Fascination of old bulldozers...your input??

My opinion:
I noticed that things that were made before I was born were made to last a long time. Things could be repaired and put back into service again. The technology was crude but understandable. The machinery of the era has a determination to keep on working although out of date and outworked by technically advanced equipment.

From the heavy equipment perspective:
I have an HD7G track loader with turbocharger, torque converter, and hydraulically assisted controls. When it became problematic I invested in repairing it but it kept on having problems. Fix the first problem then find another problem. The HD7G is a grand machine when all of it is working.

So I purchased an HD6G that is less powerful and less sophisticated. When something broke I fixed it. It was hard work but it was not frustrating. Then I bought another HD6G. Then I bought another HD6G to use as a backup machine. I marvel that these old machines are able to keep on working.

Perhaps like everyone else I am getting old but I still enjoy working in the mud.

Dozer

I agree with Dozer I have had my HD6G for 30 years, I also have HD6E' s with the power brakes and steering great to operate but when one side gets hot and will not steer, the fun starts, while on the 6G there is a rod from the lever to the throwout bearing on the clutch pack and thats it, Hard work pulling levers all day but very basic and reliable

I began mechanicing when many of these machines were in their infancy, 1975, great times for those machines so stalwart and bare of creature comfort but they worked and working on them was not so much intense as intensive as todays machines get under my skin with all the codes and electrical malfunctions derived from yet still old fashioned mechanical faults.

I probably yearn for my youth when I weighed but 160 pounds and could squeeze my lanky frame down head first in the crawlers and trucks of the day, now I am beaten up, considerably heavier and a taste less patient but still get the work I need to done albeit slower. I can still see those machines when they were new, they still look good to me even after 40 years.

Crawler tractors are one of the best inventions of all time in my opinion. I like the yellow ones, red ones but my favorite is still by far the ORANGE ones. In fact we still use a few for our dryland wheat farming operation here in Montana. 1969 HD11AG, 1957 HD16A and a 1973 Cat 98J SA.  

Great to hear the variety of comments....I think I can relate to all of them. Having started out with a backhoe - versatile as they are, it was such a sweet surprise when I got my first bulldozer (a Cat 955K, sorry not AC for this forum). No more spinning tires and very productive results in short order! I had my initiation with a $8000 repair bill (30 years ago) but then I had two years without pulling a cotter pin...by then I was impressed what an old bulldozer could do. Like Mac said about the scent...you know you're in the presence of "a friend". JohnCo summed it up well by saying "there's just something about a machine on tracks...hard to explain", a bit of mystery to make it interesting. Thanks everyone!! 

Ray, I'm wondering why you use tracked machines instead of articulated 4 X 4's?  Other then the crawlers are along ago paid for.

Edited by JohnCO - 18 Apr 2015 at 12:49am

You ought to talk to Mel about the HD41 he found around the Bay Area, that would impress the neighbors!

I'm in agreement with B26240. My fascination with bulldozers started at a very young age.
I too remember the smell of diesel and fresh turned dirt as well as recently fallen timber--Redwood, Doug Fir etc.
My uncle was a cat skinner and timber faller for many years when I was a wee lad. This was in the early '70s. He would occasionally take me to work with him (when it wasn't too far from home) and let me ride with him on the dozer. He ran 3 machines for different people--HD16, D-8, and a TD-24--but the 16 is the one I rode most on and is probably responsible for my preference for AC.
The whole experience on the dozer I just loved--the smells, the sound of the straining engine under load, the ability to climb obscenely steep hills, the tracks digging in and powering through where no wheeled machine could, building a road where there was previously nothing but mountainous terrain and--last but not least-- the looks of the machine. Dozers just look tough and purposeful. New machines just don't have the tough, no-nonsense look about them (especially those high-track contraptions ) that the old dozers did. 

You are right about newer machines AC Crazy. Mid 1980`s was the end of the good crawlers. Fiat closing Springfield plant and discontinuing Allis Chalmers engineered products, IH constuction machinery division sold, Caterpillar leaning to the link chewing high drive design, and the Japanese deciding the best way to drive their logging winches was to bypass the torque converter and drive straight off the flywheel???
Was all down the crapper from there

What's not to love. I built my career and business around excavation and love it. Moving dirt is fun and my previous wife never did understand my love for equipment, its just steel to those people. If you ever get on a good size crawler you'll answer your own question!

Nothing like the sound of a diesel on a hard pull and the smell of fresh turned dirt under fir and cedar forest.