Lots of good stuff there Glen, glad you got all of that goodness.

This is a great opportunity being able to salvage these Icons of history great job i am glad that you have the resources to get this accomplished what a great can do attitude thanks

What would it take to restore the engines and frame structure after the damage done to qualify for the retirement program? Could this damage be repaired back to original integrity by welding, assuming it were done in the most technically competent manner? For repairing the engine, I assume it would have to be removed and completely disassembled just for to begin with. The weld itself would have to be carefully engineered with reshaping the damage opening and adding the precise type and amount of patch material. The welding stress would have to be somehow controlled, or eliminated after welding.

Other than the damage done, how much life is left in the engines?

Hey Tacklayer,

That was a lot of questions in that post!!! Did you want answers, or was it intended to make one think?

I was asking for answers to the extent that anyone has them. Any thoughts or speculation would be welcome as well. I think it is an interesting topic because so much appears to be left compared to what was destroyed, even though the destruction was theoretically keyed to prevent the Cats from returning to service. But I suppose than just destroying something so well built and complex is expensive.

However, maybe the tracks are a lot newer than the rest of the tractor, and so maybe it would be more economical to replace the engines rather than try to repair the damage. When I contemplate repairing the engines, I am not just talking about a simple weld job. I see it more like a technical metallurgical science/engineering project. So it may not be worth it even though the damage is relatively small in size.

TrackLayer,

One of the cats had evidence of previous engine damage. It must have had a connecting rod let loose. It had an aluminum patch covering the damage. Looked like a road sign contoured to the block. what's funny is there was no evidence of the patch leaking!!! A long time Cat mechanic shrugged his shoulders when he saw it and said, "All it has to do is hold oil"!!! Yep, he is right. Phil stated he can fix the torched metal. Metal can be fixed with proper procedures. I didn't purchase these to rebuild and cheat the government. I wouldn't do that!!! I just saved them from China... to be continued...

Glen

That's what allot of the old Cat skinners did at the dealers when a rod punched a through a block, if it was in the right spot, they just get all the broken pieces and welded them back in.

Glen,

I am not suggesting that you to break the law if rebuilding those D9s would have that effect. I did not realize that the sale has conditions attached as to what a buyer can do with the equipment.

I'd think the holes in the block/pan wouldn't be that hard to seal up, although it would weaken the block some. Probably not enough to matter much though.

Question would be what else got damaged. Certainly lots of slag blown around in there, potentially some damage to other internal parts as well.

They may have done stuff to wreck other parts though, would have to check very closely.

My thought would be to pull the engine down and use all the parts on another block. Unless I'm mistaken those engines are not that hard to come by so I doubt there's really a need to mess with fixing the block especially when you'd want to do a full teardown anyway.