historical information photo news on the largest crawler loaders ever built

[barracane]

surfing the net you will find a lot of news, doing a short search I found that the largest mechanical crawler loaders ever built were: caterpillar 983 ,komatsu D155S,
Allis Chalmers HD21G loader , euclid, John Deere, liebherr.
I have not found any other information, would you be kind enough to provide me with further information or photos, maybe some prototypes, maybe some Russian Chinese heavy machinery or of an unknown brand, now the crawlers have been replaced very well by excavators, the largest wheel I think is letorneau , am I wrong ???????? thanks let me know.

Let’s Make A Big Loader- the Cat 983 loader - Contractor Magazine

Caterpillar’s model 983 Traxcavator is the largest track type loader the Company has ever produced in it’s 90+ year history.

contractormag.co.nz

Its principal, and pretty much only competitor, was the Komatsu D155S

 

[V8Druid]

Welland a couple of years ago
Clara likes Yellow iron

@JD450A 'll know what the machine was, attached to the bucket she's standing in .... can't recall the owner's name, but lives/works abroad and came over for the Welland weekend

 

[Lancs Lad]

Welland a couple of years ago
Clara likes Yellow iron View attachment 25003View attachment 25004View attachment 25005
@JD450A 'll know what the machine was, attached to the bucket she's standing in .... can't recall the owner's name, but lives/works abroad and came over for the Welland weekend

This I need to do

 

[Conor]

Welland a couple of years ago
Clara likes Yellow iron View attachment 25003View attachment 25004View attachment 25005
@JD450A 'll know what the machine was, attached to the bucket she's standing in .... can't recall the owner's name, but lives/works abroad and came over for the Welland weekend

Looks like Martin Ashfields 951, he was out in Dubai ran the plant dept for a company I was working for, top man He’s back in the uk as far as I know.

 

[V8Druid]

Looks like Martin Ashfields 951, he was out in Dubai ran the plant dept for a company I was working for, top man He’s back in the uk as far as I know.

Spot on Connor .... could not recall his name ........ those pix are Welland 2019 IIRC .. can't see any of us getting there again this year

This I need to do

it's a great weekend LL

 

[barracane]

thanks for your precious intervention, congratulations for your really cute and nice children.now that the corona virus is over, take them around and let them have fun
Komatsu D155S??'

 

[V8Druid]

View attachment 25044

thanks for your precious intervention, congratulations for your really cute and nice children.now that the corona virus is over, take them around and let them have fun
Komatsu D155S??'

View attachment 25045

Thanks .. that's my 'grand daughter' @barracane ... my 'wife's' daughter's little girl ..... I don't have any of my own ... not so sure about the corona being over though ... give it time for all the 'guinea pigs' to rub shoulders and trek about the place ... see what it's like by the end of September .... how is it in your country?

 

[barracane]

congratulations again for your beautiful family, in Italy what can I say, everything is falling apart, people are on the pavement demanding taxes and tributes of money not collected, the usual ballet, they play a barrel shot. not even 30% of the population has been vaccinated and the restrictions have been thrown out I believe that in July there will be the go-ahead, the usual amateurs in the fray, what can you do, we are anarchists everyone does what they like, so much an amnesty comes out a 'amnesty that cancels everything just pay Italy is founded on malfeasance the bribes the bribes the nepotism, the recommendations the comparators, the friendships the subterfuges made under the bench the magheggi, conspiracies, the white-collar mafia. the so-called gray zone. where I come from honest people are stupid, they are plotted in the shadows like secret agents. people are hypocritical and opportunists make you two faces, we are Neapolitans and I said everything. God Save the Queen.

 

[Old Operator]

T.E Jones of Knockin (later Greyhound) bought & ran a D155S, I remember seeing it shown at the Shrews West Mid Show when new in about '76 - was destined for the S. Wales coalfields. I cannot though see how such a huge machine could have been economic as it incurred track wear every cycle.
Only makers of a front engined track loader now are Struck, Hamney, & Gulin Dongfeng - the last two were sold under the name Eastwind

 

[Bri963]

T.E Jones of Knockin (later Greyhound) bought & ran a D155S, I remember seeing it shown at the Shrews West Mid Show when new in about '76 - was destined for the S. Wales coalfields. I cannot though see how such a huge machine could have been economic as it incurred track wear every cycle.

They weren’t. That’s why they sold in such small numbers And didn’t last long. Like everything though, they had a niche and that was demolition work, where they were the best machine for the job at the time, when most buildings being flattened were brick, stone and timber. 977’s were heavy on the tracks as well. Even the hystats have a rep for eating undercarriage but a good few companies still run them on muckshift. As said elsewhere, the biggest factor in how long the tracks last is down to the nut in the seat and ground conditions.

 

[muckyman]

Still run them nothing beats them finishing a demo job off or clearing any site used to run a set of tracks off in 3 to 4 thousand hours depending on job conditions

 

[Old Operator]

If you got 3 to 4 K hours out of a set of tracks, did that mean having pins & bushes pressed out & turned 180 deg at about 1500 to 2000 hrs?
Back in the day of govt. grants for farm field expansion we used a little Case 450 / 100B for hedge removal. Over the years stones were thrown into the hedges so it was ideal to rip along these lines allowing manual stone picking. I guess a midi with a 'grip talon' thumb would be a modern option. On the Discovery mining shows I see most 360s are equipped with either a manual or hydraulic thumb. Not common over here
BTW Stokey (now of Telford) have bought a brand new Dressta TD25M - saw it passing their yard last night. I knew of Dressta but have never before seen the make in the flesh in the UK. I gather in Europe the choice for a crawler is Cat, Komatsu, Dressta, Liebherr. When I was younger there were 9 makes.

 

[pettsy]

Looks like Dressta were bought by LuiGong in 2012

 

[Old Operator]

Here are some pics of the Dressta & a high reach 360 in next yard, note it has an alternative for the two piece boom on a big hook skid. Also at other end of estate some machines left from clearing a scrub wood for a new factory. They have neither blades nor thumbs - not an ideal piece of equipment for the job. A Drott 4 in 1 & rear winch more ideal. Dressta started life as a communist era armed vehicle maker, branched out into making IH stuff under licence in about '79. Was a link to Komatsu when they acquired Dresser, The smaller machines were a mixture of IH & Kom tech, in that they offered the 3 speed direct drive with inch pedal, or 3 speed conventional powershift with torque converter & decelerator. Made an unaltered IH 175 shovel till about '05 & the TD15C blade till recently. Under LuiGong the little machines start at 90Hp & are hystat. The US forest service liked the direct drive for dozing fire breaks - it being cheaper & more known than hystat. Maybe now the reverse is true? Dressta more known in the US & OZ than here. Stokey have run Cat, Komatsu & Liebherr
in the recent past. I believe they had the first D9s in UK ripping rock on the Ross Spur of M5 back in '59, anyway they were known for rock ripping, based in Wolves till a few years ago.

 

[Bri963]

Wish they still made the 175. Much cheaper than any of the hystat machines. They had a good rep for reliability and balance, but there were never many sold here, either IH, Dresser or Dressta.

 

[Old Operator]

Interesting, would that mean that the small Dressta's jumped in price when they all went hystat? I thought now there was a mass market in hystat parts it would be dearer to make a powershift. That said I read on a forum that the smallest Cat dozer cost $175K with blade & ripper. Early 60s a firm called Gravesons wanted to buy a 955 (was 9 ton, before it went bigger once the 951 was slotted in) Was unaffordable so he bought a Hanomag even though his brother had been killed in WW2. The Hanomag proved to be just as good but much more affordable. Could be a function of exchange rates, as in why 2 out of 3 small crawlers were UK built IH in the '70s

 

[Bri963]

Never followed their prices tbh, but I doubt they went up much as the Dressta hystats use off the shelf systems. 951/955’s were a lot more expensive than IH 165’s and 175’s - the Cat premium. btw, Cat built 951’s in the UK, they were still expensive.

 

[muckyman]

If you got 3 to 4 K hours out of a set of tracks, did that mean having pins & bushes pressed out & turned 180 deg at about 1500 to 2000 hrs?
Back in the day of govt. grants for farm field expansion we used a little Case 450 / 100B for hedge removal. Over the years stones were thrown into the hedges so it was ideal to rip along these lines allowing manual stone picking. I guess a midi with a 'grip talon' thumb would be a modern option. On the Discovery mining shows I see most 360s are equipped with either a manual or hydraulic thumb. Not common over here
BTW Stokey (now of Telford) have bought a brand new Dressta TD25M - saw it passing their yard last night. I knew of Dressta but have never before seen the make in the flesh in the UK. I gather in Europe the choice for a crawler is Cat, Komatsu, Dressta, Liebherr. When I was younger there were 9 makes.

No 3 to 4000 hours then turned but were run until they nearly fell off having full length track guards helped them last longer been driving a case 450 this week and scrapped 2 100b crawlers only had one hystat crawler a liebherr and was very good but my favourite is komatsu under ten ton with hydroshift

 

[muckyman]

Wish they still made the 175. Much cheaper than any of the hystat machines. They had a good rep for reliability and balance, but there were never many sold here, either IH, Dresser or Dressta.

Did the 175 have the same problem as the 100b 125b and 165b spending more time being fixed than on site

 

[Bri963]

Don’t know, tbh I never saw one on site, and only one 165. I was last on a 100 nearly 35 years ago, and the last time I saw a 125 on site was about the same time. A lot of 100’s and 125’s ended up on farms.

Can’t say I liked any Komatsus I’ve been on, apart from the 41, the 31 and 51 seemed sluggish compared to the Cat equivalents. Which Liebherr do you have?