There is no mistaking that undercarriage and back-end case, its TD-24.

I wonder if it is a prototype before the TD-24 went into production, or a concept for modernization after it had been in production for a while. I am guessing the latter. It kind of has that look of the 1958-59 era.

Here is my input based on prior comments.

There is no doubt that the track frame is IH.

IH used their own engines so probably this is an IH prototype engine. The placement of the cooling fan and the funny front end was put on to make it easy to get to the engine during field tests. Also it "hides" somewhat at least without close inspection the manufacturer again during field trials.

My vote is IH agreeing with most of you above.

FWIW:eyebrows:

Jan,

Yes, I can see the Edsel there. But then the whole appearance has the look of handing the role of style development over to the engineering department. It is very interesting to see this snapshot into the development. I wonder if there are a more photos of this concept or others developed along the way. It is always interesting to see approaches to style in something as functional as dozers.

At some point after the TD-24 was introduced, IH added a small rectangular tank on top of the hood, right above the firewall. A guy once told me that he was involved with the development of that idea to cure an intermittent overheating problem. Is that what that little tank above the rear radiator housing is in the photos? If so, it might narrow down the timeframe. Where is the fuel tank?

"Tracklayer" wrote:

Jan,

Yes, I can see the Edsel there. But then the whole appearance has the look of handing the role of style development over to the engineering department. It is very interesting to see this snapshot into the development. I wonder if there are a more photos of this concept or others developed along the way. It is always interesting to see approaches to style in something as functional as dozers.

At some point after the TD-24 was introduced, IH added a small rectangular tank on top of the hood, right above the firewall. A guy once told me that he was involved with the development of that idea to cure an intermittent overheating problem. Is that what that little tank above the rear radiator housing is in the photos? If so, it might narrow down the timeframe. Where is the fuel tank?

My guess is that the fuel tank is the tank on the right fender. No hydraulics visible on the machine and a prototype would not need a all day fuel tank. Lends credibility to the prototype.

Hi, Tracklayer.
As I understand it, all the early IH gas-start diesels had an issue with being shut down hot. They would crack heads 'cos the wall between the water galleries in the heads and the decompression chambers that allowed the compression to be gotten down to a level where they could run on gas was pretty thin. That tank that you mentioned was part of the 'alleged' cure and the other part was a re-designed head commonly known as the 'jet' head. It 'sorta' worked but they still cracked heads if they weren't idled down for 10 minutes or so before being shut down. Here is a photo showing that tank on a TD24. You can also see the filler cap for the gas-start fuel tank:



It may be that the tank on top of the radiator of the mystery crawler is exactly that although that might depend on when this tractor was built 'cos it was quite a while after their first gas-start diesels were built that they introduced the 'jet' head and the extra water tank - well into the production of the TD6s, TD9s, TD14s and TD18s - but I don't know if it was before or after the introduction of the TD24 in 1955. I THINK it may have been after that.

The TD24 was the first IH tractor to have enough main frame strength to carry a hard nose that was capable of lifting and carrying a dozer blade. All the smaller models of the time had the engine body/block carrying the weight of the hood, radiator and grille and were not suited to a hard nose configuration, hence the track--mounted blade lift arrangements for both their hydraulic and cable dozers.

Azfer 'prototypes', here are a couple of photos of an IH model that never made it to production:



Just my 0.02.

I tend to agree with the line of thought that it is a TD-24 prototype, but still not sure if it was leading up to the TD-24 or a proposed update to the TD-24. The design seems to be tightly integrated around the cable dozer system. This seems odd for the mid to late 50's. By then I would think they would want to at least be compatible with hydraulic cylinders. I'm reminded of a picture I've seen in Orlemann's books of a Cat "Experimental D9" from the mid 40's. Like these mystery photos, the hard nose is optimized for a cable dozer, and it had a rear-mounted cooling system. It begs the question if Cat or IH was inspired by snooping on the other, although I have seen sketches drawn by CL Best in '42 of a dozer with a rear mounted cooling system.



Regardless, here are some more pics of the mystery dozer. It looks like the front stack is connected to the air cleaner. It also looks like the exhaust is piped to a turbo mounted high above the engine. I'm also intrigued by the operator controls. I know virtually nothing about IH crawlers, but did see someone mention their steering system being different. The lever to the left of the seat almost looks like a very early version of the "twist tiller" style steering Cat used until very recently on the their diff-steer tractors.






Having started my career at Cat at the proving grounds, I am a sucker for these prototype oddball tractors and always wonder what their story is.

In the picture of the dash, the oil and I think it is the ammeter to the right of it definitely say IH on them

George

Hi, Dave Tallon.
Thanks for the extra photos. They do sorta make it more likely that it was an IH protoype or experimental. I think it would be a fairly safe bet that the steering controls would be the 2 levers coming out from under the seat as they are very much like the steering controls on the planetary steering TD24s.

The 'tiller' handle has me intrigued. I would not be surprised if it was connected to an early IH version of either a torque converter or powershift transmission, which might help to explain the bank of gauges outside the armrest behind that tiller handle. When I blew that last photo up to around 250%, it appeared that the tag rivetted to the bottom of the dash on the right might be operating instructions for the tiller handle.



There does not appear to be a master clutch lever or gear shift lever(s). Several 'incarnations' of the TD24 had a foot clutch - which was pretty much an unmitigated disaster for dozer work - but I don't see any sign of that either, only what appears to be a foot brake pedal.

Just my 0.02.