Mangoman wrote:

Thanks for sharing Mike. Very sorry to hear of the loss of your brother and his wife. I'm sure they would be honoured by the work you are putting into the old tractor that you guys all worked hard on to make a good living. Keep the pics coming.

I have been on a journey to try to track down my grandpa's Cat D4 7U series up here in British Columbia but havent had any good leads despite Facebook and other classifieds in search of. I have another 7U that I will try to set up as my Papa's was in memory of him. I have a friend that will deal me a fender tank, levers etc...to convert it to how my Papa's was.
That is so great, Thanks for sharing the pics, I hope to get my kids and grand kids involved, I will be posting pis and video, I am going to pull the old girl out of the woods in the next few weeks.
Thanks for sharing and good luck.
Looking forward to following along.

Mangoman

The "helper" on the tank is my late Dad, John Sihlis with my Papa, likely the day he took delivery of it around 1955. 

Man I scored today, I'm so happy I found a great looking used cover for the Cable blade assembly. I have picked up some pony parts from the blasters and took them to my buddy for paint. Im close to getting it ready to install. Im going to see if I can get the old girl to fire up with the pony. Heres a pic of the new one. Thanks to all for the connections.

 

Its time to start the paint. My sandblaster has done a great job. My good friend Ben Conley is doing the paint. Hes top notch.  Im so excited.  

Looking good, I wish I had a friend with a paint booth like that.
That was a good find on the cable cover.
Anxiously waiting pictures of some assembly. You're moving right along with your rebuild keep up the good work

I picked up my pony and intake parts. Man did Ben do a great job. Im getting super excited.  Ill post a pick of [ Brutus ], sittin in the woods at my dads every time I show progress. Thats what my grandkids and son have named the old iron. Im hoping all the kids will help and learn on this project. Cheere from Oregon.   

Brutus is going to be too cute to get dirty! Many of us can't wait to see the results as well. I have yet to do a blast/paint job on a crawler here. One of these days...
Thank you for sharing. JM

The only problem with painting a couple of parts is it will make you want to paint the rest of them. Tell the youngin's if they don't help with the work they don't get to help with the playing. That might get the gears turning 🤔

d2gary wrote:

The only problem with painting a couple of parts is it will make you want to paint the rest of them. Tell the youngin's if they don't help with the work they don't get to help with the playing. That might get the gears turning 🤔

I will tell them. Im hoping they will want to learn how to run Brutus.
 

 

Im not sure if the radiator guard I have is factory. I called Florin Tractor and they sent me pick number 2. Can anybody let me know. My guard is made to be with the cable blade drum attachment.  My brother liked to push logs and limbs into it when using the clearing rake it's dented it up pretty bad, I may have to take it to a metal guy with heat and press to try and straighten it out if I can't find one I'm not sure how much that will cost.  If anybody knows what part number this is that would be great did it come from the factory.

The second picture (I call it a screen) was probably on the tractor when shipped from factor. But by this time has been removed from most dozers with the hard nose and guard like your first pic in the last post. But needs to remove to blow out the radiator so generally gets left off. I cannot say if the guard is factory, but would guess it is.

Nice paint on all the pieces. But a thing to keep in mind if you have trouble with mag and spark. I have been told paint on the mag cap can carry spark and ground things out. I am not that smart with electrical stuff so not saying it was wrong to paint it just something to be aware of if you have spark trouble. And it could well be with lead removed from paint that has changed.