Road Building

I recorded a bit of video of the construction going on here this morning. They are cutting down one of the McDonald hills using it as fill to build up the road.


Road building

Great video thanks. So you flew that machine clear down and back while sitting in one place ?

SV,
When you see the boys playing in the dirt at a construction site with big toys, do you want to stop and ask if they would let you play too??

Good video. Rare to see scrapers moving dirt that far here, jobs like that are large 6 wheel off road trucks loaded by hydraulic excavators. Cheaper and faster .

Years ago I talked to a guy. That made some of the roads in Texas. Everything was hand cranked little shade if any.No A/C standing up in the dust.

(quoted from post at 01:28:24 10/22/21) Great video thanks. So you flew that machine clear down and back while sitting in one place ?

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Yes, the drone has pretty good range. I don't know just how far it would go before losing signal but I know half a mile is no problem. Line of sight is a factor of course. If it gets down below the trees or behind a building then signal might get weak. When that happens it automatically returns to home.

(quoted from post at 06:12:15 10/22/21) Years ago I talked to a guy. That made some of the roads in Texas. Everything was hand cranked little shade if any.No A/C standing up in the dust.

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What I noticed most about these was how quiet the machines are. When I was a kid we could hear the "Eucs" roaring for miles away. Likely Detroit diesels. Some I recall were open station. Our municipality also built a few roads using an elevating grader attachment. I remember watching it work back about 1971. Wish I had pictures of it. Of course prior to that it was horse teams and scrapers or "fresnos" in the 1930s.

Ah the IDIOT WAGONS , one has never lived till ya run one of them . I have run a few . Ran at the time the biggest Cat made for two weeks 641 double bowls pushed by two D 9 G's hooked together with one operator and some of the smaller ones like the 613 and 618 self loading and pusher load . Not to bad as long as the haul road is kept up but when it is not you get beat up pretty bad . on a big job it is all about yardage and keeping it on the floor load as fast as ya can and go . Come into the cut flat out running open the apron and sink the bowl into the ground and start down shifting , the push tractor should be on you before you spin out and when you full he should be helping you get moving as he should be up in second before the two of you break contact , that was with powershift trans. . On the OLD ones with manual trans missions on the pans you had to be up on non scyro double clutchen . Then ya had the Le Turno's(sp) never could keep the spelling right on that brand , hey were a standard transmission five speed with ELECTRIC steering and bowl operation powered by Detroits same as the Eculids but the eculid's were hyd steer and bowl operation ( never ran a Eculid , A/C made them International made them . The company i worked for had all flavors . One said when he was young you could hear them running a long way off , Ah yep ya could as back then they did not run mufflers. The Le turno's (sp) we had went one step above on loudness . The D pulls were powered by 4-71's on the four we had they changed the exhust manifolds to two 2-71 manifolds with dual 4 inch straight pipes and on the bigger C pulls they were org. powered by a 6-71 with two valve heads buy the four we had had been tweaked a bit with the 4 valve heads N71 Brown tag injectors and overdriven blowers and 3 3-71 exhaust manifolds and three straight pipes and we referred to them as the ORGANS THEY WERE LOUD . on them you did have to keep them flat on the floor to keep the volts and amps up for the steering as the generator was hooked directly to the engine then the second flywheel was hooked to it then the clutch then the transmission and that was a Clark five speed so you could shove the clutch down to keep the RPM's up . You steered with a toggle switch between your two fingers of the left hand while holding onto the CHICKEN BAR and you ran the pan with the three switches on the right while holding on to the CHICKEN BAR . No fancy seat to set on just a big soft mushroom style cushion bucket seat , no ROPS , no seat belt no wind shield and some times no brakes when it threw the air compressor belts and you could not hear the air buzzer over the engine . That is when you used the emergency brake ------- Drop the bowl.

Hey Vet , my dad had 2 LeTourneau super C Tournapulls. They had no steering wheel, they were steered like a bulldozer. Power by Cummins HRBB through a manual 5-speed. In soft conditions there was no time to double clutch, had to keep the bowl all the way up and two-block it to make the shift.

Tractor vet, good to hear from someone who has run the old ones. Tournapol is another name I remember from many years ago. I have found that one of the guys running one of those scrapers in my video has his own youtube channel with some video taken while he was working farther South down that same road. He also has some interesting tractor stuff in some of his other videos. ironman3406
ironmans channel

That is a VERY nice, well done video! Thank you!

Id Like to run a scraper and a cat that big

As you can see how they will beat you up and that was on a pretty good haul , plus that scraper was a modern one with a cab heat and air plus a air ride seat . I much preferred running my D 9 over running and IDIOT wagon . a day ripping rock was even better . Working the fill was a cake walk working the cut kept ya really humping .

Only one i have been around were the all electric and Detroit powered . I also was the wizz kid that could trouble shoot and fit the electric problems that at times kept me humpen . Last time i ran one of them was 63 when we were rebuilding the 1/2 mile oval at the county fair grounds as they were going to start usen it for the stock car races and hold bigger races , that was the plan till some as we call them today Karen's got wind of it and since the fair grounds were on the soth side of the little speed rap truckers nightmare weigh station town the fight was on . We were done had our money . They started complaining when we started work on it as we had the four C
s and the four D's along with four of the older D 8 high out outs couple D7's and the D6 and not one had a muffler . The old D 8 high output would rattle dishes off the shelfs a 1/4 mile away along with 8 screaming Detroits.

MUST READ BOOK FOR OLD IRON GUYS...R.G. LETOURNEAU, MOVER OF MEN & MACHINES...A MAN, LIKE US. & A KINGDOM MAN...BE BLESSED, GRATEFUL, PREPARED...