If value and respect your ears you wont insult them with a Gm screaming in them, buy a tractor with its proper engine, however if you like noise and not much else, buy it.
They put a few different engines in 9u's in the Palouse area for farm use.I have one with a 1673 230hp cat engine and a friend of mine has one with a 3306 DIT.These were great conversions and worked very well.The Detroit conversions were not as desirable.As far as value I saw one with a 6-71 sell for 2 grand several years ago,no blade.If the one you are looking at is the one I'm thinking of it has been for sale a while,has a 4-71?The value would depend on condition of the undercarriage and the blade adds value.
RPM would be about 2100, or about 50% faster ground speed but you have to remember full rpm/power settings would be dangerous to the drive train in the lower gears anyway. Seems like the usual procedure was to block out 1st and 2nd gears on the ag tractors repowered with 6-71's. Definitely would want to make sure the grousers were pretty worn down or use conservative throttle settings if doing dozer work.
The DD engine might be a better repower than one of the inline 4 stroke engines since the torque on the smaller ones is generally reported to drop off pretty quickly as the rpm falls. The lower rpm torque peak of the 4 stroke engines could get dangerous!
If the 9U in question has a 4-53 or 4-71, the HP and torque wouldn't be so out of line.
Could you post a photo of the Cat, it would be interesting to see the engine and how they mounted it. Detroits are dependable, clever design especially for their time, rather noisy, and burn a little more fuel than a four stroke diesel. Low RPM torque, like others have said is not a 2 stroke diesels strong point. They tend to run forever, and so do Cat Diesels. I would rather have the original low RPM Cat 4 stroke diesel in the tractor. It really depends on your application, price point and needs. I have never seen a DD Detroit 2 stroke in a Cat crawler. Would love to see a couple photos of it.
Personally I would stay away from it. Much better to either find one with a the original 318 or at the very least one with a newer caterpillar engine. Got a friend of mine who recently bought a 9U D6 with a 3306 conversion that also had been wet decked for $5,500 but no dozer. It also has a cab, AC, and newer style seat, and has live 2 value hydraulic system out the back. He was strickley looking at it to farm with on the side.
8-71 and 6-71 Detroit, Normally set at 2100 RPM
4-71 Detroit, 1800
4-53, 2400
3-53, 2750
I'm sure there are many set to run at different RPMs such as the marine engines.
Hey Thanks Guys
I'll try to get some pictures of the crawler. I need to get some more information from the seller on engine size . Also want to see what horse power it will produce . My plans are to pull a plow (6-8 bottom) 24 foot disc ,culti-weeder or harrow . Will not need the dozer much but do have some dozing to do . I might know where a D6 farm cat is that has no dozer but is powered by a cat motor with a pony start .So what does the WET Deck mean do I need to have that for what I want to use it for? I was just thinking if the price was right I could get a cheap crawler . Might see maybe 100 hours a year. I was thinking maybe $2500.00 would be a price to offer. Anyways thanks again you guys are great
Hey Thanks Guys
I'll try to get some pictures of the crawler. I need to get some more information from the seller on engine size . Also want to see what horse power it will produce . My plans are to pull a plow (6-8 bottom) 24 foot disc ,culti-weeder or harrow . Will not need the dozer much but do have some dozing to do . I might know where a D6 farm cat is that has no dozer but is powered by a cat motor with a pony start .So what does the WET Deck mean do I need to have that for what I want to use it for? I was just thinking if the price was right I could get a cheap crawler . Might see maybe 100 hours a year. I was thinking maybe $2500.00 would be a price to offer. Anyways thanks again you guys are great
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