Great way to end the week! Congratulations. Perhaps you could share the adventures of your new D6 with a brief article and more photographs for the magazine?
Many subscribers get their crawler fixation via the magazine, and not online...
I'm so happy for you, I might have to buy another D6! JM

side-seat, I haven't read that book. I'll order it.

JM, thank you. I will definitely consider that. I haven't done a good job documenting this process so far, but maybe I can rectify that.

Of interest: today I was scoping out the machine's next stop, and found an original Cat D2 precleaner, though the glass jar is broken. It's likely from the long-abandoned D2-5J1555SP on the destination property.

It looks like the weather will hold until Sunday, so I think we will move the machine tomorrow. The trucker says he can come up in the afternoon. I scoped out the route again today, and I think the choreography will be ok. The truck has to back up a dirt road to the machine, then I'll back the machine onto the trailer. The truck will then drive down to the pavement, back up along the pavement 1/4 mile, turn around in a neighbor's driveway, proceed another 1/2 mile down the pavement to a sharp curve, then back up into the destination driveway. Then I'll drive the machine off the trailer and down the driveway, and make a hard right through the gate, making sure not to take out the neighbor's well. I keep telling myself - slow and easy.

I wish I had know of this book when I was a kid. When I was a junior in highschool I did a book report on "Fifty years on tracks"​​​​​

Yikes on the trucking part. To some folks, the retrieval process is part of their adventure. The majority of the time, I am the sole individual; occasionally I wish for a second set of hands, other times glad its just me. I considered buying myself a roll off unit or slide bed, but said NO MORE TRACTORS! (yeah right!).
Crossing my fingers and got the lucky rabbit's foot out for you. Hope everything goes smoothly for you. OH THE EXCITEMENT! JM

juiceman wrote:

Yikes on the trucking part. To some folks, the retrieval process is part of their adventure. The majority of the time, I am the sole individual; occasionally I wish for a second set of hands, other times glad its just me. I considered buying myself a roll off unit or slide bed, but said NO MORE TRACTORS! (yeah right!).
Crossing my fingers and got the lucky rabbit's foot out for you. Hope everything goes smoothly for you. OH THE EXCITEMENT! JM

You having a roll off flat bed could be for the betterment of the whole Caterpillar rust collecting community!!!!!!
 

neil wrote:

I'm not sure about the J-series precleaner bowl but the U-series D2 bowl is plastic, with a steel ring that retains it in the precleaner clamp. I had a cracked one on my 5U and replaced it with a Mason jar like many do, but when I ordered the replacement bowl from Cat, it was surprised to see that it was in fact the same plastic cup (new and not cracked : )

I suspect the old original jar would of been glass. The same way all the original sediment bowls on ponies were. But Cat has changed the part they are currently selling. Today Cat still sells bowls, but they have been metal for 20 years+.
 

Got it done!

The trucker called me at 7:30 am to see if we could do the morning after all. I was sleeping in so it was a little rush to get up there. He says he started driving a D8 at the age of 9, and very helpfully did the loading and unloading. I was really impressed by his skill in driving the D6 - he initially came on the trailer a little crooked, but did a turn in place with no forward or backward movement to straighten out.

The three point turn in the neighbor's driveway was easy. It took him two tries to back into the destination driveway, but no problems. I ended up driving it down the driveway and through the gate myself. Slow and easy, no problem!

Next thing I knew we were all done, I was home, and it was only 10:30. Great day.