Hi,

I am looking at purchasing a 1955 Cat 212 grader (serial number 95C 43) here in Australia.

The machine appears to be in quite good condition considering it's age.  It has about 13,500 hours on the clock.

The main problems the machine has are:

• The brake lines (where they are exposed and go over the bogie on each side) are damaged and need to be replaced.  The brake system hasn't been operational in a *long* time, so the master cylinder and wheel cylinders may also need replacing.
• The cutting edges on the moldboard need to be replaced.  One is very badly worn and rounded off, the other is not as bad

I assume that Caterpillar no longer sell these parts so my question is how would I go about fixing this machine?  Would I have to adapt more modern parts?  Have things custom made?

I've added a couple of photos for reference.  You can see the wear on the cutting edge pretty clearly in them.

Thank you in advance for any information

Langdon



 

Hi Langdon,

Welcome to the forum, you will get a lot of help on here as well.

The first thing I would do is get yourself a parts book for the grader it helps so much in tracking down part numbers.

As for parts you will be surprised what Cat still supply for these older machines.

You can always have the master and slave cylinders rebuilt with new stainless sleeves and new lines made.

Regards

The lines and cutting edges are both supplied by Cat yet. The master cylinder and maybe the wheel cylinder can be sourced from a local parts house with the Wagner casting number on them.

My 12 8T15911 parts were fairly easy to source via Florin and our local auto parts store, just as others have mentioned. The 212 should not be challenging to source. Best wishes.JM

I would not let the brake issues stop you from making the purchase, as stated above, the parts can be sourced and/or rebuilt fairly easily. I have been jonesing for a 212 for quite awhile, although I have about 1 hour per year's worth of actual use for one (and that could be (is) done by another machine that I already have!). I would be pretty excited about that one assuming it runs decently and otherwise mostly operates and were nearby. Somehow though, my wife would be far less excited, just taking a wild guess on that though.

Thank you all for the welcome to the forum - I really appreciate having access to and replies from so many knowledgeable and experienced people.

I have looked up the parts manual for the 212 here in the library - that's a fantastic resource by the way. I'm looking forward to digging into the various 212 books.

That is great news that Cat will still supply major parts like the lines and cutting edges. That definitely makes this purchase worthwhile. I will call Caterpillar and see what they have to say about supply here in Australia. Their online parts system was zero help, so I figure that I need to talk to a real person.

FroghairFarm - you have a great list of machines there, a D4 (or bigger) is definitely on my shopping list longer term, but I have about 3kms of dirt road to my farm that need serious maintenance first, so the old 212 is totally justifiable for me!

Thank you again to everyone who replied - I really appreciate your feedback and will be going ahead with the purchase now I'm confident I can get the parts I need.