Kopuku Express

[D6 Merv]

hi Wayne, yes but man what a way to go deaf;music to my ears. did you know a mate of mine worked ther Stu Edmondson; always used to drive machines in bare feet, and still does !

 

[wayne.d7]

Hi Merv,the name rings a bell, would he have had blonde curly hair in those days,probably like me and got none now.
One of the foreman Static was his name went barefoot also, all year round too tough old bugger he was, feet like a rhino
He might remember me mention a mark three zephyr with a v8 in it with big tyres on it. My mates were **** and Yogi
Got some photos to post but they are stuck, like in glued into an old album wrecks them getting them out will keep trying tho Thanks for your reply Merv. Cheers wayne

 

[RayC]

Kopuku 58

Its been a while since this thread moved so heres a few more photos.....these are originals from Stevenson's and were taken around 1958..enjoy

 

[RayC]

Kopuku contd

A couple more

 

[RayC]

Kopuku

And one last one....can we tempt anybody else to dig into their archives...if you need a hand to post photos either send photos to me or Malcolm and we can post them.

 

[buckshot_86]

Wow, great pictures. It was an impressive fleet! I like those two d21's loading right side by side.

 

[Scrub Puller]

Yair . . . RayC. The push tractor tagged onto the three axle rig in the second picture post #43 appears to have a second "C" frame around the back . . . did this have a pad for tandem pushing or was it an early mounted ripper?

Cheers.

 

[D6 Merv]

Great pics Ray !
Goughs used to have a full size colour picture of that first fleet shot in auckland, but is long gone now.
Hi scrubpuller. Several tractors had the rear c frames for tandem pushing. mainly earlier models. some of the later 9Gs and Hs had proper pushin cushions and rear push blocks. And some had rear rippers.
Stevies also had some "Ben Hur" rippers. the old towed rippers; like the roman chariots, hence the nikname, that they used with one 9 towing and another pushing.
Merv

 

[Scrub Puller]

Yair . . . D6 Merv. Thanks for clarification about "C" frame. Back in the 'sixtys there was a tank sinker working out of Kingaroy with a rear "C" frame mounted up with ripper tines.

It ran off the second drum and could be pinned in the up position. I saw it on a couple of his D7's over a period of maybe fifteen years.

I was surprised the idea never took off as it saved hooking up the "Ben Hur". . . that is you just had to drop the scoop off when working on a tank and you always had the ripper if you hit a bit of hard stuff with the cable blade.

That's the only other time I saw a rear "C" frame--exept for the time one of our blokes pole vaulted through the frame in a break away and came back to the tanker with the vee blade dragging upside down behind . . . but that's a whole 'nuther story.

Cheers.

 

[D6 Merv]

Gidday scrub puller
ya last post gave me abit of a chuckle, about the man pole vaulting over his own blade. Had heard of a similar story here about a guy sliding downhill on greasy clay on a string blade D7 and he tried dropping the blade to stop him 3 times [first 2 blade never bit in the clay] 3rd time it bit alright. String snapped and he did a pole vault too. Was a little bit skepticall about it, but after reading your story, must be possible. Bet both men had eyes the size of saucers after it happened :beatsme
The idea of rear rippers on a c frame would be a good idea; esp if you can pin it up and just use it as a drawbar for the scoop when not ripping. Means you just have to change one string,
One other unmentioned thing about all those machines of stevies in the pic about 1958, is that alot of those girls where still working up until about 30 years later in 1988, around when kopuku closed. They,d all been rebuilt umteen times, but they still kept on going. Testament to a good design; along with fastidious maintence, and good operators.
Is even a pic of stevies new D9L pushloading a DW20 around 1985 !
merv

 

[Scrub Puller]

Yair . . . D6 Merv. It woulda be a bit scary on the seven coming down a greasy slope but in our case I can imagine it may have been pretty uneventfull. I can imagine how it happened. The erosion gullys in some of the scrub country can just a few feet wide but undermined and in places twenty odd feet deep.

Coming back to the tanker in the dark, heavy dust, iffy lights, drop blade to get through gully, string breaks, blade drops straight down into undercut, enough momentum to rock over and just land on the other side, dust clears, where's my f###ing blade . . . woops what's that there behind me. Woulda been a scream to see his face.

O/T back to scrapers. A hypothetical. Given the scraper spread in post #43 is what? Close to fifty years old would any one like to venture an opinion as to how far a spread of current machines of equivalent capacity would be in front at the end of the month?

Cheers.

 

[Gavin84w]

Its been a while since this thread moved so heres a few more photos.....these are originals from Stevenson's and were taken around 1958..enjoy

The Kopuku book is a fantastic account of that site and the company, a couple of real interesting facts to me when i read it was that the largest Caterpillar fleet in the southern hemisphere was at this site and the 2nd was that they were the first DW20/21 outside of the USA. Both things hard to believe and even harder to believe it was in NZ!! Now, i am not having a crack at the Kiwi,s there. The shot with the fleet on the bench really is amazing.

 

[X Quad Operator]

Those push cat's look like D8-15A's I suppose there were close to being brand new, that one photo of the DW20 from the top those were clean mechines. I worked next door to a spread of brand new DW21's right at the begenning of 1960 they were the electric shift models. I really enjoyed DW20's and 21's I even enjoyed the D8-15A's and the 14A's. I liked the first 657's and the D9G's and the H's I did not like the 657's when the 657E's came out or the high drive dozers. The most comfortable scraper Caterpillar ever made was the 637 narrow nose, push pulling you had such great visibility the push block you could practially see the farside of it, and the hood was narrow, the 637D's I could never figure out why Caterpillar made the hood so wide the first D's the front engine was a six cylinder. Give me the choice I'd take the DW20 or the DW21's.

 

[Gavin84w]

Those push cat's look like D8-15A's I suppose there were close to being brand new, that one photo of the DW20 from the top those were clean mechines. I worked next door to a spread of brand new DW21's right at the begenning of 1960 they were the electric shift models. I really enjoyed DW20's and 21's I even enjoyed the D8-15A's and the 14A's. I liked the first 657's and the D9G's and the H's I did not like the 657's when the 657E's came out or the high drive dozers. The most comfortable scraper Caterpillar ever made was the 637 narrow nose, push pulling you had such great visibility the push block you could practially see the farside of it, and the hood was narrow, the 637D's I could never figure out why Caterpillar made the hood so wide the first D's the front engine was a six cylinder. Give me the choice I'd take the DW20 or the DW21's.

Don,t ever think the first 637D had a 6 up front.

 

[X Quad Operator]

Maybe I was talking about the first 637's when they went from the narrow nose to the widw nose with the six cylinder front motor? I owned six of them. Mike Nebergall

 

[RayC]

627 Restoration

Well following on from the 630 Restoration Vic has just completed another Top Restoration that I would like to share with you all...comments from Vic...this is one of his working 627’s. A lot of work went into this and it come up great. The r.o.p.s. cab was built in his workshop and involved stripping the machine back to the chassis and building it from there. It is his own design .Thought it might be interesting to put it on the Kopuku site, although not ex Stevies it comes from the same place that did the 630 resto. It is great to see the 333ft restored down south, and think it would be good to show that other in N.Z. are doing the same thing. This is the second push-pull 627 that they have done recently, both look the same, they go good and are quite nice to drive despite their age. They are both built in 1973 and still do a good honest day’s work.

 

[d4c24a]

that is one great looking scraper , thanks for sharing

 

[tireman]

Very nice resto job.Great looking unit.:thumbsup

 

[Razor]

Here's a couple of photos I took of the sister machine No344...taken at Stevensons ..Lochinvar Station...back in 98...I'm pretty sure this machine has now gone to a good home down South

Hi Ray
I was working at Lochinver I think it was 87, we were contouring for black oats and barley crops and doing road repairs on the station. I spent a bit of time in seat of #344 , Stevie's sent us there for the winter , we alternated between the 630B, the DW20 and the dozers and trucks depending what was needed.

 

[RayC]

Hi Razor...awesome pictures...many thanks for posting...wow its been a while since I have posted photos here....I have moved into Facebook technology and set up a page titled NZ Road Transport and Contracting-Archives
Now over 2100 members and 4000 plus photos posted of NZ Earthmoving and Transport history...if you are Facebook members check it out

https://www.facebook.com/groups/571928599531216/

If not a Facebook member just go through the sign up process...nothing scary and no longer just for kids...a whole new world of Earthmoving History