Additional questions, The D7 17A tractors I have been researching for possible purchase, The best condition one has hydralic's, what year did cat start using hydralics on the D7 17A's.
I talked to the lady who own's the tractors, she said her husband died in june of 2007, he was 74 years old, he was clearing land with the D7, they found him a couple of hundred yards from the tractor, he had evidentally ran over a yellow jacket nest and when attacked left the tractor, ran some distance and died with a massive heart attack. Their are blessing's in disguise. When the family went to check on him the tractor was still running, someone, the family does not know who, killed the tractor they did not do it correctly. The lady who now own's the tractor's nephew started the pony motor, but could not start the main engine, he said it had something to do with the sequence the main engine was killed. I did not know of a problem, shut off the fuel supply? Am I missing something here? What could the problem be? The nephew said he would have to order some parts, what parts??

The 17As were all available with hydraulic blades on them & even back in the 3Ts were too.As for your engine question It,s hard to say what.s wrong there without more info. how it was done. Could he have shut the fuel off & it ran fuel from the filter system till it stalled? That,s where I,d check first & work that out & getting new filters wouldn,t hurt to install new ones either.You can fill the filter housing with good clean fuel to help lesson the bleeding time of the system. I did it to 100s of engines from start & saved time & starting engines & the whole bit.

I'm not sure you could cause a problem even if you wanted to.....
The 17A I have is a beast. It works well clearing but is impossible to do any finish work with. It's just too heavy.
I'm not sure when the hydraulics were available?? Mine has a cable blade from ~'59 or '60.

Stretch

Another.....

Stretch I worked for the Cat dealer for 36 yrs. starting in 1956 & the old 3Ts had hydraulic blades on some of them.It seems if even the older D7s than that you could get the hydraulic blades but weren,t so plentyful.Cables blades around here were popular in the coal strippings jobs on esp. the D7s, D8s, & D9s but there were some hydraulic blades in the strippings esp. in the little later years. On highway construction of the Interstate highways around here the hydraulics were usually the best seller but there were cable blades too esp. for fine grading.

Now that is one stout looking rake:eek:

Yeah, the teeth are a full two inch thick!
You can imagine what it weighs.... It's heavier than the 13' wide blade.

IF IT MADE IT TO CHINA, IT WOULD MAKE SEVERAL COMPACT CARS

Funny thing about yellowjackets. I've bulldozed into a lot of them. If you don't start swatting and stir up a commotion, it seems, you can watch them try to sting he__ out of the hot tractor hood while you casually back away from there. When they settle down you just bury them deep with one shove and the fight's over.

Incidentally, fir or pine pitch is still the best antidote for stings. (Indians knew a couple things paleface didn't!)

Just my personal experience. Oh, and if you do want to start a commotion, try lugging a five-gallon bucket size hornet nest into the local tavern. Gosh but they called me some awful things!

Jack

Makes me wonder it the engine was shut off with the compression release. .and the nephew doesn't know where to find it. Also, it's possible the fuel was shut off and the system just needs bled. I can't see where it would need any parts if either of those were the case.