nice 983 pics

[9420pullpan]

1038

1039

1040

[Wolf]

That is killer.

[Wolf]

Those over in France?

[9420pullpan]

does anyone know what the specs are on one of these how much power do they have?? what is the bucket capacity 4-5 yds??

[Dozerboy]

I would say it's not more than 4yds. I saw the they have the D343 in them which is rated ~300HP IIRC.

[rino1494]

wow, that is rare

[Tigerotor77W]

I would say it's not more than 4yds. I saw the they have the D343 in them which is rated ~300HP IIRC.

Some pretty close guesses! The Performance Handbook lists the engine horsepower at 275 and the bucket capacity at 5 cubic yards. It's taller and wider than te 973, but the 973 is actually a few inches longer...

[Dozerboy]

It looks like you would have to heap it on there really good to get 5yds. in there it just looks to shallow. So what does it weigh?

[Tigerotor77W]

75-78k pounds, according to the Handbook...

That's nearly ten tons more than a 973! Whew!

[rino1494]

It is basically a D8 with a bucket. You can't keep front idlers on them cuz they are so heavy. They used to be real popular in the cities for demo. I am pretty sure that it has a 5 yd bucket.

[Wolf]

Do they still use those things for demo in the City? It is a big machine for demo --- could do some serious damage. Would they actually use that for ripping down the building, or would it primarily be for clean-up and materials handling on the demo.

[junior]

demos? means demolition?

there are komatsu D155S-1 monster, the biggest crawler loader of the world with 42 metric ton operational weight, 350hp-20 liter engine, 4.5 cubic meter bucket(983 is 3.8 cubic meter). i am searching for it's breakout force, if anybody knows tells us, but it must be an incredible force.

[Wolf]

Yeah, in this case demo is referring to demolition.

(Somtimes it means demonstation, but here demolition.)

Those big track loaders are just killer for demolishing old buildings. They really rip the heck out of the walls, and there is nothing like the feeling of trashing an old building with a big powerful track loader like these.

When you do demo with the track loader like these, you really feel the power and the thrill of the building coming down around you. Nothing like trashing an old place with a big track loader. Pull down the walls, push it up to build a ramp to climb up higher, reach up with the bucket and grab more of the building and pull.

What great fun. Love doing demo the old fashioned way.

[Tn Bulldog]

wow, that is rare yup ive only seen 2 of them in my life time both belonging to demolition compaines 1 south of me in Memphis (http://www.memphiswrecking.com The belonging to D.H Griffin out of N.C.



i thought they looked like a dinosaur w/ those big demo buckets on them ;)


later yall

Bulldog

[Wolf]

yeah they do one heck of a job on an old building. the demo companies love em for that reason i guess

[dieseldave]

I have one I picked up real cheap years ago. It's heavy and slow but incredibly powerful.

[nedly05]

Thats a beast of a machine, I love that grapple, a great looking land clearing machine!!

[surfer-joe]

In 73 Green brought one of these onto the job in Wyoming. We were using it to muck out part of the dam core at the north end of Lake DeSmet where it narrowed down to a point the scrapers couldn't get in.

It didn't start too good so we removed the rocker cover and installed a new set of injectors, new glow plugs, and a new glow plug harness. These engines were dual over-head cam models with the drive gears at the front.

We had it all put back together and had just finished adjusting the valves and were running it to make sure it was getting proper lubrication on the top end and no fuel leaks. One of the boys had a small oil squirt can and was giving the bearings a shot or two each when he got the tip too close to the gears in front. Snatch-thump-squeak, and the engine stopped dead in it's tracks!

The squirt can used to have a little brass nozzle on the end, but that was now missing. The front two cam bearing retainer blocks were busted in half. The brass tip was wedged in between the gears and we could not remove it.

So, nothing for it but to tear off the rocker box, the cam bearings and cams, all the fuel lines, etc. I had to drive down to Casper in a blizzard and get the parts, then drive back up to the lake and put the fellas to work rebuilding the top of the engine, which we finished just in time for the day shift.

Well, the damn thing started just fine and idled OK, but as soon as we brought the throttle up, the engine went to smoking, sputtering and missing something fierce. Wouldn't run worth a damn. We played with it for half a day, but couldn't get it to run any better no matter what we did, so I had to call the Cat house and ask them to send up a mechanic.

He arrived the next morning and went right to work. Checked everything we had done and fiddled with the fuel system, removed the turbo and checked it out, checked the timing and the valve settings -- all for naught. The next morning he was out again with a couple of fresh ideas after talking to his people in Casper. Still nothing.

So we sat around discussing this critter for a while -- in another snow storm -- and rehashed everything that happened. Eventually we came to the conclusion that he ought to remove the cams and run them into his shop for a closer inspection.

He called the next morning and said he was on the way back up with one new cam and one old one. Seems that when that brass tip went into the gears and stopped everything, it actually caused the one cam gear to rotate 180 degrees on the shaft. It was a wonder that the engine even ran at all after that. He brought the damaged cam with him, and if you didn't know it was bad, and didn't have a new one to compare it to, you would have never noticed how different it was. It looked just like the new one, untill you put them side by side and noticed how the lobes were turned different.

He put it all back together and it ran fine after that so far as the engine was concerned. But we had problems with everything else, front idlers, rollers, transmission, hydraulic pump, brakes and steering clutches. I'm telling you, I was so glad when we finished with it, it was like a bad dream nearly every day.

There was -- or is -- a contractor in Pennsylvania called Morrissey. He did a lot of dirt work around Hellertown and his weapons of choice were Euclid B70 belly-dumps and Komatsu or Cat crawler loaders. he had some 983's, and a whole herd of 155 Usetamucks. (Komatsu, spelled by a Montanan) He did several parts of Rte. 22 and I-70 around Allentown and Easton with those machines.

My outfit was using 631D's, D9L's, 777B's and 992C's, and we used to drive thru his jobs to get to ours, dodging Eucs and all the mechanics he had to have to keep them running.

During my stint with the steel mills removing and processing slag, my outfit was just getting rid of the last of the 983 Steel Mill Specials they had. They looked like they had been in Berlin during the war, really tore up. We shoved most of them onto lowboys with a D9 or 992. That was in Detroit. Down to Gary, Indiana, slag outfits and the mills both were still running a few 983's. There were a lot of them lying around in various stages of disassembly on the mill properties.

Other than these few places, I've never seen many 983's being used.

[Mike J]

surfer joe,
Interesting story about the 983. I live about 5 minutes from hellertown. Did you mean I78, the one that runs east/west around the south side of allentown and bethlehem while rt22 goes around the more northern end? I was pretty young when they were building I78 through the hellertown area. What jobs were you working on back then? Its neat to see somebody on here that worked in the area even if it was a while ago.

[TALLRICK]

I have one I picked up real cheap years ago. It's heavy and slow but incredibly powerful.

I have been looking at an old 955 upstate that runs but has a worn undercarriage. How cheap can one of these old beasts be? Did you have to do a lot to get yours going, or was it fuctional from the start?

[surfer-joe]

TALLRICK, here are some auction results for you. I didn't edit them.

==================================================
1979 CATERPILLAR 955L CRAWLER LOADER 85J09000 Apr - 2007 USA-MD 16,000 USD

bkt, canopy

1978 CATERPILLAR 955L CRAWLER LOADER 13X01000 Mar - 2007 USA-IL 20,000 USD

bkt, canopy

1978 CATERPILLAR 955L CRAWLER LOADER 85J11000 Mar - 2007 USA-CA 18,000 USD

4-in-1 grapple bkt w/tilt, canopy, MS ripper

1978 CATERPILLAR 955L CRAWLER LOADER 85J11000 Jun - 2007 USA-IL 10,000 USD

4-in-1 bkt, canopy

1976 CATERPILLAR 955L CRAWLER LOADER 85J09000 Jun - 2007 USA-NV 7,500 USD

bkt, canopy, MS ripper

1976 CATERPILLAR 955L CRAWLER LOADER 85J10000 Apr - 2007 USA-MO 15,000 USD

bkt, canopy

1974 CATERPILLAR 955L CRAWLER LOADER 64J06000 May - 2007 USA-TX 4,500 USD

bkt, canopy

1974 CATERPILLAR 955L CRAWLER LOADER 64J076303A3000 Jun - 2007 USA-MN 8,500 USD

bkt, cab

1974 CATERPILLAR 955L CRAWLER LOADER 71J05000 Jul - 2007 USA-TX 9,000 USD

bkt, canopy

1974 CATERPILLAR 955L CRAWLER LOADER 85J08000 Jun - 2007 USA-IL 8,500 USD

bkt, canopy

1974 CATERPILLAR 955L CRAWLER LOADER 85J08000 Apr - 2007 USA-CO 16,500 USD

bkt, canopy, ripper

1974 CATERPILLAR 955L CRAWLER LOADER 85J08000 Mar - 2007 USA-IL 16,500 USD

bkt, canopy

1974 CATERPILLAR 955L CRAWLER LOADER 85J08000 Jun - 2007 USA-MO 10,000 USD

bkt, cab, MS ripper

1973 CATERPILLAR 955L CRAWLER LOADER 71J04000 Mar - 2007 USA-TX 18,000 USD

bkt, canopy

1973 CATERPILLAR 955L CRAWLER LOADER 85J06000 Mar - 2007 USA-MO 15,000 USD

bkt, canopy

1972 CATERPILLAR 955L CRAWLER LOADER 85J05000 Jun - 2007 USA-MD 14,500 USD

bkt, canopy

1972 CATERPILLAR 955L CRAWLER LOADER 85J06000 Jun - 2007 USA-NC 12,000 USD

bkt, canopy

1970 CATERPILLAR 955L CRAWLER LOADER 78P08000 Jun - 2007 USA-IL 14,000 USD

bkt, canopy

CATERPILLAR 955L CRAWLER LOADER 85J07000 Jun - 2007 USA-IL 15,500 USD

bkt, canopy

CATERPILLAR 955L CRAWLER LOADER 85J11000 Mar - 2007 USA-TN 24,000 USD

bkt, canopy

CATERPILLAR 955L CRAWLER LOADER OBL Jun - 2007 USA-NC 10,000 USD

4-in-1 bkt, canopy

1971 CATERPILLAR 955K CRAWLER LOADER 71J02000 Feb - 2007 USA-FL 22,500 USD

bkt, canopy

1971 CATERPILLAR 955K CRAWLER LOADER 85J03000 Jun - 2007 USA-IL 12,000 USD

bkt, canopy

1971 CATERPILLAR 955K CRAWLER LOADER 85J04000 May - 2007 USA-PA 10,000 USD

bkt, canopy

1970 CATERPILLAR 955K CRAWLER LOADER 71J01000 Feb - 2007 USA-TX 8,000 USD

bkt

1969 CATERPILLAR 955K CRAWLER LOADER 85J01000 Mar - 2007 USA-CA 6,000 USD

4-in-1 grapple bkt, backhoe w/Q/C bkt, aux hyd

1968 CATERPILLAR 955K CRAWLER LOADER 61H01000 Mar - 2007 USA-NV 8,000 USD

forks, canopy

1968 CATERPILLAR 955K CRAWLER LOADER 71J00000 Feb - 2007 USA-FL 22,500 USD

bkt, canopy

1967 CATERPILLAR 955K CRAWLER LOADER 61H00000 Jun - 2007 USA-IL 9,500 USD

bkt, canopy

1965 CATERPILLAR 955H CRAWLER LOADER 60A10000 May - 2007 USA-CA 1,750 USD

***PARTS ONLY***, 4-in-1 bkt, canopy, MS ripper

[Gavin Phillips]

Never saw a 983 unfortauntely, and never likely to either. There was at least one here in England, at a quarry in Lyme Regis. The machine was sold to a private owner a year or so back and I haven't heard anything about where it is now. Pretty sure I saw a Cat 977 about 10years ago, demolishing an old farm lot, buildings, barns and all - levelling the ground around it. It had the classic slopy-roof cab they had in the late 1970's and early 80's.

Fiat-Allis built some pretty hefty track loaders as well. The FL20 and the ultra-rare FL30 which I have only ever heard of once before on another forum. The FL20 itself weighs 26.17tons, and a bucket capacity of 3 1/2 cu-yd, 235hp.

More info on the daddy of track loaders, the Komatsu D155S:

Flywheel HP: 350hp @ 2000rpm
Bucket Capacity: 4.5cu-m / 5.9 cu-yd
Max Loading Capacity: 9tons
Operating Weight: 41.8 metric tons

[digger242j]

I have been looking at an old 955 upstate that runs but has a worn undercarriage. How cheap can one of these old beasts be?

The one I used to sometimes run got traded in as a down payment on a Case 1840 skidsteer, and that was 15 years ago...

[Beachbum0286]

surfer-joe, mike j. Those old belly dumps of Morrissey's are sitting at one of their quarries in warrington, pa. I think there is 4 of them and it looks like they have not moved for years.

[whithunter]

That is one heck of a machine!!

[dieseldave]

More pics:D

[bigblueox]

awesome machine! what is on the front of the bucket? what is it used for?

[dieseldave]

It's a demolition bucket. I use it to pick up trees :D

[kochevnik]

TALLRICK, here are some auction results for you. I didn't edit them.



Hey surfer-joe : where were those auction results from - they seem pretty decent and I am looking for a 955 too.

Any help appreciated, thanks.

Matt

[Countryboy]

Welcome to HEF kochevnik! :drinkup

[surfer-joe]

Hey kochevnik, welcome to the forum and so on.

The auction results were from Ritchie Bros. They have a list of historic auction results that has been very handy to me over the years. It gives a person a pretty good idea of what a machine is actually worth, compared to what some salesman says.

Most, well, many, no, some -- some folks are pretty savvy about the equipment they see in an auction and can tell fairly closely about what something will sell for. If it's worth the bucks, bidders will drive the price up to a fair level. If it's not up to snuff, bids are few and low. I'm surprised sometimes, as I'm sure others are one way or the other, but having the list of results shows the trends and allows one to compute an average value.

Anyone can register on the Ritchie site and look for iron or see the results. It's pretty interesting.

[kochevnik]

Thanks Joe and I appreciate the inside tip there about buying.

Thanks too Countryboy for the welcome - it's a great site.

[whithunter]

Whats the fuel consumption like on one of those beasts?

[alan627b]

All these loaders are getting up there in years, and an undercarriage can easily cost more to replace/repair than the rest of the tractor is worth!
Shop carefully...
alan627b

[Z24O]

are parts readily available for the 983?

[Countryboy]

Welcome to HEF Z24O! :drinkup

[Z24O]

...oh and what horsepower are they rated at?

[Z24O]

Welcome to HEF Z24O! :drinkup
thanks countryboy
i am a real newby to the heavy side of town,only used skidsteers but have purchased a large rural property and need to clear roads and put a few dams in so will be picking the brains of you guys about the best gear for the job:D

[Dozerboy]

are parts readily available for the 983?

Should be its a D8 with a bucket and 275HP was posted above.

[surfer-joe]

Surprisingly enough, a 983 is anything but a D8. More of it's workings are from D7's, the engine is not now, nor was it used in any other dozer, including D7's. About the only things it had that was compatable with a D8 was the nuts and bolts and paint.

[dieseldave]

surfer joe, I have to disagree with you on this one. MY 983 has a D8 back end, track frames (with one extra roller), and UC. It's basic architecture is D8-based, but uses the lighter D343 for power. It shares nothing with the D7.

[surfer-joe]

It is perhaps, a newer model than those I have been around Dave.

[Dozerboy]

:beatsme

[indian347]

I ran a 826 trash compactor which had a 343 twin over head cam in it. I was told it was the same engine in the 980 loader.We also had a 77 which was a pain in the ..... to push trash with. But it was the machine of choice for clearing. I miss that old iron. Jim








i

[qball]

man, i'd love to bang out a string of trucks with an '83.