Reply to Paso Bob:
I restrung the cable on my 14A dozer this year. The cable pushes down the tube very easily. The 14A has triple sheaves where you have doubles. If the sheaves all turn freely, it's a piece of cake to re-string it. I would drop the blade, it's only 4 bolts to pull the end caps off the trunnions and the pin on the lower sheave and you are free to go. I place a large block of wood under the side arms near the trunnions and back away. That way the blade mounts will be at correct height to re-install.
Hi, TOGNOT.
There are 2 (main) schools of thought on 'blade on-blade off'. I personally favor blade on 'cos for the extra traction - which is quite considerable, plus the less work aspect. Others favor blade off 'cos they reckon it improves the manouverability and it is less 'stuff' to get tangled up in when looking back at the scraper. For mine, a good operator will have a pretty clear picture in his mind of just where his rig in relation to everything else around him.
I worked for one contractor DowNunda who insisted on taking the blade as well as the rear hydraulic ripper off a Cat D7E with a HYDRAULIC blade and ripper 'cos for the 'extra manouverability'. I hadda LOTTA trouble getting traction to load a Letourneau LP Carryall in silty clay. (It was an older style hinged ripper and the CCU fitted neatly between the ripper lift ram towers.)
Azfer pushing other scrapers, forget it. To be high enough to be sure of clearing any pegs that you might need to get close to and/or not gouging into any banks that you might need to climb. it would need to be at least 2 1/2 -3 feet clear of the ground - WAY to high to be trying to push scrapers.
If you leave the blade on, I'd suggest pulling the cable out of the sheaves on the CCU and leaving it coiled up and tied securely to the back of the tractor somewhere. If you have a JD Gator or similar, you can use that to pull the cable off the drum with the control lever in 'float' but there is usually not that much on there. You really only need enough for a couple of turns left on the drum when the dozer cutting edge is 10" - 12" below the level of the tracks on flat ground - digging depth.
That is a nice scraper. The early A-C scrapers were 'ackshully' LaPlante-Choate 'cos that where A-C originally got their drawn scraper line when they bought LaP-C out.
Just my 0.02.