India-China road(Birmania campaign).

[Fernando Mendes]

[Cat Man]

How humiliating for those CCKW drivers. Being pulled thru a mud hole.

The Crawler tractor is an International Harvester Model TD14 or TD18. The twin exhaust pipes tell us the make. The Navy and Marine Corp had mostly Internationals. Army had more Caterpillar tractors. The IHC TD14 is about equal in size to the Cat D7. A TD18 was about the same size class as the Cat D8.

The International TD diesel series used an interesting starting system. The engine started on gasoline, and then switched over to full diesel when warmed up. The engine has a magneto, 6 spark plugs and gas carb on one side. The other side has a pump and line fuel injection system. The cylinder head had three valves in each cylinder. One Gas intake, One Diesel Intake and a Common exhaust valve. Had to be careful to cool them down after heavy work or they were prone to crack cylinder heads.

Just crawler trivia. All that stuff was flown into China over the hump in pieces in C46 and C47 aircraft. That was the start of air transportability. There was not "how to" manual. They wrote as they went.

A GMC CCKW disassembled took three plane loads for one truck.
A Cat D8 tractor dismanteled took 10 plane loads per tractor.
And if a plane went down, you morned for the lost crew and started all over with lots of spare parts.

Interesting times. Great photo.

Cat Man

[Fernando Mendes]

Hi Cat Man.I noticed you like very much this object.I have many others WWII tractors pics.I didn't know about this International tractor starting system(gasoline to diesel).I observed in photos that the WWII engineering tractor has a cable to lift the plow.Today the tractors in all of the world are by hidraulic system.Now I ask to you "since which year begins the new system(hidraulic)?

[abn CCKW]

Not all were cable operated as this ones hydraulic



"Battle of Normandy: summer 1944: A bulldozer in a city in ruin"

[dr deuce]

I have a TD9 crawler-crane (crane mounted in front of you on frame between tracks) and it has the 4 cylinder version of the start on gas run on diesel engine. It runs quite well and starts like summer time with a small starter like a CCKW. The only disadvantage (to me) is that it bangs like an SOB after you pull the diesel lever out and it starts to blow black smoke from injecting diesel and then you you flip the lever to make it a high compression engine and it burns off the last of gasoline as a diesel engine.

This rig was used at the outside storage depots in England as the boom could rotate about 270 degrees and telescope. It had a winch located above each track: one for the boom elevation and one for the hook

[Fernando Mendes]

Hi abn.Thanks to your answer about the tractors hidraulic system already operating in WWII with pic.I like very much your CCKW clips too.I have others WWII pictures to put in this forum.Regards.

[Karoshi]

On the subject of India-China road, there is an interesting picture on e-bay at the moment, Burma Road: so many trucks:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Ap-Wire-Photo-194 ... dZViewItem

[dr deuce]

Here is a pix of the stockyard TD9 crawler-crane from WW2 like mine with the gas-diesel engine

http://www.kingofobsolete.ca/T-9_INTERN ... EBPAGE.htm

[abn CCKW]

the guys got a great web site spent a hour or more and have only scratched the surface . Living and serviving in northern Canada

[Robbo]

Here's the Trackson CT9 Ordnance crane doing its thing:

http://historylink101.com/ww2_color/Wor ... T1607.html

There's a few more photo's of them in there.