LaPlant Choate scraper hydraulic pressure questions

Hello all, I've managed to pick up a LaPlant Choate single axle scraper like the one shown in the picture. It needs some work before I can use it, but it looks complete overall.

The hydraulic ram that operates the scraper is pretty large, and I'm wondering if that's because hydraulics ran at lower pressures back then. My theory is that a lower pressure would require a larger surface area—hence the big diameter ram—to generate the necessary force.

Does anyone know what pressure these scrapers were supposed to operate at? Also, would anyone happen to know what colour it was painted? I only have black and white pictures to go by.

Eventually this will be going behind my D7 3T. Thanks for any help.

Chris

I'd check what color other LaPlant Choate scrapers from that era were painted, maybe matching it to your D7 3T would work.

I recall seeing Cat LaPlant hydraulic pumps that ran at lower pressures—around 500 psi—whereas later Cat 44 pumps operated at 1000 psi. I'm having trouble finding details on Google though. For the paint, you'd want to match whatever your fleet used—Allis orange, IH red, or highway yellow based on the picture.

That should do it.

Thanks, that's really helpful.

Trying to source some replacement wheels for this scraper and running into trouble. The hubs are a 10 stud setup, and I'm measuring the hub size at 8" as best I can tell without getting the wheel off yet - planning to do that next week for a proper look. Can't find anything locally that matches up. Does anyone have experience with American manufacturer wheel hub sizes from that era? Any help would be appreciated.

Is it the rim or the centre that's rusted out? If it's the centre hub, you can make a new one from steel plate.

Government surplus wheels could be similar.

The rim and the locking ring are looking pretty rough.

Would rims from old trucks fit? I know later TK Bedfords had 10 stud rims but I'm not sure what the dimensions were. If the stud pattern matches, fixing a different centre hole should be straightforward.