A very close friend and neighbor had been on me the past 5 years or so to come pick up a non-running 9U that he gave me. I go way back with this friend. I first met him when I was around 5 years old riding with my dad in the pickup to take things over to their shop to be fixed. My friend had to have been around 27 years old back then. His dad (since passed) had the only welding shop in town. Those guys could fix or build anything. And if they welded something up for you, it would never break again. Over time different unfortunate things happened and the welding shop closed. But all the equipment and parts and pieces and stock still remained and my friend still worked out of there every day. 

Unfortunately, my friend passed away on the 4th of this month. His cousins immediately took on the job of cleaning out the shop and yard because my friend already had a deal in place a few weeks prior to his passing to rent a local trucker space to park his trucks in the yard and have a spot in the shop to work on his trucks if need be. The stuff that was thrown into the scrap metal bins last week was enough to make me want to cry. Prime example, a box of gears that was sitting near the lathe….into the scrap bin. The story I got was their reasoning was “oh, they rigged up a transmission out of a jeep years ago to control the speed of the lathe instead of messing with changing the belt to different pulley sizes so those gears were useless anyways.” That sounds like good logic  if you don’t know any better and aren’t familiar with a lathe. But if you know better, those gears actually change the feed speed of the lathe relative to the spindle to accomodate for cutting different pitches of threads (i.e. standard vs. metric). Anyhow, lots of useful things got tossed out 😢.

The 9U parked behind the shop belonged to an old timer that was a fixture at the welding shop since I could remember. This man was a jack of all trades in his lifetime. He farmed. Did custom land leveling (which I believe is where the 9U was used), built several homes and was a general wealth of knowledge. We removed the vey last block of 100 year old walnut trees when I was in high school. In doing so, a rusty metallic ball that was a bit bigger than a shot put got unearthed. I had no clue what it could have been from. <<Cannon ball??>>  So I took a ride over to the welding shop with the ball to go see the old timer because I knew he would have an answer. Sure enough, I set it on the counter top and he took one look and before I had the chance to even pose the question, he said “Yuba Tractor track ball!!”  Then he went on to explain to me the concept of the Yuba Tractor and how it used the balls that were essentially like ball bearings that were packed all the way around in between the rails and swing frames and were used in lieu of track rollers and how over time the balls would wear down and decrease in diameter until they would eventually fall out of their groove and drop onto the ground and that the operator would have to periodically stop and open a compartment and drop new replacement track balls in.  Sadly, he too passed on a few years back. 
The 9U was originally the old timer’s, and he left it to my friend who in turn gave it to me. 

I tried a local lowbed man that I am friendly with when my friend first gave me the 9U, but the lowbed man didn’t have a trailer equipped with a winch to pull a dead machine onto the deck. I fully intended on getting the machine out but there was no sense of urgency as it wasn’t going to go anywhere else. That is, until my friend passed, and the family wanted to clear everything out for the new tennant. 

So I picked up the phone and called the only man I knew with expertise in dead Cat recoveries, who I also knew was most likely to have the appropriate trailer for the job with a winch…. none other than our very own Juiceman!!!

I know it’s a huge pain in the rear to have him make an hour and a half trek down my way to do an extraction, but lucky for me he oblidged. It wasn’t until he arrived that morning that we learned the recovery wasn’t going to be as easy as we had hoped. Both sets of steering clutches were locked up and wouldn’t free up. So it wouldn’t winch up the trailer easy as I had hoped.

We borrowed a 6,000lb capacity Case field forklift that was onsite and used it to lift the front end of the 9U off the ground so we could place blocks under the mid point of the tracks to get the front edges of the tracks up off the ground so that Juiceman could get the trailer under the tracks and be able to drag it the rest of the way up the deck. About that time, my cell phone rang and it was my mail carrier saying that she had thrown a package for me over the fence at my parents house and that the dogs were biting the package (whose contents were the remaining small parts the radiator shop needed to finish the radiator for the 8U nursery tractor engine rebuild I’m almost done with). So I blasted out of there to retrieve the package before my German Shepherds destroyed the contents. When I returned, Juiceman already had the 9U on the trailer and had walked the axles back in place and flattened the deck out.
   
In the process of winching it on, the right side steering clutch freed up and the right side tracks rolled free. Which made it a challenge to get the machine the rest of the way on the deck in a straight line with one stuck track and one free spinning. Fortunately the Case field lift was able to prod at the rails and square up the 9U on the trailer so it would be secure for its whopping 1.8 mile ride to my yard.
Then came the challenge of how to get it off the trailer. Which fortunately for me, my shop foreman is an excellent equipment operator and we used a chain and the backhoe bucket to fish the machine off the trailer and drag it to where it was out of the way enough for us to leave it be until all the rains are over and the ground dries enough to relocate it amidst my other Caterpillars and parts machines. 

I felt bad for dirtying Juiceman’s immaculate trailer and for any of the paint that may have got chipped off dragging the grousers of the locked up set of tracks across his deck!! 😬 

A big huge THANK YOU to Juiceman!! You went wayyy out of your way for me and I appreciate it and I really enjoyed the visit!! …..It’s always fun to watch someone at work who is a true master of their art form.  Juiceman has definitely done that a time or two before!! 😂😂

Been wanting to write this up for a few days, but its been so busy with my friend’s funeral and a handful of other things going on. Hopefully I’ll have an update on the 8U nursery tractor soon. 

-Nick


….and a bonus pic of Juiceman looking over a 7U in my friend’s yard.

That 9U reminds me of many of the 9U that were popular in our area. Looks like it has the PTR-Linden hydraulic pump upgrade kit and PTR air cleaner relocation kit as well.

Its an easy job! So he said ha ha !
Recoveries rarely ever go quite as planned, but glad for the outcome. I could see the look of disappointment in Nick's eyes if I didn't get it out of there for him.
I don't know who did who a favor, because I thanked him for having me get away from being trapped in my office for the day.
It made things easier because the forklift was on site; If I had to (granted space limitations) I could have chained one side up at a time to "ramp" up each track frame, so I could get under the machine. As it was parked, and not able to roll freely, the grousers would catch the tail end of my trailer and act as a brake. As I winched up, one side did break loose, and things got a little cockeyed. Rather than adjust my chains repeatedly, we opted to make use of the forklift. Work smarter, not harder!
It was fairly easy to recover, so all good. I really think it was Nick's gf that called and he had to make a quick service call..not the dogs biting the package!
The real prize was getting over to his shop/yard, where he had quite the assortment tucked away inside/outside/all over! After a neat tour, I was treated to a great lunch at The Waterloo Club, which never disappoints.
For the love of old iron! Lets see what else "we" will get to recover next.
CR: Who was PTR? I have a dry air cleaner conversion on an 8U D6 of mine that came from Brentwood area; it is mounted vertically and a large hole was cut into the hood to fit it. Same machine was early serial and converted to wet clutch. One of my favorite machines. JM

  "The Tale of a D6 9U Extraction" captures the tension and accuracy necessary for such an operation. From the nervous anticipation to the careful execution, every detail is critical. This narrative expertly navigates the complexity of the operation, giving readers a view into the high-octane world of extraction missions. With its engaging tale and attention to detail, it keeps readers on the edge of their seats, wanting more.

PTR was “Professional Tractor Repair,” an independent Caterpillar repair shop. They closed down somewhere in the late 90’s to early 2000’s. They were in the Waterloo area right across the street from a little establishment called Margliano’s bar (also now defunct) that used to make the best hot roast beef sandwich in existence.
The son of one of the principal owners of PTR ran the used parts division for several years at Holt in Stockton. Zeke is his name. I was bummed out to learn they moved him over to shop manager last year on the repair side. Good parts personnel are very hard to come by. And they’re even better when they’ve been around these machines when they’re torn down and have a full understanding of how everything works and are aware of any potential substitutions should the part you are looking for be unavailable.

A good tail of the price of a free machine. Maybe send that over the magazine.

Not that it matters at this point, but the tracks were locked up and did not turn/roll ???? If that is the case, more likely the brake band is rusted to the drum. Much easier to free up than a steering clutch.

The last free for the taking D6 I got had a swarm of bees living in the steering clutch compartment. So real early in the morning I remove both compartment covers. They were using the drain whole in the bottom of the case as there enter way. Well that did not make them want to move as I had hoped. I had a bee keeper come and suit up and fish around with his hand trying to find the queen and put her in a box. Then left them. Well they did not move into the box. But something removed 99.9% of the honey and 98% of the wax. And believe it or not it steered as I lead it off a mountain with another D6. It was parked because it was run to long with diesel dilution of the engine oil and seized the engine.

Hi Nick,
Thank you for posting this. If you would like some help compiling this story into a ACMOC article please contact me.
Craig

Nickywalnuts. I just told this story the other day, I farmed a hill ranch for 15 years, one day I was working ground and I stopped for something and looked down and here was a steel ball and I thought there must have been some kind of battle fought here! A few days later I showed it to the landlord told him that and he said naw my brother lost his balls! What are you talking about? He let the tracks get loose on that old Yuba and they fell out, I never heard of a Yuba Tractor before that, long story short they got rid of it and got a CAT 60 17afarmer

Juiceman, yes that D6 of yours would be a PTR conversation as I recall. I have some pictures, I’ll put them into another thread. 

Might not be ACMoC approved but they did a really good job on a 7U that came from Spanos and relocated the air filter over to the RH fender, D4C housing on that one, some of the other housings came from a place in between assassinated and Holt. They had their own hydraulic pack that they made from parts from King Bearing if I remember correctly. That group had some really good upgrades for the U series D2 & D4 as well, well might not be approved by some here but worked well in the orchards and that’s all I have to write about that.

The founders were Holt employees and started in 78 or 79 and ran until 2003 after one founder passed, another wanted to retire and another was quite sick at the time. They had at least a 1/2 dozen repair trucks then had the yard and shop off 88 near White Ln. Obviously took care of San Joaquin county Ag and construction, but also had a number of rigs running up in Calaveras county taking care of logging before USDA/FS shut that down in 99.

In the 80’s and 90’s every winter Frank, Joe and later Frank Jr would come down to what we called the Home Ranch, now my dad’s cousin’s place where we would take all the tin off and put it in the back or paint it, pressure wash the tractor and start going through the winter inspection process $$$$$, things were very different then.


Nickywalnuts, sounds like another big cat project once you are done with the digger D6.

Thank you,
        for sharing such good information, for lots of love, and amazing things that you have contributed.