Anybody Remember Back When?

[Will_C]

My father had a D2 and a D4 back in the 1970s that had pony motors. Never started them myself but remember watching him.
Every backhoe he owned had sticks up. His last one, a 1988 Case 580K, had to be special ordered.
I did built a fire under an ATV 25 years ago when I was in the Adirondacks and it was -26.

Will

 

[npalen]

You guys are making me feel old. We had a 1936 RD6 CAT as well as a D2 both with pony motors on our Kansas grain and livestock farm back in the 50's. The WD9 International started on gas (if you were lucky) and then switched to diesel.
An umbrella was a luxury and a radio was practically unheard of.

 

[ultrarunner]

Thought some of you might enjoy this....

I go by the BEST tractor building everyday on the way to work... BEST tractors are shown in the video and originated here in San Leandro California... lots of AG history in the SF Bay Area...

Friend still use a CAT with a Pony Motor each year to disc the orchard... his Grandfather bought it new just before WWII

 

[MossRoad]

Anyone have any old family pictures of some of these machines? That would be really cool to see. :thumbsup:

 

[Tractor Seabee]

Yes, but living in the SW desert, I didn't have the very cold start problems. I don't remember it taking more than 5-10 minutes. My use was seldom enough I had to look at things for a while to remember what to do. I always got the two levers mixed up, and had to sort that out in my mind.

Bruce

Bruce, remember I was working on stuff that was already worn out, everything was a little on the sloppy side.

Ron

 

[Tractor Seabee]

Ron - My Father in Law would have remembered equipment like that. He enlisted in the Navy in 1948. Spent his career in the Seabees and retired as a Master Chief Equipment Operator (E-9) in 1972. He passed away last year.

I am sure he did his seat time on those old beasts. I got smart and struck for UT. Figured chasing S**t instead of dirt and rocks was a better deal. I retired in 1987 as a W4.

Ron

 

[Tractor Seabee]

Let's broaden the scope into more variety of experiences; what are yours? How many of you were proficient at hand fitting babbitt bearings on large rotating machinery. As a service tech for industrial refrigeration system that was part of the trade. Largest compressor I worked on was a 16 X 16 two cylinder ammonia compressor. 2 man job and every part was moved with a chain-fall. Flywheel was 20' in diameter with an 8" shaft and flat belt. Open crankcase with stuffing boxes on each connecting rod. Constantly weeping ammonia when operating. Originally has all hand lubricated through oil cups. We converted it to a pressure oiling system so they could layoff 5 oiler/wipers. There is more detail but it would probably bore you.

Ron

 

[Tractor Seabee]

I was fortunate in that my dad was willing to let me operate any of our farm or machine shop equipment at an early age.

We had several old dozers back then, including an early D4, D6, and two D8s. All had pony motors, and two had cable blades. When I was 12, I got to help build a pond with the D6 cable blade dozer. I pushed the dirt up, dad did the fine grading with a little JD 350. That was one of my favorite memories running equipment.

We also had an International TD 15 that you would start on gas and then flip it over to diesel.

You probably have a lot more seat time than I did. The operators were not generous with seat time to the non-rates. and I wasn't to be an operator. Those old cable dozers would move a lot of dirt though. Hitting big rocks would bounce the blade up and sometimes snarl the cable. Big job to un-snarl (flunky job).

Ron

 

[zzvyb6]

As a kid in Buffalo, I watched an Insley cable excavator being used daily in digging a new City sewer line just behind our house. The owner often let me operate it while he stood down in the ditch to set dynamite charges for blasting the solid rock down there. I would release the boom and shovel from which hung a dozen or so railroad ties strapped together to block the blast. I needed to stand on wood blocks to grip the lever handle releases. Soon after that, I built a small model of his rig from Erector set parts, some scrap wood and an old 'digger' toy model and spent many a Summer trenching play sewers in a sand pile using concentrated orange juice cans as pipes.

Where I live now, there is an identical yellow cabbed Insley cable drive excavator rusting away in a back yard with trees growing thru it. Brings back a lot of great memories !

 

[mpham]

I remember as a child in the late 60’s going with my dad to work on a bunch of them old tractors. He did the service work for a sand company that had cable run excavators and chain drive Sterling dump trucks. Every Saturday was spent oiling and repairing the chains on the trucks. Most of the dozers and graders had pony motors in them. Then ran on diesel. We still had a chain drive truck running at the garage up till about the year 2000.