D 8 k

[D8 Ump]

I run a 8k and think its a great tractor.I think they are getting to the age when owner drivers will get the best out of them.Biggest problem i have with mine is fuel consumption.Has anyone ever turned the fuel pump down on a k to match more like a 270 h to use a bit less fuel?.I could put up with a bit less power to save cost.

 

[KWD]

I will admit to spending plenty of my days working on D8 tractors from the early 8R and 2U models, 14A's and the D8H and K's, there is still a few 14 A tractors working on sites in the U.K. the D8K might use a lot more fuel than the H series tractor but the extra poke and gallop in the beast makes this viable, in the right hands the K and H tractors can show great reliability fixing small faults correctly and knowlegable service work will return massive hours of hard work and Muck shifted from them, there is special service tools required to work on the flat drive tractors and they can be hard work to strip out compaired to the Hi-Track tractors, but to compare the D8K to the Komatsu 155 as a trouble free Chariot would be very unfair, as the 155 engine had its own dramas with Camshafts, Valve Springs and head cracks, plus the final drives would shed flakes of metal off the Bull gear the size of rolled Oats and the Dead Shaft would spit off the end nut, I used to do a lot of work on the 155's but now they are very hard to find in the U.K. but the D8's are still about doing what they were built for "Moveing Muck"

dont be put off the D8K as they can earn their keep still, tctractors

TC, I did not say that the 155 was trouble free, no machine is and if they were we would all be out of work, I said the poster would be better of with a H or 155 than a K, fuel being one of the main reasons these days and as you say yourself the K needs alot of maintainance by experienced hands,
You list faults with the 155 I could do the same and more for the K and a page full of modifications and reworks for it
Still a few 155,s around but they were highly sort after by the exporters for obvious reasons
The op also might be better of sticking with the same make of tractor they are using at the moment

 

[Oxbow]

I have run 7G's and 8H's on steep ground and have lost suction in both, but I don't recall having a runaway as the brakes still worked, no?

The nimbleness, balance, and quickness of an 8R relative to an H or K put them in a different class in my opinion.

 

[Check Break]

I have run 7G's and 8H's on steep ground and have lost suction in both, but I don't recall having a runaway as the brakes still worked, no?

The nimbleness, balance, and quickness of an 8R relative to an H or K put them in a different class in my opinion.

If you loose suction you loose your brakes. Perhaps if there was a reduced flow out of the transmission pump the transmission would starve and start acting up but I've never encountered that situation.

 

[tctractors]

KWD, in my little Zone the older style 155's have all long since vanished, the only remains being their blades wrapped around the fronts of D8H and K series tractors, the 155 motor was only just better on the Vimto drinking than a K by a small margin, the Komatsu motor being around 19.5 litres to the CAT at 21.5 litres, the biggest trouble I always found with the 155's involved parts and the insane price of them, the fact that the blades, winches even cabs (I dont know why??) can be found poked onto D8H/K's but the big bit is possibly in China might be a clue here, the 155's never held any big value after the 1st owner had sucked out the best of it, the D8H and K series mount are well known for making grown Men drop the odd tear, but they fix up well and the parts are about, both the 155 and the D8 love spanners running over them but U.K. wise to run a 155 you need 2 of them, 1 ether for back up or to rob parts off, I love em all and have the kit to work on them I just dont get any jobs now on 155's. tctractors

 

[Oxbow]

If you loose suction you loose your brakes. Perhaps if there was a reduced flow out of the transmission pump the transmission would starve and start acting up but I've never encountered that situation.

Then how, with the engine off, can you set the brakes with the little lever below the right arm rest?

 

[Scrub Puller]

Yair . . . Dunno, it's been along time, but I don't recall the loss of suction thing ever being a major issue.

I've had it happen mainly on a 7G but as I recall (as Oxbow mentions) I think the brakes still worked, I had a cable blade that went up and down and like-wise hydraulic rippers . . . I would not have thought a "runaway" would happen.

Cheers.

 

[Check Break]

Then how, with the engine off, can you set the brakes with the little lever below the right arm rest?

The brake linkage is mechanical. You can push on the brake pedals and set the brake lever but that doesn't mean the brake bands are holding the drums tight. In order to get gripping power out of the brake bands you need oil pressure to the pistons in the brake covers. This hydraulic assist to the actuators is what is enabling the mechanical linkage to assert pressure on the bands and grip the drums.

 

[nicky 68a]

I currently am on my 9th D8H in 20 plus years.in my experience they are far more fuel efficient than 8K,s or 155's of the same era yet shift a lot of muck.perhaps not as much as a K but it doesn't worry me.I had a K once and it was a beast of thing and would drag a 463 about like a cat with a mouse.It was a sweet sounding tractor and proved a reliable and profitable.I sold it to a friend who had good service out of it until it trashed a final a couple of years later and due to the worn u/c on it he broke it for spares.the engine went into one of his current tractors and has probably been rebuilt at some time.It's worth saying it was an American built 77v lump and not a UK built 66v.
I never get rich out of these old D8's but they are profitable with the right servicing and fitter at the helm not to mention having a reasonable rate for the muck.
I currently run 2 Glasgow UK built 68A 5800 series that work a few days every month in a quarry.One is currently back at the yard having an engine replacement as it's tired and has few oil leaks and won't be needed until the end of the year.
It would be fair to say that any old D8 with a clean,unblocked cooling system and sealed transmission suction lines will go for ever with the right driver in the seat as long as he has a handful of spanners in the cab.

 

[Check Break]

Jerry. I was rereading this thread and realized my response to your posting could be interpreted as implying you were not an experienced operator. That was not my intent. I apologize if you took it that way. I'm a collector of D8 horror stories as they help keep me from repeating someone else's bad experience.

There is one other cause of 8K-s freewheeling backwards that I am familiar with but its hard to pin down given the catastrophic conditions surrounding the ride.

 

[JDOFMEMI]

Check Break

No worries. I did not take it bad at all.

In regard to my comment mentioning a differential, I was not talking about diff steer or anything, just that I have always called the arrangement of gears that turn the power 90 degrees to send it to the finals a differential. I realize it is solid, and gives no differentiating action, but it gets caught up in the name by me anyway.

I know that mnost of the trouble with the K's I was around can be traced ultimately to less than adequate care, but I would venture to say less than one in ten have been properly cared for. With age, that number goes down. At the age they currently are, I would say very few are left that have always been kept up to proper condition.

The stories I relate are to help others stay out of the same situations I have found myself in over the years.