sadly its the way of the world. the old blokes who know what this stuff is for and more important how to bloody well use it retire and its no longer protected from disposal. or the other that happens these old blokes have the attitude the younger generation dont want to know and the kowledge and equipment isnt passed on and gets lost with them. thats what was good about the older proper 4 to6yr apprentiship programs the knowledge was passed down that doesnt happen much now as traineeships and specialisation have taken over almost gone are the days of the general mechanic who could work on just about any machine and repair it. thankfully we have some old salts that arent like that and give freely of their knowledge.

TractorDanD2 wrote:

At least Cat should provide the drawings and specifications for the tooling. Not all the tooling, but a good portion of it we could probably have made as needed. Yes, it is sad, very sad! I would hope that Cat would help with tool drawings for us guys who make it our hobby to keep the senior Cat machines alive.

As for Perkins parts, why is there a separate dealer for Perkins? I can buy Perkins parts cheaper than Perkins parts in Cat packages. For my backhoe, Cat 428, I can buy a complete overhaul engine kit from the Perkins dealer, cheaper than just buying Perkins pistons from Cat. The pistons from Cat are Perkins with the Perkins number stamped into them. Last year I rebuilt a Perkins out of a Massey Ferguson, I noticed the same part number on the pistons as ones in an engine from a Cat machine.

that maybe wishful thinking.

it was the same with GMH cars in the 70s80s they had 3 sedan models they were trim levels really. the statesman (the flash one), the premier (the mid range) and the kingswood (the base model) no difference mechanically all had the same basic body shell and mechanicals and choice of 6 or 8cyl engines man or auto trans. kingswood parts came in a black box, premier in a red box and statesman was a blue box the part inside was the same even painted the same colour only the box and sticker was different states man parts of course cost more than premier which was more than kingswood. its the same with cat and perkins you pay for the name.