Thanks for that OZ. It actually has the light brackets on the frame work for the gantry (no lights tho)
And the generator has been blanked off. Funnily enough I was putting a new engine in a 3T for a bloke. And his old engine had a complete generator on it. He let me take that off. So I can fit a generator to it now as well. How we came up with maybe 41 Mdl was an old Dozer mate a couple of hours from me came out one day to check it out. He couldn't believe that it was still making money pushing fence lines. Anyway he showed me this way of writing 1 to 10 and then numerical cod above it and then lining up the number on the chassis? Or on the Engine? And it told year etc. I'm just happy it was a ww2 machine. As you know OZ dozers that size where a highly valued commodity after war in Aus. I love it, I've had a couple of offers but at the present have always said no. I'm hoping to get the final sorted before next vintage tractor meet in town. I reckon that with the rippers on the back will get the old timers talking.

funny you should mention that I used the same way of dating my 3T and it is 1942 but that is only when the casting was poured because according to what has being said it cant be 42 anyway I like it thats the main thing

Paul

It used to be standard practice to pour castings and then let them "age" out in the weather for 6-12 mths or more. Vehicle manufacturers regularly did that with engine blocks.
It was done to remove casting stresses so the casting didn't warp as it was machined. So the casting date is not exactly a dead-set accurate method of dating, just a guide.

not to doubt what you are saying I would not have thought during the war they had time to let stuff sit around for a couple of years maybe the manufacturing dates are not right for that period or maybe numeralcod isnt right either way something dosnt quite seem to look right dont know which way is right or wrong and I guess we will never know now

one thing is for certain I dont have the answer
Paul

I suppose the engine might have had a failure in the field and they threw an earlier model engine in. I've got a ww2Dodge truck that when we traced the records in the war memorial it came back with that exact circumstance.

Paul, I think you'll find the manufacturing dates for WW2 are pretty accurate, as more than 90% of Cat production went to the military from early 1942, and the military keep excellent records.
I couldn't say for sure how long the castings sat around for during WW2, one would certainly think they didn't sit for very long at all, during that period of rush.

We do know what the U.S. military orders were in total numbers and per year and month, and we do know that Australia possessed very little by way of large earthmoving equipment, before the Americans arrived in early 1942.
A former business associate worked in one of the Airfield Construction Squadrons during WW2 and he went to New Guinea to build airstrips in early 1942.

He told me how the Australian military had virtually nothing to build airstrips with - and their technique was to go to all the Roads Boards (forerunners of our Shire Councils) and ask what equipment they could spare for the war effort.
Don said, as a result, the Roads Boards went through their scrapheaps, and their retired ancient equipment that no-one would operate, and sent it all to the military!
He said some of the junk that they were given to work with, was atrocious - ancient horse-drawn graders, antique towed rollers, and the biggest bulldozer was a Cletrac - or if they were lucky, a D2!

He said they were down to scrounging any Jap equipment they could find. The problem was, the Japs had virtually nothing, they employed coolies with picks and buckets on their heads to build airstrips!
They managed to find a couple of antique Jap road rollers, and that was about the limit of it.

He said a wave of relief swept over them when the Americans arrived with Cat 12's, D7's and D8's, LeTourneau towed scrapers, LeTourneau motor scrapers, Harman shovels, dump trucks galore - and even tar trucks!
They thought they were in heaven with all this great equipment - and the airstrip construction took on a pace that even surprised most military leaders.

Cheers, Ron.

Raeme, that's correct. As you probably know, the military change out units, they don't fool around with repairing in-situ.
If an engine develops a problem that involves tear-down, they don't tear it down, they just pull the engine out and drop in a reconditioned one.

Too right. We had a Unimog in the shop that the engine was getting tired so we put in a request for a replacement engine to swap out. Next week a crate turned up. In it was an exchange engine for the Mog. It had come to us from stocks held in Afganistan!! That's how you order things!!

I dunno I no my 3T has the same serial number tag on the chassis on the back as the on the LHS on the block its being a while since I have looked at it but I seem to recall it is around 14000 type of number will have a look tomorrow

Paul

Raeme, I was wondering if your staring engine has it's own water pump. Mine has one but the 3 Ts I have gotten parts from do not. Was the pump a 7M trait or maybe a military spec? Anyone know?

Thanks

Bruce P