The Sixty and the D4 traded places in the shop this week. At 25* f and 40 weight oil, the Sixty was a little reluctant to wake up. Fresh gasoline and clean, dry, warm spark plugs it took off on the 4th pull.
The D4 will be in cold storage until spring.

Very nice looking machines. Thanks for posting the pic!

Couple Cool Canopy's

Very nice looking tractors!

George Rankin supplied the bows and rolled the tin for the sixty canopy for me in 1998. He also supplied dimesioned drawings for all the straight angle irons and drilling diagrams. He also supplied the cast brackets to support the canvas side canopies. I finished the construction/ installation on the Sixty in 2000.

The D4 canopy was fabricated in the Struthers Wells fabrication shop in Titusville, PA in the 1960's. The machine it was originally installed on was used on a Corp of Engineers project (Kinzua Dam) in Warren County, PA. The canopy had to be inspected by someone and certified to meet Federal standards at that time. The vertical supports and bows are 2" solid hot rolled steel. It mounts on the standard 7U fenders but had to have additional bracing from the bottom of the fender to the main case to prevent "fold over" of the fenders. The sweeps are 2" tube.The canopy survived a fifty mph roll off of a truck with only one dent on the right rear unsupported tin. I transferred it from the wrecked tractor to the current machine 2 years ago.

My recollection of the Kinzua project was that there was very little or no participation by the American Indians. The project took control of thousands of acres of Indian land thru forced eminent domain actions.
Last I knew the Senecas are still pissed.
I worked on one job for the State at Chapman Dam (southeast of Kinzua) where one of the operators always beat the hell out of his tractor with a shovel before he started every morning - he said he didn't want to sneak up on Roy Lee Rattlesnake.

thanks for sharing the very nice picture of your Caterpillars