.

Our daughter's twin boys are just over 4. Boy, howdy, are the personalities in full bloom. And busy is an understatement. Have fun!

 

[Matthew]

Ted's kids are going to miss the experience of pushing Tonkas around a sandbox because they will be too busy with the real things.

 

[Ted]

Ted's kids are going to miss the experience of pushing Tonkas around a sandbox because they will be too busy with the real things.

We'd been thinking of going to Digger Land so that the kids could play on construction equipment.

Of course, then we realized, we have our back yard.

 

[Matthew]

My dozer from back in the day. Well, a picture of the kind I had. Mine got used hard.

 

[Briar Rabbit]

My intention for buying a bulldozer came up in another “thinking about” thread. However my wife wanted a bulldozer, and I decided to buy one for our anniversary for her as a surprise. Since she’s on here occasionally, I couldn’t do a normal thinking about thread.

So here it is - a 1952 Caterpillar D4 dozer. We were driving it around today just having a blast. @Laurie drove it easily for half an hour or more. The kids were super excited to drive it too. Bulldozer rides were fun today.

View attachment 66462

It runs well overall (after all, it’s a Cat) but has a few noted issues.

- one cylinder fires differently than the others and seems to smoke. It also sounds like it has an exhaust leak, but it doesn’t - the sound comes out of the muffler. I think it might have a bad injector? Maybe the valves just need adjusted?
- the fuel bowl on the gas tank for the pony motor rusted off. I think the fuel tank is salvageable but I’ll need a new fuel bowl
- hydraulic hoses are beyond shot. I’m getting new ones made up
- glasspack muffler is blown out and the exhaust belches pretty much in your face. I’m going to get a longer exhaust pipe and a new muffler to help quiet it down a bit

My plan is to get the pony motor working properly. Right now we have to pull start it with my Ram which works fine but I do want it working correctly. We also will eventually paint it. I think I’ll adjust the valves on it but I probably need to get the pony motor working first so I have a way to spin the engine.

This thing is really cool. I already pushed one stump over with it.

Does anyone know a good parts source for classic Cat stuff?

View attachment 66460 View attachment 66461

Ted, try these websites for ads:
www.rockanddirt.com/parts-for-sale
www.machinerytrader.com/#PartsSearchTag
www.ironplanet.com/

This site will tell you a lot about your new toy:
www.ritchiespecs.com

There is a site in St. Louis I have purchased parts from before, name escapes me but I will think of it and send it to you when I do. I had a D4 for a couple of years, very fuel efficient. Not much weight though so not a lot of muscle when it comes to pushing out stumps. There are lots of sources for old cat parts, the pony motor may be a bigger challenge than the cat itself.

 

[Briar Rabbit]

Ted, try these websites for ads:
www.rockanddirt.com/parts-for-sale
www.machinerytrader.com/#PartsSearchTag
www.ironplanet.com/

This site will tell you a lot about your new toy:
www.ritchiespecs.com

There is a site in St. Louis I have purchased parts from before, name escapes me but I will think of it and send it to you when I do. I had a D4 for a couple of years, very fuel efficient. Not much weight though so not a lot of muscle when it comes to pushing out stumps. There are lots of sources for old cat parts, the pony motor may be a bigger challenge than the cat itself.

Also Ted if you are going to haul it on your own trailer make sure your trailer has a wood floor. Steel surfaces on trailers and steel tracks are a recipe for disaster. Here is a pic of my old 4 before I decided to get something bigger.

 

[Ted]

I had a D4 for a couple of years, very fuel efficient. Not much weight though so not a lot of muscle when it comes to pushing out stumps. There are lots of sources for old cat parts, the pony motor may be a bigger challenge than the cat itself.

Thanks for the links to the parts sources, I'll check them out. We'll see how the thing works long term. I would've liked something heavier, but in the end the weight of that thing (which I'd figured at around 10-11k?) is about the max that I can have without getting a semi and associated trailer, and I'm not going down that road again... yet.

None of the stumps we're trying to push out are all that big around. I managed to get one stump out without too much effort, and at that point the blade was only about halfway up. Some of the stumps ended up being cut lower to the ground than I would've liked (i.e. less leverage) and those might be extra work. We'll see how it all goes once I get new hoses on and can properly manipulate the blade.

The pony motor, yeah, that'll probably be a bit more of an issue on parts. But it's a neat old design and I like the old way of doing things. Obviously it's less than ideal, but so long as you don't stall the thing, it's fine. A lot of people convert to electric start, but for me that's not something I want to do.

Also Ted if you are going to haul it on your own trailer make sure your trailer has a wood floor. Steel surfaces on trailers and steel tracks are a recipe for disaster. Here is a pic of my old 4 before I decided to get something bigger.
View attachment 66517

It's funny how much Cat changed the D4 over the years. Getting rid of the pony motor made sense, and I'm sure the engines improved with technology. Of course, this engine seems pretty good. Yours is noticeably different from mine, especially in the hydraulics technology. If you look, mine has much smaller hydraulic cylinders that just pivot the beams further back. I'm sure they had reasons for my design vs. the later style, it's more than anything just interesting to me. The PTO on mine is 2-speed and works just fine. No 3-point but I could operate the lawn mower. Now that would be hilarious - mow the lawn with a bulldozer.

My trailer does have a wood deck, although the ramps are steel. So what I did was I put some 4x4s under the dozer for going up and back down. Works for giving the tracks traction over the steel ramps.

@NealRomeoGolf will be happy to hear that the local Cat dealer has said that they're very familiar with the reusable (non-quick disconnect) style hose ends used on this tractor and they rebuild them all the time. The other places I took the hoses to locally had never seen them before and had no idea. I've got all 4 hoses off and will take them by either today or tomorrow (tomorrow is probably more likely).

The thing is pretty loud, and the muffler is an old glasspack (probably as old as I am) that's all bent and probably blown out. After looking around I think I might buy one of these:

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/wlk-22389/overview/

Which I bet would quiet it down quite a bit, and get the exhaust higher up, where I want it.

 

[Checkout_my_Six]

what was the diameter of the stumps?....I can't imagine it will do much more than an a 6-8" trunk.....

 

[Ted]

what was the diameter of the stumps?....I can't imagine it will do much more than an a 6-8" trunk.....

The one I did was around 12" or so.

It's not like I just drove right over it and pushed it out, it took some rocking.

 

[Checkout_my_Six]

most times the large oaks around here require breaking the ground roots before pushing the trunk and breaking the tap root.....not sure how you'd do that with just the blade, unless you have a root rake too?

 

[Ted]

most times the large oaks around here require breaking the ground roots before pushing the trunk and breaking the tap root.....not sure how you'd do that with just the blade, unless you have a root rake too?

We don't have anything that big. 18" or so is about as big as we have.

 

[MauleSkinner]

will be happy to hear that the local Cat dealer has said that they're very familiar with the reusable (non-quick disconnect) style hose ends used on this tractor and they rebuild them all the time. The other places I took the hoses to locally had never seen them before and had no idea. I've got all 4 hoses off and will take them by either today or tomorrow (tomorrow is probably more likely).

After we set my grandpa’s cat on fire, I took the hydraulic hoses to the local truck repair place. Might be an option as well.

 

[Ghery]

most times the large oaks around here require breaking the ground roots before pushing the trunk and breaking the tap root.....not sure how you'd do that with just the blade, unless you have a root rake too?

I remember back in the 60s staying with a family in the lower peninsula while my parents were at a conference. They were digging a new pond and a tree had to come out. Went into town to the hardware store, bought a few sticks of dynamite and used that to break up the roots of one tree. Much larger than 12 inch diameter, IIRC. After the dust cleared it was fairly easy to knock over.

We just went to the hardware store and bought a few sticks of dynamite. No biggie. Try that today...

 

[Ted]

After we set my grandpa’s cat on fire, I took the hydraulic hoses to the local truck repair place. Might be an option as well.

Tried the few local hose places, no luck on them.

 

[Zeldman]

Tried the few local hose places, no luck on them.

Wow.... a hose place that can't build hoses..???

 

[Ted]

Wow.... a hose place that can't build hoses..???

The issue is they only work with quick disconnects.

 

[Matthew]

We fab hydraulic hoses for our own use. Mainly Parker Hannifin fittings of all sizes (I *think*, we've changed brands a few times over the years). Not sure about the hose brands. Our applications are usually up to 3000 psi, ratings on the hoses and fixtures are much higher. If all else fails, I can check with my production guy and we might be able to work out a deal. We'd need an original hose to make sure lengths and fixture orientations match up.


Edit:

Or, if you can get the fixtures, hose, and mark for orientation, we might be able to clamp it all together for you.