Hey Guys

I need some info. I just started running an old Bucyrus Erie Crane for a guy bailing sand in a gravel pit with a 2 Yd drag bucket. The power unit in it is an old Cat D318GT Power Unit Serial number 2S10223. That's the info I got off the SN Tag. It is rated for 200 HP. I'm not sure of the Crane model, but it's a 50 or a number close to it.

Can anyone tell me the age of this engine and if they were standard equipment or an option in these cranes? It has a radiator from an old International Cat instead of the Cat radiator, so it has been cobbled on and the unit seems to have been added later because there are other mount brackets on the floor like there was a different angine in it at one time. I always thought that they put Detroit engines in these cranes. Can anyone shed some experience or some light on this? Also it has a converter instead of a master clutch. Was this common back then? (I figure the crane is at least fifty years old because it is all mechanical lever toggle in and out controls. No air assist anything.)

Thanks

Chris

I don't know much about them but Cat did produce a D318 GT engine and also a torque converter drive in the late 50's. The torque converter had a separate cooler that was mounted in front of the radiator. I don't believe either was very common and ended with the close of the D318 production in 1960.

Yes B-E used Cat engines in lots of their shovels as the Cat dealer I worked for was a dealer for B-E before Cat came out with their own line.All that we sold had the Cat engines in them but I,m sure other engines were installed in them.I believe it was the 22-B that used the D318 & a scrap Co. here in town had a truck crane & it had a D315 in it as I worked on it several times over the years.Seems like I remember that some had a gas engine in them too & one seems to come to mind had a Chrysler Ind. engine in it.

Thanks Guys....that helped a lot......I apreciate it

Chris

the d318 is a very popular engine and you will have no trouble getting parts of people who have the knowledge to help (like this BB)

how about a picture or 2????

thansk

SJ,
you mentioned that there were B-E machines with Chrysler industrial engines in them. We have a truck mounted 10 Ton Loraine crane from 1944. the factory information was that it should have had Waukesha engines, but they were unavailable during WWII so the Chryslers (straight 8, 318 cubic inch??? flat heads) were substituted.

That was a quiet old engine muttering away back in the house behind you. Never got the truck engine to go for long, had it rebuilt, but it spun a rod bearing on it's maiden trip down the road. Found a crankshaft in a marina in the NE USA somewhere for the rebuild, but still must have had some bearing clearance problems or something. Anyway it may have been quite common for those Chrysler industrial gas engines to show up in strange places during the war years.