Wanted: dozer track

[Ken Smith]

Good day Max
The 4T Caterpillar is fairly unique in the Caterpillar system, the 4T was only made for the US Army during WW2. The 4T model was assembled by Caterpillar from parts outsourced from dozens of foundries, at the end of WW2 Caterpillar were able to completely disown that model. There is hardly any reference to the 4T in any official Caterpillar literature, including, parts books or workshop manuals. If you have a copy of a 4T parts book etc I would like to see a photo of it.

The civilian version of the 4T is the 3T which stayed in production long enough to be fitted with a oil master clutch as opposed to the dry master clutch in the 4T and the early 3T.

I worked on quite a few 4Ts during my apprenticeship and I hated having to replace the fibre links that linked the clutch plates. The new non genuine clutch links are made from nylon. The starting engine crank handle will also give you a good whack if you time the magneto wrong.

When I worked at Tillys Crawler Parts in Toowoomba in the late 80's they had a few 4Ts in there wrecked, one of them was 4T 25 and the serial # was scratched, freehand, deeply in to the engine and the chassis vin plates with a scribe, not stamped in as normal. That was the only one I ever saw marked like that and was also the earliest 4T serial # I have ever seen.
I wish now I had souveniered the plate, as in the nineties all the old chassis' went to scrap metal.
Regards Ken