After I had posted photos of the 9U, I thought to myself; oh crap! Someone’s is gonna notice the angle braces aren’t on it! Rats! I can’t pull a quick one on you sharp eyed CAT guys can I?
I had just dropped the 60 scraper can and remounted the C frame.
I also gave myself a self taught lesson on threading cable. Wasn’t exactly easy with old and stuff cable. Had to use a chop saw to trim the ends and rid myself of the kinks. Much easier if I had some new stuff.
Didn’t mount the angle braces, as I was missing the 1 1/2” pins. A trip to the bolt store cost me $150.00 for 4 of them. Ouch!
I must say I am impressed. With only the center pin, the blade was fairly well balanced.

I see you have a lot of grain trailers in the back ground. Just what do you use them for and just what kind of business do you have? catskinner

Hi Team,
I was taught and used the following methods to cut wire ropes.
We used to bind the cable about 1" either side of the intended cut with 1/16" oxy. welding or 1/16" tie wire to stop the strands unraveling when we used an oxy. torch to melt thru the wire rope to cut and melt the strands together so they did not splay out when reeving the rope thru.
We would melt the cut and hammer the end to form a tapered lead in.

If we had one of the Cat Wire Rope cutters at hand--the type that use an sharp blade and a blow from a sledge hammer to cut the rope we would still bind the rope as above and use insulating tape to retain the strands.

We had cutters something like these shown in the link below
ematerialhandling.com/materialhandling/t...ct_cable_cutters.htm

Your preferred methods may differ.
Let the fun continue.
Cheers,
Eddie B.

I take it you dropped the blade on a 9 U dozer. We would unhook the arms and had them blocked up, then put the pin on the double block in front behind the blade and pull the block up until it just touched the top one and then clamp the cable off someplace behind the tube and then put the cable out of the unit drum, then coil it up and tie it to side of Cat and then hook up your scraper. That way you don't have to restring all the cable to hook up the dozer again. catskinner

Catskinner: my family leases out ground that we used to farm. Haven’t been actively farming her for 8 years; I am still in the trucking business. The stainless steel doubles are used mainly for hauling juice apples. We operate flatbeds, belt trailers, dry vans and winegrape tubs. Still running a couple of CAT powered trucks here, until California makes us park them.
Eddie: I didn’t have any thin wire to wrap near the cuts, but did a nice wrap with good old fashioned electrical tape. Didn’t make any birds nests thank goodness. A cable cutter would be neat to own. As a child, I remember our land leveler man, Elmer Smith. Seems like he always had his cutter out and his big hammer. Good memories.

A cable cutter is a nice tool to own but in this age a few wraps with grey tape and a slow cut with a thin wheel in a Milwaukee Battery angle grinder does a very neat job . Cut through the middle of the tape and cut slow so the wires don't tear.

Hi edb,
I have one of those cable cutters mounted on the back of my 7J, and i was wondering where i could get some spares for it.



Thanks for posting the web site.

Regards

"Andrew" wrote:

A cable cutter is a nice tool to own but in this age a few wraps with grey tape and a slow cut with a thin wheel in a Milwaukee Battery angle grinder does a very neat job . Cut through the middle of the tape and cut slow so the wires don't tear.

good idea Andrew, i bet that would work great!

Hi Team,
YEP, modern tools like cut off wheels, battery grinders were not about in the 1960's, 1970's when I last did this--LOL.
On reeving scraper cables we also did new machine builds and so we did not have the luxury of being able to weld/melt the old and new cable ends together to reeve the new cable in--hence the nice neat tapered end forged onto the end of a new build cable to grunt the cable in thru the tractor goose neck king pin and the scraper sheaves.
Scan below is of the 8B7403 Cable Cutter I have that was available thru the Dealers way back--parts likely no longer carried.
They were still appearing as the 8B7403 in the Cat One Safe Source up to the last one of those I have.
Just checked and my C/Cutter has 4F2386 cast into the side of the body--no brand evident--looks same as unit pictured otherwise.


Have seen on You Tube the making of knives etc. Damascus style, from old wire ropes.
Cheers,
Eddie B.

The hammer type cutters are still around, just not Cat brand.
www.mcmaster.com/cable-cutters/hammer-dr...r-wire-rope-cutters/