Rescuing an Abandoned 1950's Crawler Loader, Buried in the woods! (Save or Scrap??)

foreign what's up everybody welcome back to diesel Creek my name is Matt today we're on another recovery Mission now as you may be aware at this point I need another machine and project like I need a hole in my head but uh you know there's just there's just some of these things that come into your life and you just you just can't pass them up lead the way buddy you don't even know where we're going do you well you may not be able to tell but there is some goodies hiding in these trees around here and the one we're after today is right there can you see it it's right there I can't believe you can't see it if it's a little hard to see through the brush that's because it's been parked here for yeah close to 50 years now that's right this machine was supposedly parked here in the early to mid 70s by the guy I'm buying it from his dad parked it here Sam from Scrappy Industries is bringing his Bulldog mavic up the driveway right now it's just kind of throaty kind of ruining my shot here but man that thing sounds good you guys haven't seen his channel link down below check it out anyways the hd6 here is uh you know she's definitely rough but could be a diamond in the rough we're gonna find out today so what we are after today well I don't know the year on it I would guess that this is a late 50s machine but this is an Alice Chalmers hd6 crawler loader with a backhoe which I've never seen one of these set up with a backhoe so the guy I'm getting this thing from told me that his dad probably parked it here in the early to mid 70s and honestly for sitting as long as it has it's not in that bad of shape I mean usually machines get parked because they're worse slap out the undercarriage on this one from what I can see of it isn't too terrible the fuel tank on these machines takes a beating they're usually all crushed in this one is not and uh yeah that's about all I can see of it in its current position so I think we're gonna fire up a 977 here and try and drag this thing out get a little better look at her old Sam from Scrappy Industries is showing up to lend a hand on this operation I was helping him this morning rescue another d8h and this is his new 977 we're going to use to help get that thing out of there let's go get an hd6 [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] there is a machine in here we're the beans [Music] oh boy as you can see she's a little sunk into the ground the trees actually grew around the machine is what was holding it there so much this is going to be a rough recovery I don't know if she's gonna run again he's been here a while I think the current situation is we got Outriggers also grown into trees catching trees tobacco's grown into the trees and catching other trees so we gotta kind of snake this thing out of here without breaking it in half seconds don't ever let anybody tell you that Sam doesn't try hard for breaks left in that chain if it breaks again I think we gotta find a bigger one [Music] [Music] [Music] maybe if we get the loader and shove the backhoe arm over it'll kind of unhook from the tree I think it's caught on and that should hopefully get us free tell you that spectator [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] how's the chain that'll never come up Grace I never heard of her oh it's not my favorite but it might work [Music] the poison ivy was included with this machine thank you [Music] [Music] this is going to be great we're going through all this work I'm gonna drag this thing home and find out the engine is locked up and it's a hunk of strap anyway foreign [Music] [Music] so the general plan is here I was going to leave this machine here for another day and uh hopefully that 235 there would be in better shape they got a track issue right now so we can't walk it around but old Sam here is pulling his 977 out today so while it's here to assist in loading we're gonna go ahead and use it I think the plan is we're going to pull the lowboy up right in this area here and then we're going to try to use both machines and just lift this thing straight up and sit it right down on the lowboy what could possibly go wrong see most machines get parked when they're just completely War slap out and you can't do nothing with them anymore this one here for some reason got parked with basically a brand new undercarriage on it sprockets are really nice on it got a lot of rail height left on the chain rollers don't seem to have a lot of wear they do have some wear but you know she's basically brand new 50 years ago I'm very stuck very very stuck at this point amazing that any of these hydraulic spools function or move at all actually so I guess that's a good sign so you're starting early and bud what are you doing action we're gonna be cutting a lot of filter we're gonna get this thing shoved around a little bit and try to back a trailer kind of under it and pick it up and set it on my trailer [Music] before I get 5 000 comments telling me that I'm going to be overloaded I know we're not going more than three miles so it's legal [Music] height s [Music] working in this unit probably because I don't think it has it so what is this this is a caterpillar 235 I'm gonna guess from mid 70s vintage not a whole lot of fine control at least not by today's standards get a little lower side now that's how you load a dead machine right there keep cutting it this way you're good just cut it this way and you'll miss the uh [Music] you got her there driver [Music] [Music] s foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] well there we go she is loaded down ready for her short Trek home what a pile of crap foreign [Music] [Music] thank you all right we made it back with the old hd6 just fine no issues at all that the F-450 is scary good at pulling heavy loads I'm going to guesstimate this thing's probably pushing at least close to 20 000 pounds plus the trailer is another three or four thousand so I'm actually probably pushing the rated capacity of the bumper pull hitch on the truck but uh man it it still yanked it around like it wasn't even there so can't say enough good about the F-450 but we're not here to talk about 450s we're talking about hd6gs here now that this thing is out of the woods we can really sink our eyes onto it get a lot better look at what we're working with here I think the guy I purchased this thing from was pretty surprised that I even made an offer on it I went over there to look at the equipment that Sam from Scrappy Industries bought the d8 and the 977 h I wasn't really looking to spend a ton of money on machines those ones were pretty nice so they were a little out of my budget but uh when the guy told me about this thing sitting up in the woods there I went and had a gander at it and you know I I think he thought it was going for scrap and it definitely still could go there we got to see how this goes here there's a lot of little details I'm seeing now like this this is an s-cam shaft out of an air brake setup for like a tractor trailer and apparently when that pin went bad or broke or fell out of that cylinder they just slapped that in there because it works and let's not forget if it's stupid and it works it's not really stupid the backhoe part of this unit I am not really too concerned about you know if by some miracle the rest of the machine works then we'll worry about the backhoe but I just looked at that as extra weight basically um so this machine does have a really good undercarriage on it track rails have quite a bit of life left in them pins up underneath where the sprocket rods don't really have any wear to them at all idler is nice and tall very sharp corners on it still sprocket nice and thick top of the uh sprocket tooth here when these things wear they'll get really dished out in here in these uh the Peaks here on the sprocket will get real thin foreign this roller has a little bit of wear to it but really not bad at all and we still have plenty of adjustment that this thing could uh slide out and tension the track up one but you see the problem is when a machine sits like this for 50 years sunk into the dirt all these tracks rust up these should all be flexible I should be able to lift this track up with my hand right now and unfortunately you could beat on that with a sledgehammer for all you're worth right now and it's not going to budge so every single Link in this chain is Rusted up solid and I'm sure these ones that are down on the bottom are probably the worst because the dirt was literally up to here on it it was pretty well buried there so if we get the engine running the undercarriage is going to be very very tough to get moving some other things to think about is if we get the engine running these hydraulic cylinders have all seen better days they probably weren't bad when it was parked unfortunately I don't see any big dings or scratches but over time this chrome sitting out exposed to the elements has started the pit and rust [Music] these lower boom hoist cylinders are especially bad that's all just lichen growing on there but this is pretty heavy rust up here when we lifted the bucket up with the other loader that is a dust seal right there it just popped that thing right out slid up with the rod so if we get the engine running the Hydraulics are gonna eat the seals right out of these cylinders very quickly not to mention all the hydraulic hoses are just in Dandy condition oh yeah that if I pushed on that right now that would break this Vine you see growing up through the controls here that's that's all poison ivy so that's that's great I can't tell exactly what's going on here I'm not super familiar with these Allis Chalmers machines but it looks like floor plates are missing out of it and they maybe had this is this is a gear shift I think it was just laying on the tracks there so if the gear shifter is off of it potentially the Transmissions open down there and that could just be full of water and scrap all the levers are stuck these are your steering clutches that's your master clutch again this is your shifter but I don't even know where it goes right now I guess that bucket yeah that makes sense that bucket right there with the big hole on the top of it the big crack right there that's covering up the transmission so I'm sure that didn't let any water in over the last 50 years the muffler over here was covered up with a beer can many a moon ago and I thought at first glance that it was still good and actually sealed up and not letting any water in but then I looked again and at some point something must have landed on this a tree limb or something and it actually sliced off the can right at the muffler shaft there that's steel poking through the top of the can there so we can probably just go ahead and yank that thing off of there but it's pretty well stuck actually I'm gonna have to get a tool on that so definitely could have been letting water down into the exhaust so that's another big if here's our floor plates and some of the shields I guess we're missing the air cleaner this is the pre-cleaner housing up here it's pretty well bent too I'm guessing it took a hit whenever the exhaust took a hit must have had a tree limb fall across that like like I said there so she's pretty bent up the seat was completely rotted away in junk I ended up just throwing it in the scrap dumpster at that guy's place because they're up here on the bucket you can see it's actually worn really thin there and then because it was warm thin over the years of sitting it actually rotted through the bucket so if we get the engine working and the transmission works and the Hydraulics function uh the bucket is not in the best of shape another cause for concern here on the front of the machine you can see the hydraulic pump there running off the front of the engine there's a hard nose piece that I did have we got it picked up out of the weeds there the lower radiator cover and that hard nose piece were missing I don't know why but they had them off for a reason so that remains to be seen that is one impressive radiator patch that is a Gob of goop there I don't know if that radiator is ever going to hold again I haven't even pulled the cap to see if there's anything in it now I definitely have my doubts seeing the condition of the radiator the oil is reading over full although it does not look milky at all but if this thing's sat as long as I think it has the water would all be at the bottom and the oil would be floating on the water [Music] so our oil level is about an inch and a half over the full wine so that's definitely not not a good sign I don't recall it reading quite so over full before we drug It Out of the Woods in this unit we have a Buddha diesel engine and I think these are pretty nice running engines when they're running I think this this one's got a long road of hoe before we can say that it's going to run oh look an hour meter up there that's an original Alice Chalmers hour meter and if I can see it right from here it looks like 5155 hours so I don't know that we have a diamond in the rough here but we definitely have something rough normally a first priority when I bring something home like this is let's get it off the trailer and start trying to get after it and get this thing going this one is in such poor condition that before I even get carried away I want to make sure the engine will turn and make sure the transmission isn't just completely full of water all right so very little positive vibes from the oil dipstick Let's uh crack the fuel tank open and give that a whiff oh lovely the fuel cap vent hole doesn't have any kind of the vent cap on the fuel the vent on the fuel cap here doesn't keep water out so there's no doubt some water and mixed in with this fuel there is some fuel in here and surprisingly must not be too much water because the whole tank isn't completely rusted up the diesel fuel that is in here though smells like straight Minwax varnish so typically at this point the go-to move so the first thing I guess we should do is try to verify that the engine will turn and if it if the engine turns we we've got a good chance at getting it running actually we may be getting pretty lucky here I misspoke when I said the engine was bolted directly to the transmission on this unit it is not we have a U-joint down in the bottom here which separates the engine from the transmission so I think we should be able to get a bar or a pipe wrench or something onto that U-joint there and try to see if this thing's going to turn I just figured out how to open the battery compartment I thought it was this guy out here you needed to open but it's actually this guy right here just look at how decayed that wood is in there oh man she has been sitting a long time just for my own curiosity's sake here let's have a peek under this bucket I don't know how open this thing is or isn't oh look at that that's not bad at all oh I'm feeling better about this thing by the second I don't think we probably did get any water in there no the shifter is still moving freely that's great so this is our throttle if by some miracle the engine turns we're going to need to get this thing back it does move a little oh yeah look at that it's it's freeing up easier about a second here oh man this thing's like it was parked yesterday I I really am I'm feeling a lot better about this thing the engine is just going to be the big thing and I'm I'm still pretty nervous about that I keep saying it but I keep getting distracted let's get a bar on the uh the back of this engine here and see if we can't get any movement out of it even if it is stuck potentially not the end of the world oh that's gonna hurt something happened Something Turned I don't know what I did but something turned but I just black and blue the whole end of my pinky you know what this isn't turning the engine the way I'm doing this that just broke the clutch free from the engine I think yeah now we're touching the engine and the transmission should be in neutral so now I think we are actually going to try spinning the engine and that's doesn't appear to be happening oh yeah nope oh I think it might have I think it might have I felt something go all right well I've got that U-joint to make a couple 360 degree revolutions and yet the engine does not appear to have turned at all so I can only suspect that we're slipping the clutch so we need to go to a Surefire way to get a hold of just the engine and that leads us back to this starter not feeling great about it but we can pull off this access cover with a couple bolts get us a lot better access to the starter kind of clean up around there give it a best case scenario yeah yeah a little bit of debris around the starter here but once again not as bad as I was thinking man this this thing really wants to be saved or something she's trying to help me although this starter oh the starter is looking real rough all right I guess I've done just about everything I can to help out this starter and still not feeling great about it but about the best I can do things are probably about to get spicy contact all the starter is still spinning that's good contact you know what I see that this has a mechanical uh mechanical Bendix on it so you so from the operator's seat this rod goes up through the dash and you'd push this that adjustable bolt right there would push on this manual solenoid which is stuck and in the same process it looks like this lever down here that Bell crank would throw a linkage those shoves the Bendix gear into the flywheel of the engine I'm still just impressed that the starter even spins Let's uh let's see if I can't get this thing working better there we go foreign [Music] there we go long enough lever and you can move the world and we'll give this thing a go you don't need to worry about cleaning up your connections you just wiggle them until they clean themselves up and it's fine you guys ready cross your fingers let's hope this engine turns over contact just as I had feared the starter engaged one good time and then the engine was not happy about it yeah if this engine isn't completely seized up solid it's very stuck at the very least well I can't say I'm not a little bit disappointed but I'm not surprised one bit either that this engine is locked up tighter than a drum there's no easy way to get a big bar or a lever or anything onto the engine like we're trying to do I can't tell what I'm doing there with that U-joint I think I'm just slipping the clutch or something so we're gonna have to dive into all that but working on this thing is not exactly easy I really need to get the loader arm way up in the air and take all the tin work off of it and actually be able to get into the engine so that's going to be a lot of work and I'm going to save that for another video because I think we're getting a little bit longer than the tooth as it is but if you guys enjoyed this video won't you do me a favor hit that thumbs up button down below in the video it helps me to keep saving old girls like this from the Scrapper and if you're not already be sure to subscribe to the channel so you won't miss any future videos on this or any of the other projects we're working on if you like big old rusty track loaders head on over to dieselcreek.com we've got new hats available at the merch store right now this one has the 977 cat track loader on it and uh I'm really digging it so if you guys want some new hats head on over there the link is down in the description but that's all I got for today so as always thank you for watching I'll see you on the next video later [Music]

Channel: Diesel Creek

Views: 675,791

Keywords: cat, caterpillar, recovery, winch, salvage, allis, chalmers, dozer, loader, crawler, diesel, budda, detroit, HD6, HD6G

Id: 9YJ3XBuQNdA

Length: 45min 22sec (2722 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 22 2023