[ftwmlp]

Good Luck! We have a 70's vintage CAT tracked loader on our place that has been a continual pain in the a--. Be prepared for sticker stock if you buy CAT branded batteries (or any CAT branded product really). Also the batteries are HEAVY, ours weigh 80 lbs each and you have to lift them over the tracks to get them in the compartment.

Ours has a manual primer pump that pulls diesel to the front where the pump does not have to work as hard at start up. I'm not familiar with the D7, but if it has glow plugs be sure and let them do their thing for at least a minute or two before even attempting to crank.

If this machine does not have hydraulic transmission or lift cylinders, consider yourself lucky. Hydraulic seals are our biggest problem.

Here is a link to a forum full of good info about old heavy equipment:
https://www.heavyequipmentforums.com/

This is a link to an online supply house that has the best pricing I have found for our machine:
https://offroadeq.com/

Mike Pearson

[Skidmark]

I admire your optimism. I might have started with a late 60's early 70' model, but hey sounds like a fun challenge. You can do it. Good luck.

[bdk1976]

The pictures remind me of paraphrased text for a ROUGH project I saw a while back:

"...if your wife doesn't file for divorce when you bring this thing home, it will at least get the conversation started!"

[Jonsie]

Like Alice Kramden said to Ralph................."I think you're nuts!"

[bulletpruf]

Originally Posted by b-man

You’ve lost your freaking mind.

And your point is?

[bulletpruf]

Originally Posted by Sirrotica

The lift pump is what supplies the injection pump with fuel, you need to plumb into the fuel system before the water seperators, and fuel filters, so you have filtered water free fuel coming to the injection pump. The injection pump multiplies the fuel pressure from low pressure, to high pressure necessay to spray fuel out of the injectors. Diesel fuel filters are usually about 10 microns, so gasoline filters won't adequately filter particulate that can harm an injection pump. Once you understand the process of how fuel is delivered it makes sense on why things need to be done in a certain way. Having to have an injection pump rebuilt is very costly, so I wouldn't recommend by passing the fuel filters, not worth the risk IMO.

Shortcutting is a way of increasing risk, without much margin of gain. WD 40 sprayed into an intake with electric heat grids will end the same way as ether will, likely an explosion. The intake manifolds in diesels have zero fuel in them, so inducing fuel where there may be heaters, won't end well. The old CAT engines with pony start motors, ran the exhaust from the pony motor through the center of the intake to preheat the intake air. In lieu of a pony motor for intake heat, many manufacturers used electric grid heaters to heat the intake air up. As ambient air temps fall below 40 degrees the difficulty of starting a cold diesel engine is drastically reduced, hence the need for glow plugs, or grid heaters in the engines.

In winter I have heated up the intakes with a torch to aid in warm air getting into the engine allowing it to start easier, if an engine was particularily hard to start. Of course block heaters also allow the iron to remain warm so that there is easier ignition of a cold engine too. Warming the coolant with a block heater will aid in cold start success also.

Diesels also need to spin over fast to maximize heat in the cylinders to ignite fuel, weak batteries, or a dragging starter won't allow enough starter RPM to ignite fuel in a cold engine. When the starter is slowing down, the likelyhood of a cold start is reduced expotentially. As Tim the Toolman Taylor says, "MORE POWER".........

If I'm spinning a diesel for a cold start, I like to either have a jumper from a running truck, or a large battery charger in the neighborhood of at least 200 amps while spinning it over. I learned a long time ago that less than 200 RPM with the starter won't start most diesels, especially if cold.

I'll see what I can plumb up tomorrow once I get there, but I understand your point on getting fresh filtered fuel to the injectors.

I agree with you 100% on spinning it over fast to get it to start. The owner has some 4D batteries but they're not charged. I'm bringing a generator and a few chargers; hope we can charge them on site and then wire up for 24v. I'm also bringing a few fresh batteries from my F350 just in case.

Almost forgot - the D7 should have a compression release; if so, and if it's operational, that should help.

[bulletpruf]

Originally Posted by ftwmlp

Good Luck! We have a 70's vintage CAT tracked loader on our place that has been a continual pain in the a--. Be prepared for sticker stock if you buy CAT branded batteries (or any CAT branded product really). Also the batteries are HEAVY, ours weigh 80 lbs each and you have to lift them over the tracks to get them in the compartment.

Ours has a manual primer pump that pulls diesel to the front where the pump does not have to work as hard at start up. I'm not familiar with the D7, but if it has glow plugs be sure and let them do their thing for at least a minute or two before even attempting to crank.

If this machine does not have hydraulic transmission or lift cylinders, consider yourself lucky. Hydraulic seals are our biggest problem.

Here is a link to a forum full of good info about old heavy equipment:
https://www.heavyequipmentforums.com/

This is a link to an online supply house that has the best pricing I have found for our machine:
https://offroadeq.com/

Mike Pearson

I don't think this has glow plugs.

I'm actually on the heavy equipment forums already, but I'll check out the offroadeq.com one.

I'll check for a primer pump; that would be nice.

Thanks!

Scott

[gtokid1968]

Man! U are a mwn after no own heart!
A friens of mine has an old CAT dozer and the best part is it has a PONY motor to start it!!!!
So a starter is much eaiser but NOT as cool!!
Its hard to hurt or kill a CAT that old!
You should be pusing dirt soon! Better get a fuel truck coming buy the house on a regular bases!

[bulletpruf]

Originally Posted by gtokid1968

Man! U are a mwn after no own heart!
A friens of mine has an old CAT dozer and the best part is it has a PONY motor to start it!!!!
So a starter is much eaiser but NOT as cool!!
Its hard to hurt or kill a CAT that old!
You should be pusing dirt soon! Better get a fuel truck coming buy the house on a regular bases!

This one would have come with a pony motor, but appears the engine is from a later model - D7E or so. The D7E was available with pony start or electric start and glow plugs.

Anyway, I agree - pony motors are indeed cool.

[muscle_collector]

my diesel mechanic that works on my equipment told me about a story like this the other day.

said an old guy called him and asked him if he could scrap an old cat dozer that hadnt run in at least 25 years. he went to look at it and asked what happened to it when he quit running it and he said nothing i just quit using it. he said before you scrap it let me play with it first, so he installed some new batteries, new fuel, new filters and it fired right up and didnt even have any hydraulic leaks.

hard to kill the older cat equipment.

[hurryinhoosier62]

Not really that far fetched. My Uncle Bud pulled a D8 out the pond where it was hidden after it had been stolen. Bud pulled the heads and oil pan, drained all the water out of the fuel and hydraulic systems, drained and refilled the transmission and final drives then used this bulldozer until he passed away in 2017. One word of caution: tracks and road wheels for CAT bulldozers are NOT cheap.

[sdbob]

When we were kids 10 or so Latrobe Construction was doing major earthmoving on the north side of town near the hospital. Cat equipment. Anyway one morning delivering papers we got the pony motor started on a dozer! Yes ! Then my good friend Kevin, his brother Denny one morning got the pony motor started on a cat scraper. He got the diesel started and proceeded to drive it hitting a new under construction house! We were kids! Good luck,find the info you need to make project go smooth. I have friend who works on heavy equipment,mainly welding.

[bulletpruf]

Originally Posted by muscle_collector

my diesel mechanic that works on my equipment told me about a story like this the other day.

said an old guy called him and asked him if he could scrap an old cat dozer that hadnt run in at least 25 years. he went to look at it and asked what happened to it when he quit running it and he said nothing i just quit using it. he said before you scrap it let me play with it first, so he installed some new batteries, new fuel, new filters and it fired right up and didnt even have any hydraulic leaks.

hard to kill the older cat equipment.

Cool story, MC, and good to hear from you.

Scott

[bulletpruf]

Ok, so today was a GREAT day!

Got on the road at 6:15. Picked up sidekick at 6:30. Got to dozer at 8:45. Owner was there waiting for us; he's a really good dude, 5th generation on their 550 acre cattle ranch. His dad bought the D7 10 or so years ago from a neighbor who lived a few miles away. They were going to use it to clear some of the land, and when you have a 550 acre ranch, I think you can justify a D7 to clear land.

Dozer was easy to get to. Didn't need to break out the chainsaw or weed-whacker. Just like you see in the pics.

The owner had 4 big freaking batteries in the back of his truck. I think the smaller ones were 4D's, but they were dead. The larger ones had 11.5 volts each, and look like they've been sitting in a shed for a decade or two.

We got unloaded and got the generator fired up (sidekick has a Honda generator) and got two chargers going on the big batteries.

Then we checked fluids and such - good on antifreeze, good on fuel, good on engine oil, milkshake in the transmission...gonna have to pretend we didn't see that...

Checked for air filter and it had been deleted at some point. Ruh-roh. Mice had made it into the turbo on the cold side, but not a worst case scenario. Just had to clean it out a bit.

Then started on fuel system, and that's where we ran into a problem. Injector rack seems to be immobile. But wasn't able to get it moving and the parts between the rack and the fuel filter are throwing me for a loop. Will have to wait for me to download pics and video, but we didn't want to force the issue, so we buttoned it back up for the time being.

Fuel filters (3) all had fuel in them; they were all full. And tank is gravity feeding the first fuel filter (small wire screen), so we don't have an obstruction between the tank and the first fuel filter. Fuel filters look almost new; we saw old filters laying in box that must have been changed out the last time someone tried to start it.

At that point, we figured we wouldn't be able to start it, but we could at least try to turn it over.

Starter was already wired with a pushbutton and we ohm'ed all the wires and everything checked out, including working pushbutton. We then built some quick 2/0 cables to connect the 12v batteries in series for a 24v system. Used the positive wire that was already in place because it ohm'ed fine and it was in good shape.

I was worried about a stuck rack and WOT/runaway engine if it started, but I really didn't think there was much chance of it lighting off immediately. I also had a thick denim shirt sitting right next to the intake; I could have smothered it if it caught.

Verified all controls were in neutral and then hit the starter. Almost forgot - no real way that I could see to turn it over manually, at least not at the front of the engine. Anyway, the sumbitch spun over quickly! No funny noises, just nice and smooth! I was turning it over with the compression release in the "start" position, so it wasn't building much compression. No smoke, so it wasn't getting any fuel that I could tell. Second time I turned it over, it spun for a second and then I switched the compression release to "run" position and it definitely has compression; really slowed it down.

Seller was there watching and he was certainly happy to see the engine turn over. He did mention that the winch was turning as I was cranking the engine, so that's a problem that we need to address; can't be using battery/starter power to turn the winch. The problem is the two controls for the winch -- one is "bluetooth" (i.e., cable is busted) and the other is frozen in position. Anyone have any ideas on how to disengage a Hyster D7 winch that has MIA and frozen control levers?

Anyway, at this point, we called it a day. Seller was leaving to go out of town for work for a few weeks and sidekick had to be back to for parental duties, so we packed up and headed home. Batteries also weren't happy from having to turn the engine and the winch.

I have pics and video. I'll post pics here when I get a chance, and I'll work on editing the video to put up on the YouTube channel.

Next step - figure out the fuel system, source an air filter, figure out how to disengage the winch, and plan the next trip!

Thanks for all the input!!!

Scott

[nas t eh]

Bat sh-t crazy is what this is. I want to see the picture of it parked in the front yard of your home…..if possible, with your wife sitting on top.

If you can make that happen … You win whatever “best wife ever contest” you can find.

[bulletpruf]

Originally Posted by nas t eh

Bat sh-t crazy is what this is. I want to see the picture of it parked in the front yard of your home…..if possible, with your wife sitting on top.

If you can make that happen … You win whatever “best wife ever contest” you can find.

If you knew the Long Haired General, you'd know how unlikely that is!

[Nobuddy]

Originally Posted by bulletpruf

Anyone have any ideas on how to disengage a Hyster D7 winch that has MIA and frozen control levers?

Has been a long time, but I believe you remove the cover on the top right side of the winch to access where the push/pull cables attach and are adjusted. I'm sure there is a manual for a D7D winch online somewhere that has information for where neutral point is. Controls look like brake (long lever) is released and shorter lever is engaged to forward or cable in.

Epic project.

Barry

[bulletpruf]

Originally Posted by Nobuddy

Has been a long time, but I believe you remove the cover on the top right side of the winch to access where the push/pull cables attach and are adjusted. I'm sure there is a manual for a D7D winch online somewhere that has information for where neutral point is. Controls look like brake (long lever) is released and shorter lever is engaged to forward or cable in.

Epic project.

Barry

Thanks, Barry!

Scott

[fyrffytr1]

I am, by far, no diesel mechanic. Heck, I can hardly spell diesel but a friend had an old Ford tractor that would not run. Long story short, there was a filter inside the tank that was clogged up. He changed it and had no more problems. Can you get a fuel system diagram for the D7?

[MarkS57]

Be careful!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r3y-SRsNPI

Although this has a D9 in it.