New to the Board

[jcalisi]

Just wanted to say hello to everyone and I'm glad I found this.  My dad owns one of these Model DGH S# 2E868 with a Hercules RXC # 2011006 and its been setting for 26 years stuck in reverse until this weekend.  After a couple of hours breaking it down I finally got it back in neutral.  So we moved it with a log skitter (spelling) to a better place to work on it.  He bought the Cletrac after he came back home from Nam and used it to clean up the farm and build his house.  The good/bad things is he completely rebuilt the tracks and engine for it went for its long rest...  Anyway, sorry for such a long post just a little excited about it.  As a kid I was always interested in the old girl but never had a chance to see it run.  So with your help I was hoping I could make this happen.  So far the only thing I need that I don't already have is the exhaust and intake for the engine.  Its all rusted out and the exhaust is broken where the pipe goes up.  Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Jon

[Robert Barbour]

Your DGH is an early 1948. With new  tracks it is well worth getting going again. Is the engine free or stuck?  Finding manafolds in good shape will not be easy especially the exhaust!!  I have a 47 and I had to braze patches all over the exhast manafold but it works!  These machines have lots of power for there size so with a good engine and undercarriage it will do alot of work! Good luck

[jcalisi]

The engine seems to be free.  I can turn it by hand a full rev.  Not that I'm going to sell, but you always like to know what you have.  What is the value on something like that?  Thanks for the info.

Jon

[Robert Barbour]

It is very hard to put a value on old tractors and even more so on the larger ones like the DGH.  First off tractors are like cars from the piont of view that a car will wear out several sets of tires and a crawler will wear out several sets of track!!  But for a tractor the cost of tracks is a much higher percentage of the vehicle cost so as they get older there comes a point were they are not worth the cost of new tracks ( undercarriage).Therefore if you are interested in restoring an old tractor the most inportant part is the undercarriage Because they are the hardest parts to find in good condition.  The DGH is a 15,000 lb tractor and thus not cheap to move and takes some space to keep and requires a lot of heavy tools to work on so finding an interested buyer in your locality is not easy.  Thats why the HG's and OC 3 are much more popular, the average guy that works on cars can handle them too.  I would expect all painted up and running with all the sheet metal it would bring 4 to 5K but finding a buyer may take a while!

[jcalisi]

Thanks for the info.  I don't think I/he would every want to sell it.  Even when its just sitting rusting away a few people came up to buy it off him but he wouldn't let it go.  I think I want to get it running and us it.  I'm not a stickler for all the numbers to match either.  With that in mind have you seen anyone replace the gas with a diesel in that model.  

By the way the tracks are nice and tight all of the shoes look very good.

I'll try to get some pics out for everyone to see.

Thanks again,
Jon

[Robert Barbour]

The diesel model is the DDH and is the same except the engine is a DRX engine which is 4 and 3/8 bore by 5 and 1/4 stroke rather then the 4and 5/8 bore and 5 and 1/4 stroke of the gas model.  They made many more diesel models than the gas.  Power wise they are very close to the same only the diesel is a bit easier on fuel!  Gas engine parts are easier to find than the diesel as many more were used for other things like trucks.