Cat 951-C in my sights

Thanks for the updates Nitelite! In spite of your injuries, you have been busy with all those projects going on! Nice job on the shop too......looks well built. The 48 Ford is done up nice as well...…….looks great! Did you do the restoration yourself?

Metalman, I bought the 48 Ford pretty well the way it is but I have also done quite a bit of work to it. The transmission was supposed to have only 500 miles on it but whoever rebuilt it did a poor job and now I found it necessary to open it up and do a proper rebuild, replacing all that was neglected on the first rebuild. Several more things need to be done or redone to make the truck right. Something else to tinker with.

Everything that I own is old. I have found that if you can keep old stuff inside and out of the weather, it helps to prolong its useful life. If I park the old machines inside for a month, then when I go back to use them, they are just as I left them. Buildings are cheaper than replacing machinery. If they are kept inside they can be serviced in inclement weather. I imagine that living where you live, you know all about inclement weather.

More project pictures. The new house, the new spring holding tank.

Have a small slow discharge spring on our place, drops into a small creek and flows year round, have often thought of capturing that water for other uses but for now supplies a drinking pool for cattle/wildlife.

Good to hear from you Miller, when I moved here and built the house after returning from the Army in 1970 there was no public water available. A well was out of my financial reach but the spring was available for free water. I paid $150 to have the first 1000 gallon concrete tank fabricated and it supplied all of our water needs for more than forty years. That new replacement tank was $1400 but I expect that it will handle the family water needs of both houses for many years to come. The little spring puts out about a gallon every three minutes 24/7. The overflow, combined with several other springs, feeds a fishing lake. I have another spring that puts out an eight inch stream. It is like a fire hydrant and makes for a really cold lake capable of good habitat for Bass and other game fish. I built the dam and impounded the lake in 1973.

Having trouble with the 955k. When the loaded bucket is raised and curled it will slowly uncurl while traveling to the dump site unless I continually and constantly feather the curl lever. I am thinking that it is in the curl/uncurl valve. Any ideas would help. We are still using the machine but it is a pain to travel and feather the control lever.

Sure it's not the cylinder seals?

Would seriously suspect curl cylinder seals on this.

One way to test cylinders for internal leaks is to block off the port at one end then put pressure in the opposite end as in the picture below:

Pressure going in the "rod end" of cylinder should try to force the piston and rod to move to the right in the above picture. If however the piston seals "ARE" leaking past the rod will extend out. How fast will depend on how bad the leak is!

In a prefect cylinder with no air in the cylinder the rod would not move at all however if there is a slight amount of air in the end opposite the rod the rod will move a small amount to the right.

With two cylinders working together like on the tilt circuit it would be best to check them both at the same time.

If the pressure is applied at the opposite end of the cylinder a leaking piston seal will instead cause the ram to retract when pressure is applied to extend the rod.

I had a good selection of block off plates and disks but don't have part numbers for them here. The best ones were the disks that were the same size as the end of the lines where you could just remove one of the split flanges, slip hose out and slip the disc with oring in it back in place and reinstall the flange half. Not sure if there is a list of these by sizes but that would be handy if someone has one, NIGE? any chance you have one?

I did find this list but not 100% sure they are the right sizes for the 951-C cylinders.


Unfortunately they are not listed by OD might have to do some work to see if I can find those spec's.

Redid the form so it was all in one place:

What's the difference between a 951 and a 955? I see they are both front engine track loaders, but are there a lot of differences? Capacity? Horsepower? Ground pressure/track gauge?

I'm curious as I'm considering looking for a trackloader to do similar work to what you've been doing @Nitelite.

What are your thoughts between the 2 track loaders?

951 is non turbo, a couple tons lighter with a smaller bucket but very similar.

Cylinder drift is cylinder seals 90% of the time but if there is a leak in any of the lines going to those cylinders would also make the cylinders creep. Only one cylinder needs to leak for both to creep since they are connected together. If the rod seals are leaking, it's probably 98% cylinder seals are the problem if nothing else is leaking. The rods seals alone could cause the cylinders to creep because they aren't holding the pressure to keep the bucket up.

Thanks Welder Dave, everything points to rebuilding the tilt cylinders. Good rainy day work, if only the machine was in the dry.

Really cold weather coming this week so I brought the dozer home and put it in the barn. The dozer fired right up after sitting in the cold for two months. Batteries needed charging on the track loader. I removed all of the cables and cleaned them after the battery charge. Attempting to reconnect the cables with a broken arm cost me a 3/8 Snap On ratchet along with a 1/2 socket and a 1/2 inch end wrench. Went belly pan fishing with a strong magnet but no such luck. Now I feel the need to invest in one of those cameras on a flexible rod.

This is one **** eatin grin.

Joe H

After four months the right arm is still broken. It may not heal. Doc says give it two more months. Sure does make wrenching hard, and impossible to pull on one wrench while pushing on another.

May be time for some electro stimulation bone growth therapy, buddy of mine had to do that AND Massive doses of Vitamin D.

Yep, I don't like the idea of surgery at all. A dangling forearm might come in handy somewhere down the line. I kind of thought that the added flexibility of the arm would make it easier to reach down into the belly pan to retrieve those lost wrenches but that didn't work out either. I can still operate ok. I am just waiting on some dry weather so I can do the final back filling and grading around the house.