D2 - Unusual (?) Hydraulic System

Hello Guys - in my ongoing search for bits to hang off my D2, I have been offered a blade. It is pretty much a NZ made copy of the 2S blade (called a "Field Chief" blade here).

The bit I don't know about is the hydraulic system, the guy selling knows nothing about it except that it drives off where the generator normally goes, and has a small tank mounted close by. Was this very common (its not that common here in NZ as far as I can tell) ?? If anyone is familar with the set-up I'd love to know if it was sucessfull, and/or what the problems might be ??

I'm not able to view this gear as its a long ways away, hence what may seem dumb questions at this stage !!

Cheers - Foster

I've seen a few Cats with generator drive hydraulic pumps, some well done, some horrible, none that I would assume to be commercially produced.

I also run a 10 gpm, 2000 psi generator drive pump on an old Cletrac that I have. Works fine to operate a two hydraulic cylinder 3-pt hitch.

The trick will be matching pump to cylinder capacity for the correct blade movement rate.

Pumps driven off timing gears arn't uncommon. I have one on a venerable Scoopmobile (Chrysler engine) that is still working well fifty some years later (fingers crossed here!) On Continental fourpoppers in forklifts the gear drive pump was considered something of a weakness. The iron idler gear gave out after a while, but forklifts do an astounding amount of pumping in the course of a day.

Cat has a pretty stout timing drive--force feed oil to the idler pin, good big gears. If, and I mean BIG IF, it's a well-built unit it should work fine. If the gear mesh isn't about perfect, it can wipe out a big part of your engine.

I'd say go pretty careful on it. I've seen enough engines full of metal shavings to satisfy any curiosity I ever had on the matter.😮 I don't need to hear about any more of them! Good luck.