Small crawler crane

[Welder Dave]

Went to look at some vintage equipment and thought this crane was rather unique. It has a flat head V8 so I'm guessing a Ford engine. Has a bunch of smaller railroad rail for counterweight. Any idea what brand it is?

 

[Tugger2]

It has the look of a Buyers Bearcat Shovel with modifications. Except its a crane and the boom on the Buyers points in line with the tracks. Looks like something you need at home.

 

[JaredV]

Somebody turned it sideways for backfilling pipeline trenches, maybe?

 

[Welder Dave]

I don't know if it came from Henuset or if it was used on pipelines.

 

[skyking1]

it does not swing, so I second the idea that it is an early sideboom type pipeline rig.

 

[Deere500a]

Given that era machine & early truck and trailers transporting it been the only choice too side load it but purpose was gone when it was converted

 

[Welder Dave]

Maybe is an early sideboom for smaller dia. pipe?? Henuset may have had it just as an antique/historic piece of pipeline history. Maybe they did the modifications it in their early days. Art Henuset was quite the innovator. There were many who didn't think his fabricated pipe support frame would be strong enough to carry the 103 ton H1900 excavator 10' off the ground. Henuset built quite a few trenchers but the Polarbear is one of the largest ever made. It may be the largest bucket wheel trencher. Art threw the blueprints out and drew it full size on the shop floor! It had a few revisions from the cleaning staff sweeping the floor and erasing some of the plans. It was apparently built in a month but was too high to fit out the door of the shop. No problem, it trenched itself out of the shop! It is huge and rides on extended length D9 tracks. There are multiple drives for the discharge conveyor that use quad chains. I'm curious what the HP rating of quad chains is? It's very impressive! It's in pretty good condition but I don't think they are planning to put it back in working condition. I think they want to get the 1200 HP 16V-149 engine running though.

 

[JaredV]

it does not swing, so I second the idea that it is an early sideboom type pipeline rig.

I'm fairly certain it does swing. I see what looks like a horizontal bull gear under the boom foot behind that pallet that I think would swing it. The appears to have a vertical pin that the boom hoist sheaves would swing on. Austin Western, Wilford, and Insley off the top of my head built half swing shovels like this, only the top half was inline with the tracks like Tugger said. Welder Dave, if you go back, get a pic of that plate between the tracks.

 

[skyking1]

go look again. There is an angle brace welded from the track frame up to below the counterweights.
Also that gear is below the level of the top of the tracks.

 

[JaredV]

I meant to say the boom swings. I'm thinking it started it's life like one of these, but not this model.

 

[Welder Dave]

I think it's a bit older than that one. It sure didn't look like it could swing. They're having a show on the May long weekend I'm going to try and go to. I just need to find someone to run my MX track for a day. The red machine above looks like it uses the complete drive train of an IH letter series tractor to power the tracks. The wheels and steering are the only parts removed.

 

[Tones]

I meant to say the boom swings. I'm thinking it started it's life like one of these, but not this model.

View attachment 309693

This looks like something out of the Cleveland trencher factory. They used IHC engines and the panels and fuel tank could be the same as IH wheel tractors of that time.

 

[Welder Dave]

There was a Cleveland trencher there but I never looked at it too close. It wasn't as cool as most of the other equipment.

 

[Sportsman762]

Looks a lot like a backfiller of some sort.

Historical Construction Equipment Association - Carr, Clark, Cleveland

The dataplate on the front of the machine in the first photo would have helped with ID'ing it.

 

[Welder Dave]

I never noticed that plate at the time. I thought it was interesting enough to have a flat head V8.

 

[alco]

That is neat!

 

[Welder Dave]

I'll text Alex and see if he knows more about it. He knows most of the machines there. In Leduc there is a museum with 2 large buildings full of restored old heavy equipment. I need to get out there. There is a TC12 and several Cletrac dozers among other things. At the site I went to there were 5 Cletrac/Oliver dozers but Alex said they were just the rougher ones. The owner of most of the equipment was a fan of Cletrac's and collected them. He also has a lot of pony motor parts.