Hi Dave, good to see you on the board again,it was good to talk to you on the phone, take care mate and good luck with the 22A.

Hi Gordon, catsilver and plantman, good to hear from you all after such a long time! hope you are all doing ok together?

There is another Dick Hampton tractor less than three miles away from me, and a mate has just bought another as a breaker, I think there is a lot more around than you would think.

Earlier in the year, I helped a company out on holiday relief, diving a D6K with the system one running gear. pretty awsome bit of kit for a hy-stat....just could not stop them tracks from going around! and so cheap to run with that common rail accert engine..only 300 cc bigger than the D4D engine and double the hp. fitted out with the Cat Accugrade lazer eqip, I have my doubts that it can be beaten as a trimming tractor.
The only critisism of it is how much noise that system one running gear makes.......plenty of clonk clonk clonk!
I put 400 hrs on it to make it just over 500 in some pretty abrasive material and no signs of any wear on the bushings at all.
that little tractor would push out where you could not walk!
and the 6 way v-pat blade is a delight to use.....sorry to have to give it back in the end.............especialy when I jumped straight back onto the D4 that had been working on another job! Oh how slow the hydraulics are in comparison! He He!!

Hello, Catsilver, Plantman,Dave.
Guess we have all been busy, must admit i have only had the odd glimpse at the board throughout this year. We haven't gone down the systemone route as yet. I saw it in Malaga two years ago, but we run four Komatsu tractors in the D6 class and the D4H and 5H tractors were retracked shortly after.
I am looking for a late 6R LGP and possibly two for new inert landfill operations we have won, as we are dispensing with Komatsu and have replaced all but three of our 360's wth Volvo. It seems to be common knowledge that this new running gear is very noisey and have heard it myself on a 963 of Buckinghams. I have not seen any hard facts and figures as yet but from what i have heard it seems to be going well. Dave i have not seen a D6K at work yet and i'm not a fan of hydostatics so it's nice to hear that they aint bad, mind you i'm not much off a fan of Direct Drive either, lazy maybe lol. We were offered a new one through finning as the D6T is a good few months in the waiting, however the T price tag, i'm led to beleive is circa 170K a lot of money for 22 tonnes of steel eh ? Bloody good to hear from you guys, keep in touch, all the best for now Tim. PS i bet that D6K will be long gone before alot of D8K's eh !!!!