towed ripper

Hey Cab,

I have a Letourneau cable ripper. I pull it with my 14-a or my 36-a. It does a good job. I have never had it on a "Rock Job", but have ripped cemented soils with it.

About 30-35 years ago, we had a job that had some Hard Blue Franciscan Rock that a D8-K bounced on. A good operator tried and tried to rip it out. We spent days working on trying to rip it out. An old timer laughed at him and us, and said he could rip it out. Blasting wasn't permitted, as we were too close to condos. Our hammer was working on another job taking out concrete footings, so I asked him again if he was serious or not. He said, "I'll get it out or you don't have to pay me"!!! He ask me to haul in 30cyd of dirt. I did as he asked. He pushed the dirt over the rock and slowly, very slowly ripped both directions. After an hour or so, he cut it down a foot, then repeated. By the end of the shift he had ripped out 150-200 cyds of solid rock. The funny thing was, the Cat never worked hard. He taught me never ever get rid of all your loose dirt, as the Cat needs it for traction. Also, never apply more power than needed, don't spin the tracks. He mastered these techniques and it was Awesome Skills. Jesse Dewitt was a great skinner.

So, use those tricks and a tow ripper will get it done. Just think how many miles of roads were built before all these new fancy rigs were around. Yes, we blasted a lot more too... Hahahaha
Glen

Hi, Glen.
That is GREAT advice. One of the first things I learned when I first got to work a dozer ripping rock was to NEVER clean the top right off UNLESS you are cleaning the top for drilling. A bit of loose rock left on top of the area to be ripped not only improves traction but also ride, AND it reduces the beating that the machine would otherwise take running over bare rock.

As to cable rippers and their ability to penetrate hard ground and rock, I once operated a Cat D6C with a cable angle blade and a rear-mounted cable controlled parallelogram ripper. That cable ripper would get into ground and some types of rock that a Fiat AD12 with a hydraulic parallelogram ripper had real problems getting into. Somehow, the manufacturers of that cable ripper had managed to design it so that its own weight, which was NOT huge, and its balance would cause it to be virtually 'sucked' into the ground. It was made by an Australian company, BHB Engineers Pty Ltd of Bayswater in Western Australia and that is still the only one that I have ever seen.

Just my 0.02.

Hi cab, the big disadvantage of the towed ripper is the difficulty of traveling in reverse; especially in tight confines, with the ripper attached. That disadvantage plus the added cost of transporting an additional load to and from a job site was the death-knell of the towed ripper.
If you are considering purchasing that towed cable ripper to compliment your D-8 and the disadvantages previously mentioned can be overcome, I think it would be a good choice if the price is reasonable.
The ability of the cable ripper to penetrate hard material is not as big an issue as you might think.
Many of the disadvantages of cable-controlled blades and attachments can be overcome with operator technique.

Hey Team,

In California, if you ask for an Ag permit, cabled equipment can be permitted as one unit if you can make weight. I'm lucky to be able to haul my D-8 and Ripper together. [attachment=32668]image.jpg[/attachment]

About 104,000 lbs gross

The Cat #28 towed ripper was the standard for many years.

Thanks. This is great info. Here is a pic.

Hi, Cab.
That is a pretty straight-lookng unit. Nice find.

The one thing that you can do with a rear-mounted parallelogram ripper - in some conditions - is get extra weight for traction by lifting up on the ripper when you have it hooked under something a bit tight. You can also - and again, sometimes - gain a little extra traction with a 4BBL ripper by tipping the shank(s) all the way forward at the bottom - top rams extended.

That is simply not an option with a drawn ripper - at least not without some fairly SERIOUS modifications. I believe though that you can add extra weight to that Cat ripper for extra penetration by adding sand, old steel mill balls or some other form of weight in the cavities in the frame. If you look carefully at Old Magnet's scan of the spec sheet, you may see a little note about that down near the bottom of the sheet. Trouble being, you may have to get that added weight out again to move it on a float, at least with the tractor attached.

As Seiscat said, so long as space and time are not problems, a towed ripper will do a pretty good job. You might have been interested to see Glen and me tandem pushing the 660 down at Santa Margarita earlier this year as another example of what can be done with a towed ripper.

Just my 0.02.

Deas:

Check out these other pictures. The only reason my interest was piqued is because it looks to be sparingly used in its 55+ years of life. Thanks Glen, Craig, and OM for spelling out the situation.

Also Deas, did I understand you correctly that there does exist a parallelogram cable ripper? I can't envision an attached ripper that wouldn't interfere with the CCU, but my envision is limited...

Here are the pics:

Deas:

Check out these other pictures. The only reason my interest was piqued is because it looks to be sparingly used in its 55+ years of life. Thanks Glen, Craig, and OM for spelling out the situation.

Also Deas, did I understand you correctly that there does exist a parallelogram cable ripper? I can't envision an attached ripper that wouldn't interfere with the CCU, but my envision is limited...

Here are the pics: