I just spoke with an employee of my local CAT Dealer, Carter Machinery in Salem VA. I was told that Carter is purging itself of all "obsolete" tooling and tools. Purging as in destroying! I asked him to see if they would consider a donation to ACMOC or somewhere they could be used. I was told they already got rid of old service manuals too. Sad, very sad.

Elton

Round up a posse and search/call all area scrap yards!!!!!!!!!!! Communist Bastards!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yea they throw everything away that is labor intensive and uses skill to use and repair the great machines that built this country and buy new laptops to figure out what the hell went wrong! Thats why all there new machines have just "CAT on them now instead of the great founding name "Caterpillar! CAT=Call Another Technician

when i was searching for a part for my D2 the parts guy told me Cat has a final date of availability on all [parts---he found the idler shaft i was looking for in Brazil and told me i was very very lucky as i only had 3 days left on the availability--after that date the part gets shipped back to Cat in the US and gets destroyed---hard to believe!!

dpendzic wrote:

when i was searching for a part for my D2 the parts guy told me Cat has a final date of availability on all [parts---he found the idler shaft i was looking for in Brazil and told me i was very very lucky as i only had 3 days left on the availability--after that date the part gets shipped back to Cat in the US and gets destroyed---hard to believe!!

Yea just look at the shipping costs to send it back, and Cat complains it cant store all these old parts due to overhead costs. And if they do have the part it's triple the cost forcing you to buy cheap aftermarket.

Local dealer gets $132/hr shop rate and they dont have a clue about older equipment. Had a seal leaking on an almost new roller, they said well a new roller is $227, for $50 i bought a seal and fixed it myself. Everything is way out of orbit these days!

Rome wrote:

Round up a posse and search/call all area scrap yards!!!!!!!!!!! Communist Bastards!!!!!!!!!!!!!

not even the Commie (Archie Bunker RIP) Bastards would do something so vile....so...so....HEINOUS !!

why would anybody destroy parts, tooling, manuals, info....??

i looked at my calendar, it's not April 1st ?

if it's really that big of a problem....donate....

The days of a pure cat machine are long gone. My 428 backhoe was nicknamed a Catekinks by one of the parts guys. The only thing Cat is the 5P8500 key and the paint. Perkins engine, Spicer Transmission, Ford rear axle, ZF front axle, Case-New Holland hydraulics. The D5C has a Mitsubishi engine, the transmission has made in Japan molded into the case. Thankfully my D2's remind me of a Caterpillar