Hi everybody,
first of all, i wanted to introduce you two d2s we've get with my father ! The first one is a 5u which was fitted with a 3J engine and the second one is a 5J fitted with a 5U engine ! But both engines were stuck. Fortunately, we have two engines (i'll post photos of them) to repair them. The steering clutches were stuck on the 5U so we replace them with 933 steering clutch and now we are repairing the tracks bushing... hope it will be ok in july.
As i mentioned in an another post, my father and i plan to come to the us this summer. Unfortunately, we coul not manage to come to see the Best of West show, but we really enjoyed looking at all the pictures and the videos posted by Acmo members !
We'll finally come from the 13th of july until the 8th of August. We'll land in Chicago and then we will rent a car to spend our time in the differents tractor's show taking place in the nearest states (Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska...).
I think we´ll spent some time at Zimmerman's (Missouri) to have a look at his stuff, but do you know if other places like this exist nearby ? Or some museums containing some cat's crawlers ?
Thanks
Regards
Alexis

there are a lot of shows and guys with cats all around chicago. i'll pm you.

Zimmerman sold out his CAT Inventory to pursue other ventures a couple of years ago.
We have CATS in Wisconsin too.
Let me know if you are interested and I'll see what I can arrange!

I think He is talking about the one in Missouri not Jim Zimmerman in Iowa

Wow, those track pads on the first one look like brand new!

Looks to me like both those machines have had the grousers built back up. A real good sign that both these machines have seen lots and lots of work.

I got confused as it had been a LONG day!
I was thinking IOWA not Missouri.

"Neil" wrote:

Can you post a picture of the lift arrangement on the rear of that second D2. It looks like they've set it up for 3-pt link. I'd like to see how they built it.
Thanks.

Hi Neil, unfortunately, i didn't take more picture when the lift arrangement was mounted and now, we've taken it off the D2 since it was built with lot of welding ! I'll try to take some picture of the lift arrangement disassembled as soon as i can. In France, lots of cat crawler were fitted with such lift arrangement (coming from wheel tractor): We've another d2 which has one running - i'll post a photo of this machine too!
Alexis

Hi everybody,
on june, i wrote that post to tell you that my father and I were coming (from France) to the us that summer to enjoy seeing some old stuff. I'd like to thank everybody for your answers to this post and specially :
- ag-Mike who welcomed us very nicely and gave us some good advices to better our trip.
- and Jeff(drujinin) who took us to the "Re-Tired Iron Museum" in Walworth for a private viewing of a large collection of Tractors / Construction equipment and Petroliana. Many Thanks to the Owner and his Family for the honor to see such a large and varied collection!

In addition to this, during this trip, we've seen lots and lots of old unbelievable Cats, some of them in museum, especially in Heartland Museum of Clarion, iowa ; some in several shows (for us, it's not so usual to see a Seventy start ! it was in Hastings, Minnesota)...
It's great to see how much people out there try to preserve so smartly all the hints of the us industrial and agricultural history.
And thank you of course to all the acmoc members since i found on this website lots of places we have been to during this trip. It was a real mine of informations that helped me offer to my father a trip he'll never forget !

Even if we've come already two times to the us to visit old tractors places, once more, we have been really impressed and seduced by american people kindness with us... always smiling, polite, and willing to help us, to make our trip better...
You can't imagine how easy and pleasant it is to travel in such conditions !
Be sure that here we'll preserve the strongest link that binds us with all of you : i mean our cats !
Regards

Alex