Caterpillar D-6 Repowered With Ford Pickup Engine

Caterpillar D-6 Repowered With Ford Pickup Engine REPOWERED EQUIPMENT Repowered Equipment 22-3-13 Lynden Kruse, Roseburg, Ore., repowered his 52-year-old Caterpillar D-6 with a 6.9-liter V-8 diesel engine along with the automatic transmission and torque converter out of a 1984 Ford pickup. Kruse paid $600 for the engine and other components. The engine had a cracked head so he completely rebuilt it. He used the rubber mounts in the pickup to mount the engine. The Ford transmission mounts in front of the Cat's original 5-speed transmission and drives it via a short drive shaft equipped with a slip yoke. He used a "Trans-Go Stage 3" shift kit to modify the pickup transmission. The kit, used often on drag race cars, allows instant selection of any gear range at any speed. Also, the torque converter on the pickup transmission had limited oil flow which could have caused serious heat problems when the dozer was used hard. To increase oil flow to the trans-mission, and cool it, Kruse added two oil coolers that are supplied by a belt-driven hydraulic pump that's driven off the engine crankshaft. He installed an industrial air cleaner and a larger fan that mounts high on the engine. The steering clutch assist pump was modified internally with ball-type check valves so that assist pressure isn't lost when the automatic transmission is put in reverse. The steering brake pedals were moved to the left side so Kruse's right foot is free to operate the foot throttle. "It took quite a bit of time to make the con-version but it now performs better than ever," says Kruse. "I've done several engine swaps in tractors over the years, but this one is my favorite. I use the Cat every day for logging and for building roads and ponds. The new engine has about twice as much power as the original one so I can do the same jobs two or three times as fast. The D-6 is a very stable tractor on steep ground. It dates back to the early 1940s but is still a fairly modern ma-chine. The original engine had a serious lack of power, but my repowered D-6 will out-perform anything in its weight class. A mod-ern variant of this tractor would have 115 to 120 hp while this one now has about 150 hp. The repowered tractor is lighter in front now, which I notice when pulling logs up steep hills. "The tractor's maximum speed is almost double what it was before. Another advantage is that due to extra gear reduction and the pickup torque converter, maximum avail-able torque to the tracks is about four times as great as with the original engine. "The torque converter provides a variable load range which is nice to have when working in steep terrain and building roads. I wouldn't recommend the use of an automotive-type automatic transmission for heavy continuous pulling of tillage tools, but for intermittent loads such as dozing and logging it's very efficient. Continuous pull on the torque converter will produce more heat than desirable so I recommend using a transmission oil temperature gauge for this kind of application." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Lynden Kruse, 1420 Strawberry Mt. Lane, Roseburg, Ore. 97470 (ph 541 673-4864).

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