Favorite generation of Cat scraper?

We had a fair sized fleet of 623B scrapers at our plants back in the early 90's. Those were pretty good machines, and although they could require costly repairs, they were very durable and survived the general lack of maint. pretty well. In Texas, we got "machinery" license plates for them and roaded them from pit to pit. At least, the crews had to keep the brakes working on them when going out on a highway. We tried a couple of 623E machines, but they were not nearly the machine the old 623B's were.

skyking1 said: Too bad. So sad. Shouldn't have paved that road in the first place!! Click to expand... It was the Main Street of an English country town……. See the thread I linked in an earlier post.

MOTMF said: Any models prior to the introduction of the engine, when REAL men carried it in buckets? Out with the old, in with the new gramps. Click to expand... Buckets!!!! Luxury, why when I was young we had to carry it in our hands. 1 cu cubit per hand, and we could not spill any.

I ran TS14’s and the first time i had to run a 631B i was always stuck. The guy i worked for had a few 631B’s and they were always broke down compared to the TS14’s. One guy used to refer to the 631’s as dirt gobbling, road wrecking sons of b****es

I've heard others that also preferred Terex over Cat and they were better in softer ground.

Interesting thread. I’ve owned some TS14B’s years ago.Very good in bad muck. I’ve also driven plenty of TS24B B10 lot and the Yanky B9 lot scrapers.Love a Detroit. Terex scrapers were cheap and economical in the right hands,and could shift soft muck in the UK better than any Cat. However,I love a 631C all day long. Funnily enough,currently working on a 637G that’s got a reman 3408 stuffed under the bonnet.The others are all C18’s?

nicky 68a said: However,I love a 631C all day long. Click to expand... Not questioning you, just wondering whatever managed to catch your eyes on a single engine turd like the 631C? Maybe you know that your dozers would have plenty to do shoving them around?

631C's were one of my favorites also, Nicky. I spent many years running them and pushing them. Those things would go like hell in 7th and 8th gear on a good long haul road. I pushed them in cuts with D8's,D9's and D10's. I spent more time on dumps and fill areas mostly, pushing them with D8's The bowls had two foot high side boards welded on them to. They were kept in excellent shape and always had good front tires. A typical day on a fill area would be 250 to 300 loads a day in 10 hours. When the owner of the company bought new scrapers he would have the rear tires taken off and replaced with old ones. The new 631E's he bought to replace the C's were a really nice upgrade.

Shimmy1 said: Not questioning you, just wondering whatever managed to catch your eyes on a single engine turd like the 631C? Maybe you know that your dozers would have plenty to do shoving them around? Click to expand... The sound of that D343 allways won me over! Over here,we allways pushload with 9’s.Almost no push pull scrapers or self loading,so the 631’s were very popular. We also had many pit heaps that needed levelling after mines closed down,so they were ideal downloading all day

Did you ever check out Holland Loaders ? I used to push 631C's away from them after they were loaded a short distance until they could upshift and take off. Out of curiosity I timed the Holland Loader in action. It had the scraper bowl running over in less than a minute.

Tinkerer said: Did you ever check out Holland Loaders ? I used to push 631C's away from them after they were loaded a short distance until they could upshift and take off. Out of curiosity I timed the Holland Loader in action. It had the scraper bowl running over in less than a minute. Click to expand... You bring up one of the keys to running push cat behind direct drive scrapers like DW15s and 20s, which was not to quit your scraper until they had a chance to shift and pull away. Conversely, if the scraper operator didn't lift and get gone in short order, a couple rounds of quitting them a bit early usually provided incentive to change ones behavior!

Oxbow said: You bring up one of the keys to running push cat behind direct drive scrapers like DW15s and 20s, which was not to quit your scraper until they had a chance to shift and pull away. Conversely, if the scraper operator didn't lift and get gone in short order, a couple rounds of quitting them a bit early usually provided incentive to change ones behavior! Click to expand... You remind me of the very loud discussion I had to have with my brother over 20 years ago. Pulling a 20 yard converted Allis 260 with a Deere 8650. If he didn't quit on me, I could grab C-range pretty easy. After the third time he left me sitting with a full load and not being able to get going in anything over B2, I chewed his ***. He actually argued with "why the hell do I need to keep pushing after you're full". I just told him, if you're to dumb to understand I can't get a load moving in road gear after I've stopped, then I can't help you.

The most efficient loading of scrapers I've ever seen was a original D10 pushing 631's up a 12ft high bank. The dozer never pushed further than the length of the scraper which was heap loaded in an average time of 25 seconds. The beauty of this method was the quickness the dozer could get back to push the next scraper. 550000m3 was shifted in 3 months. It was also the first time the Government couldn't keep up with the progress payment cheques.

The fastest loading time with a Holland Loader that I saw was 25 seconds. I timed it. The loader operator didn't empty the belt after the last load, which he was supposed to do. The empty scrapers pulled under the belt as soon as I got past it. Although it required the loader to have two tractors on it. there was huge savings in track wear as opposed to using push Cats on the stingers and push loading.

Tinkerer said: The fastest loading time with a Holland Loader that I saw was 25 seconds. I timed it. The loader operator didn't empty the belt after the last load, which he was supposed to do. The empty scrapers pulled under the belt as soon as I got past it. Although it required the loader to have two tractors on it. there was huge savings in track wear as opposed to using push Cats on the stingers and push loading. Click to expand... I've been trying to find a video of this, but wasn't too successful yet. There is so little scraper work around me that I'm amazed when I do see some working. The few I usually see are self elevating, so they usually move fairly slow. I do see a fair amount of guys with tractors and pull pans, but it's usually excavators and trucks shifting the dirt.

Are you guys talking about these things?

I’m only posting because these came through my feed a few days ago. I tried searching for them in the past with no luck. The words Holland and Loader bring up too many other results.

Those Holland loaders could really spit out a load in a hurry. Back in 1973-74, I worked on a huge dam building job in eastern Ohio. The contractor had a Holland loader backed up against an old mine highwall, and had 3 D9's pushing to it. They were loading a fleet that consisted of 10, 50 ton Payhaulers and 10 old Cat belly dumps. The haul was downhill, and really short. I hardly ever saw a truck waiting for a load, and we hauled millions of tons for that project.