Old Graders

rzucker

Well-known member
The Caterpillar powered grader is interesting, Cat provided power units to Russell grader in the early days then bought Russell to make their own graders. Did the name plate read "Russell" or Caterpillar?
The steam engine is interesting too, looks like the wheels were borrowed from an old John Deere pull type combine. Can't tell from the pic, but did the V-belts run a generator?
 

Truck Shop

Well-known member
Yes that grader said Caterpillar, when I was looking at it I only remembered seeing one like it before and it came from some Idaho road dept. I can't tell you much about the steamer, but it is a contraption.
The 2 ton Cat crawler is really small when your standing next to it. And the ancient Galion looked like a handful to operate.

Truck Shop
 

Truck Shop

Well-known member
Some more iron and I forgot the name plate belongs to the steamer and how it came about.

Truck Shop

024.JPG016.JPG022.JPG
 

rzucker

Well-known member
There is plenty of cool stuff in that yard. The red contraption with all the big gears looks to be a stationary hay baler.
 

Truck Shop

Well-known member
Yeah i looked the baler over to see if it was a Mc Cormick but no name I could see. There were two other similar balers there also.

Truck Shop
 

Steve Frazier

Founder
Staff member
That's quite a place you found!! I was thinking the same thing as you, that old Galion was literally a handful to run!
 

rzucker

Well-known member
One of my Grandfathers was a cattle rancher with a sizeable place in northern Wa. There was 8-12 miles of road on the place that he maintained with an old pull type grader behind an old IH WD tractor. The grader may have been an Adams. I got to drive the tractor for a few years. "put it in second gear and stay 2' from the right hand shoulder", Gramps looked pretty busy spinning wheels to run the grader.
 

Truck Shop

Well-known member
Only grader I ever operated was a Deere 670A when I was a mechanic in construction for a short time. Mainly plowed snow with it from 8 pm to 4 am.

Truck Shop
 
Top