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CD Service/repair manuals

Buddy

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 21, 2008
Messages
71
Location
Newtown , Virginia
Occupation
Equipment mechanic (Retired)
Hello guy's and gal's.
I have picked up a 931B Caterpillar with 4-in-1 bucket.
Been looking at how proud folks are of the paper service manuals. Last one I bought, for near 400 bucks, It was worthless , as it had half the information the old manuals had.
I been thinking about buying a CD, that starts less that a hundred bucks.
Have any of you used the CD's and if so, what brand do you suggest?
I understand some are good and some, not so good.
 

bam1968

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 1, 2014
Messages
529
Location
IA
Occupation
Excavating Contractor
I have a couple of Komatsu CD service manuals. I also have the same in paper form. My CD's are pretty much the exact same as the paper. If I'm sitting at the desk I usually look at the paper version mainly because of the navigation thru the CD can be a PITA at times. I do like being able to print a few pages off the CD and taking them to the shop verses lugging the whole paper manual back and forth. A few weeks ago I was looking at a picture of the hydraulic piping on a dozer on the CD version and was able to zoom in on the picture enough to actually see the piping where as in the paper manual it is basically the outline of the machine with a bunch of little black lines running through it that is basically worthless in my opinion. I only have paper manuals for our CAT machines so I can't help you with CD's for those. Just my $.02
 

Tinkerer

Senior Member
Joined
May 21, 2009
Messages
9,342
Location
The shore of the illinois river USA
It is a hit or miss situation with CDs or the download only version of service manuals. Most are quiet good.
One thing that irritates me is when the creator of them disfigures the pages with their business name or website links.
Some of them will be password protected. That will limit what you can do with it. But, it can be easily removed.
Question the seller if any of those things have been put in or on the file.
 

Nige

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 22, 2011
Messages
28,984
Location
G..G..G..Granville.........!! Fetch your cloth.
A 931B would class as "older generation" equipment IMHO. Manuals for machines of that era generally made assumptions that it was being repaired by qualified experienced journeymen mechanics rather than today's manuals that include everything down to the last comma and full stop because service techs are now generally parts changers based on what the computer tells them regarding Diagnostic Codes, etc, etc, rather than being mechanics. Also older manuals didn't have the fancy graphics and photos tended to be black & white and a bit "grainy".

For a CD Service manual the only place I would consider is Service Manual Pro. A CD manual from them is just under $400, a paper one just over $600. They are genuine Cat manuals. If you want to search the internet, look for Cat Publication SENR7925.

https://servicemanualpro.com/?page=products&category=22&model=931B TRACK LOADER
 

Zewnten

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 2, 2018
Messages
553
Location
Earth
Make sure they are a good scan, if that's how they did it. We have some that are blurry digital straight from the OM and it gives me a headache pretty fast
 
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