CMI Motor Graders

[oregon96pd]

CMI had a series of two tanks for the hydraulics, should the main tank run low, you used that hand pump to pump from the secondary tank through a filter and into the primary tank. They wanted to make sure there were no contaminants in the hyd. Oil.

interesting....thanks for the reply

 

[JDOFMEMI]

Talking with some people who owned these in their prime, they never seen the 8 wheeler, and suspect it was a prototype that never seen production.

Not sure how true that was, but the CMI was definately the king of the large graders for a time.

 

[mitch504]

Tigercat saw machines do a similar thing w/ the same kind of pump, except it has a suction hose w/ a strainer on it that goes into a tank or 5-gallon bucket. You then pump the hyd oil through a filter into the machine's tank.

 

[Ductmaster]

thats a beast of a grader thanks for the pic. Next summer i will track down the 2 that I saw in central ND about 4 years ago. I think they winter in a small town in central North Dakota. Same company that runs the fleet of 290m Clarks I have posted some picks and vids on youtube.

 

[bigshow]

We used to own a ton of cmi stuff, placers, pavers, tube float, texture cure machines, trimmers and even a 6wheeled grader. They still have some of it, the stuff is neat, like I said thou, this stuff was so far ahead of its time it scared most people.

 

[Graderfan1981]

It's sad, that are not much photos from the Autoblade, I have found here another one:
http://www.album-mmt.it/foto/v/la-s...anni-80/graders_003/0_CMI_a80_grader.JPG.html

When someone has photos, I'm happy when you post them Looks very interesting this grader!

 

[rayman]

Hi there graderfan, there is/was an "autoblade here in Australia. It was brought in by "Henry & Walker" a civil engineering firm located in Darwin, Northern Territory. They thought they had won a very large tender to rebuild and extend a defence force airbase called "Tindall" Strips about 10 miles long to take B52 bombers. They were not successful. The machine then went out to the middle of "no-where" to a project re-aligning the "Tanami Desert " road to a large goldmine. I can not say whether it is still out there or not.
When I crawled over it in the early 1990's in the yard at Darwin, the tin covers had been cut right back to get the hot air out. From memory the engines were late D9's. The machine , once set up was controlled by "ra-dist" all computer controlled, the operator just went along for the ride. My son drove it for a short time on the "Rabbit Flat" section of the Tanami desert road. They were the ultimate in final trim blades.
regards rayman.

 

[Graderfan1981]

I have seen that in Saskatoon is a CMI AG-55 Grader on Rb auction.
https://www.rbauction.com/Construct...j00Mjk0NzQ3MTkzKzQyOTQxMjUwMTkrNDI5NDc0ODA2OQ

 

[RZucker]

In the late 80's I got to spend a 150 hrs or so on a TG? AG? 55 CMI auto grader. The boss bought it thinking it was a cheaper version of the Cat 16... No. The thing was a helpless pig, Being a finish machine it had no blade travel, no clearance under the circle, the hydraulics were slow, and when you were trying to hog material it broke axle shafts. I had to plow snow with it once... you couldn't get the blade high enough to keep from getting stuck doing turn arounds. Great finish machine though.