Cat 631

[Neil D]

Thought I would post a photo taken last week of a fleet of 631's owned by friends of mine, Louis Boyd Earthmoving Ltd of Fivemiletown. Its interesting to note two are 631A's being cable operated.
Neil

[Gavin84w]

They look in very good condition for there age, the cable 631,s you hardly see anywhere, some contenders for period correct full resto there i would say.

[tctractors]

Gavin, the first motor scrapers I ever worked on were the CAT 631 units, I thought the cable saver was high tech, in amongst my service stores was 2 Tea chests full of knackered winch plates, these plates would be in and out of those winches on a weekly deal, untill they were total scrap, to ask the slasher if it was O.K. to buy a dozen of each was often only answered with a look that was not good, so it was throw in more near scrap plates untill the winches started running over hot, those air cooled winches I could pull to bits and back together in a few moments, the seats were like sitting on a hard plank, just canvas swabs with shovel shaped backs, they had no cabs plus the dust was untrue, we used to have a water tower wash for the drivers, in the hot weather they would pull up near it and gush themselfs off often driving in just shorts or under crackers, I used to shut them all down at the end of the shift after running then at a fast idle for about 15 min's or so as we fueled them up and checked that there was still a wheel on each corner,then it was greasing time, a day soon turned into night, later on in life I realised just how good those old bangers were.

[tommy brogan]

those two 631a scrapers belonged to barney oneil i think he had four of them at one stage they were in great shape the time i seen them up in dublin area workin about 10 years ago

[Gavin84w]

Thanks for the info TC, i have never seen a cable 631 down here but i am sure there would have been, worked on every model since them though. My field service job with the dealer here in Sydney is now a product support job and the old orange Cat toolbox has turned into a laptop. Off topic a tad but those orange toolboxs Cat used to sell were downright the best fitters toolbox ever IMO.

Have to say that those late 67M s/n square nose 631C would be the best 2 axle hyd scraper Cat ever made.

TC, do you know of the 666 imported into the UK?

[nick lamb]

Thanks for the info TC, i have never seen a cable 631 down here but i am sure there would have been, worked on every model since them though. My field service job with the dealer here in Sydney is now a product support job and the old orange Cat toolbox has turned into a laptop. Off topic a tad but those orange toolboxs Cat used to sell were downright the best fitters toolbox ever IMO.

Have to say that those late 67M s/n square nose 631C would be the best 2 axle hyd scraper Cat ever made.

TC, do you know of the 666 imported into the UK?

I agree Gavin,The 631C was the best.The 'Big front' or 'Square nose' was simply outstanding.

[nick lamb]

Here's a 631B that Blue Peter has kitted out for Neil Dillons trip to Africa.It has the tetsi fly net over the s##t house and is a real home from home.I'm featuring it in this months 'Good Houskeeping'
It has something called a 'tailgate' so your wife won't need a Hoover to clean the crumbs up.

[Neil D]

If its anything like the way the rest of your stuff is, it will need a rebuild by the the time it goes through your front gate, lol.

[tctractors]

Gavin, when the 631's all calved down from being dogged to death, we had to double shift the TS14's until the Boss could sort some new Iron, so the cranks in the 631's had an emery cloth "Re-Grind" with fettled bearings poked in place coated up in stuff called STP that was some sort of "knacker laquer", then the 3 scrapers were sold on to go to a far off land with Palm Trees, in there place after about 10 weeks 3 near new 631C big front units turned up, the highest hour meter reading was about 1'200 hrs, so they were brand new to me, these had gas necks, direct lecky start, amazing seats, lights, good rubber, plus no winch, it was common for them to run for 6 weeks without any repairs required, the TS14's though after the dogging they had previously, would spit out the dummy before you stuffed em with the first load,the early 631 units only said 631 on the side, the A bit I would think was a lable poked at them when the B series units gave birth, finaly on the 666 outfits, there is pics of them on the "tinterweb" and things are moving on nicely with the "Big Iron" I will keep you informed.

tctractors

[nick lamb]

If its anything like the way the rest of your stuff is, it will need a rebuild by the the time it goes through your front gate, lol.