HD 9 Rescue

    Early at work, this past week, my cell phone rang.  Now I don't use my cell phone a whole lot and usually don't get a lot of calls, especially in the morning - unless it's an emergency at home!!  The gent at the other of the phone was a very good friend of my late brother.  This fellow and his son run a very large truck parts recycling yard here in New Jersey.

    He said," I know you lilke old AC crawlers."  " I've got an old AC dozer here but the blade doesn't go up."  "Stop over after work and take a look at it."  Now this wasn't a hydraulic problem, and I knew what kind of machine he had.

    I drove down to his yard after work and sure enough, the machine is an AC HD 9 Dozer with a Baker inside push arm blade.  The blade on these machines is only as wide at the tracks and the blade pushes off the main frame of the machine.  There are two vertically mounted hydraulic cylinders that are mounted in the middle of the machine.  The rams raise up the whole machine along with the blade.

    It has a running GM 4-71 diesel engine. Undercarriage is not bad:  sprockets and idlers are good, rollers not bad, but the rails and pads are worn down.  The machine SN is HD9B 4097 which makes it a 1954.  It has a metal canopy over the operator.  To me what was really

amazing was the fuel tank had no dents and the battery boxes looked in pretty good shape.

    When I went back into his office we talked a little more.  He said, "you must know some AC collectors that would want this machine".  I just shook my head and said most of the old iron collectors have made their last trip to the wreckin' yard in the sky.

    I told him, "please don't cut this machine up, it's a very rare machine".  Only about 5900 AC HD 9's were built in their 5 year run, and I'm sure there were very,very few with this strange Baker blade set-up.

    One thing about this machine, and even stated in AC dozer ads of that era. is that the machine is less that 8' wide and thus doesn't need a special permit to move it.

    I sure hope someone out there will rescue this machine.  Call John O'Connell Sr. at A&A truck parts at 732-780-4962.

    Some other old iron they have:  A 1970's Divco dual wheel milk truck, a Cat HT 4 track loader and a Cat 922 loader with a gas engine for power.  Give John a call!!

   

AC Phil, I called A&A yesterday at about 8:30 am And John SR. told me that they had already had cut this machine up!! Very sad! I would have paid a reasonable price for that machine, certainly more than scrap price. Thank you for trying to save this machine by bringing it to our attention. Chum..