1979 Cat 950 Restoration

I've posted this loader before on the forum. Today we are finally starting the restoration. Long story short, my grandpa bought this loader brand new in 1979 when he started our business. It has had one repaint, one engine rebuild at 24,000 hours, and has 18,143 hours since then. As far as I know the rest of the drive train has not been touched. I want the loader to be finished in time for its 50th birthday, and the company's 50th anniversary.

Here it is after I gave it an initial steam clean. The plan is to start disassembling and start sending stuff off for repair. I have started gathering some parts, but I am still on the look out for a bunch more.

I made a little progress on disassembly. I got the bucket off, and some of the bucket linkage apart and on a pallet. You can see the bushings were worked out of the loader arms and really caused some damage.

Some more disassembly. Tilt cylinders are about ready to come off. Looks like some original paint hiding under the front fenders. Also found a previous repair on the front axle that will need some attention.

What a great piece of family history, Dave, thanks for sharing it with us. And what a good tenure - 40k hours is nothing to sneeze at, especially for a smaller loader that tends to get called on for all sorts of different tasks and driven by numerous operators. It looks in great condition considering and really, if those are the only welds on it, then it's in really good condition. Does it operate like it should?

Looks like one task on the books is to have the line-boring guy come in : ) for not only the loader linkage but possibly also the center pivot and steering? That can make a huge difference as can freshening up the pumps and transmission and loader valves. Keep us up to date, we love photos

Thanks Neil! Yes the center pins need to be machined for sure. It’s pretty sloppy side to side. All of the bushings seem to be intact but they must be somewhat loose since they are working their way out of the loader arms. As of now, I think I’m going to have Ziegler Cat do the machine work on it. Ive been working with them a couple years on getting all the pricing together on it. They are going to blast it and paint it when it’s all done. They did a full rebuild on my D6H XL Series 2 about 9 years ago and it still looks great!

As of right now, it does or did operate fine. The biggest issue is that about 5 years ago, an operator ran it low on coolant after a radiator hose split. It burned the seals out of the precombustion chambers. We put it all back together but I believe the head is cracked because it does leak coolant outside the engine, nothing inside. Also the cab is getting pretty rusty. Since this is my grandpa’s first machine he started with, I want to preserve it for the future. I do want it to be as close as possible to how it was new, but unsure if I should leave some of the old modifications and repairs visible.

Right now I’m in search of a pair of decent front fenders, one linkage arm, some of the hand rails, and possibly a whole cab assembly. I’ll make another post with part numbers.

More disassembly. Pulled the doors off the cab, and the rails and mirror off the right side. Also got the tilt cylinders, and the remaining levers off. I'm guessing these heads on the tilt cylinders are both going to be junk.

A good machine shop would build them up and machine seal recess back out to spec sizes, checking to bore for damage would be first to check, then the outside damage.