This sure brings back fun and fond memories, as I was in the seat of one of the 660's pictured in this video! They would carry huge 50+ yard loads as all wore sideboards and the two well operated 9L's would get you loaded and out quickly. We ran on a smooth graded haul road and often ran flat out in 8th gear. With those massive 3 axel rigs we would bring the cut down and the fill up in a hurry. They were one heck of a scraper and actually a lot of fun to run! Now they're all scrapped, lost to the ages, with only videos such as this remaining.....
Did you grade check at chino hills job along the 57 bus load of Engineers from Sweden watched us push the 41 s with the 57 how is Red doing and Leo Chuck son
I remember ACI on one job sukut on another and the company I worked for all working in Irvine just a few miles apart. Local 12 moving mountains at its best. Back then a 14 million yard job was average. Boy do I miss those days.
Super video. Cool to see so many of the 660Bs still working at the same time. Between them, the dozers and other scrapers, i'd say you'd want deep pockets for the daily fuel bill 👍
Big time production on a big dirt job!! Those 660B three-axle scrapers leaving the cut with about 54 yards per load at that pace will have that mountain down in no time!! Nothing like a big dirt spread like this on one of those big California jobs!! Thanks for posting this awesome video!! Your scraper videos are the best!!
Them old scrapers have paid for themselves time and time again, i reckon and them push dozer guys are worth every penny they get, I bet they're knackered at home time.
Old CATs' never die, - what a lovely piece of nostalgia, could have been shot 20+ years ago, - thank-you for a lovely video. - I wonder how many other makes will be able to claim that in the future.
@@briangardiner1015 They could be as well, don't forget when they first came out in production it was the late '70's through to the mid 80's.The prototypes came out in the early 70's.
@@christopherlovelock9104 it was a new New Idea for the time the eightes I was on a fifty seven they are still running experience I will always cherish
@@dennisholst4322 I watched a lot working in the 70/80's when they were going mad building 'motorways' everywhere in the UK, - now were full up with them, and those CAT's are just a memory, - I will never forget them.
i wonder.. do the owners go around the country buying up retired 660b's to keep the fleet up and for parts. i would imagine the company has a serious rebuilding shop to keep them all in working shape.
All these operators must be well paid.This isn't a job for just any operator.Lots of concentration and skill needed here.Not easy on long days I'd say.No messing with mobile phones or listening to a radio tolerated here!! Tough men.
I agree 100%, and yes, we are well paid. That’s me (and my brother-in-law) on the close set of push cats. This was a good job and one of the last for those 660’s. ACI has since sold or scrapped them.
Magnifique. Mon ancien boulot; j’avais 1 D9G en premier et un D9hpour terminer avec une équipe de 10 631D. 16E 49G et 16G ainsi que les 825b et un 824b
Man, just think how much more those great 660s would haul if they built sides for the box and a taller cattle guard in the back. It wouldn't surprise me with higher side boards and guard in the back, they could easily I think carry in the upper 60 yards
Those are called pushing cushions the old ones were only as wide as the radiator they were stiff they did a grading job in the fifty's I think it was a international push cat dark red big I rode my bike down the hill and got on one the three scrapers eventually become an operator
I remember back in the late 60's early 70's when Blakeslle Const. would bring their scrapers & dozers to the beach. West haven on L.I. sound. At low tide they would scrape & push all the sand from the sand bars back up on the beach for the summer, It was awesome watching them re groom from winter water runoff & the loss of beach all summer from hi & lo tide. The around the late 70's they stopped because EPA said it was disturbing pollutants from the run off. So now every year they bring in thousands of yards of new sand, But still get to watch an army of tri-axles & dozers spread it out, All so it can erode away agin over the winter.
If a person needed to haul alot of material from one spot to a long distance dump area, the 660, 666, could do it so easily and fast. Would be curious to take a 657 and a 660, load them and leave together and see which one would get to the build up area first
Those damned things are the roughest riding sumbitches...hope they got a good blade operator with a 16 on the haul roads....my back still aches just thinking about those nightmares
Nope not with millions of yards to move. Jobs like this are becoming less and less where there are alot of scrapers operating. it is mainly happening in southern California where mountains are moved for housing developments.
About 10 seconds to load 40 plus cubic metres, it would take a lot of excavators and ADTs to match that. This is the fastest, most efficient way of digging, loading and moving material there is.
not even close!top loading by track hoe means nothing is getting done by the one machine!!the real efficiency comes if there are NO TRACKS AT ALL ,like push/pull scrapers,,,657s....4 engines loading one machine!
so strange you make these massive machines that can pick up all this earth and take it somewhere else and dump it but you need two dozers to help it load all the dirt! so where is the savings in the long run can any anyone respond to this question thanks.
Excellent question. And operator would probably be best suited to answer this question, however I can try to tell you what I know. The dirt they are working with is not your typical backyard clay. Most of it is hard as a rock and if you’re trying to use something like an excavator you run the risk of Breaking it or wearing it out to the point where it’s not usable anymore. But that is all I know and I’m hoping that an operator will see this and they will answer your question a little better.
The scrapers are specifically designed to transport the dirt long distances and rapidly. They never have to stop or back up, and don't have to be loaded by a loader or shovel, and spread the dirt nicely when they unload, while being able to rapidly move it between the cut and fill. They leave a nice cut behind them, and a nice fill, so very little if any additional work is needed to clean up after them, unlike any other method where you have to break up the ground, pile it up, load it in, then dump it in piles that then have to be spread out. That's why scrapers are giant money savers on large projects like this. Now, in hard or heavy materials, they don't have the traction to cut effectively by themselves, so you can get dual engine scrapers, which then can line up and push/pull each other, so you might have 5 scrapers providing power, for one loading, and they take turns. But then you have twice as many engines running all over the jobsite, and they are much more expensive, and more maintenance. Or, you get a fleet of these old beauties, which have about the same hauling capacity as the expensive ones,, but much less fuel usage or costs, and then you have a couple of dozers pushing them to load, and they pretty much are constantly under full load loading the scrapers, so maximizing fuel use and equipment utilization. You are able to have a much larger fleet of scrapers, thus more dirt moved, for the same investment. In some situations, because of space constraints or length of haul, or having to haul up steep hills, you may need dual engine scrapers and no push dozers, but in this kind of site, this is a brilliant solution, especially since those scrapers are probably very cheep to purchase! They really only make good sense when you have a big fleet of them like this.
Those type of scrapers need do be pushed to load the material into the pan. When it comes to equipment it depends on what they call Cycle time. A cycle is Load, Haul, Dump, and Return. The second dozer speeds up the loading time, hence more cycles means more production in a day.
Usually enjoy this videos but the one thing that stands out like a saw thumb is all the unenclosed cabs, being subjected to all the extra noise, diesel fumes, dust and vibration, all those operators must be totally ratshit by the end of the day let alone a working week?
both pushers have blocks and debris screens fitted why isn't the second pusher dropping onto the next scraper instead of going all the why back to allow the first one in and vice a versa thats how we used to do it in the 80s
On a majority of jobs 1st pusher skinner is calling the shots; where to load etc // I would have the 1st scraper back tag the next scraper; save a bit of undercarriage wear & slight increase in production per hour
@@JoshYent Nope I am wrong, ACI's crew is faster like the video, if the 1st dozer back tags the scraper that would slow down production because other cushion dozer would have to continue backing up before swinging in to push.
What country is this? The reason I ask is no sealed cab on the machines, the company must not care about their workers, or are so cheap. Never seen it in Canada.
Those triple 6's were made back when a/c wasn't an option at all in heavy equipment. If you had a cab and heat, you were in the finest machine back then.
Southern California. Their not cold nearly everyday of the year where those machines operate. The houses will be very expensive too. Enjoying the same weather.
@@michaelmccarthy4615 I worked with guys that built the Alaska pipeline seen pictures of where they stayed in inch and a half ice on the windows they survived what do we have now a bunch of beaurocrat s telling us we can't do this or that I think Americans are about fed up with these squirley brains
Gary jUNG, I could be wrong, but I think you might have it the other way around. A number of years ago, they were picking up Eucs/Terex scrapers dirt(sorry) cheap and bringing them back to CA and repowering the Detroits with CATs or Cummins. Detroits (2 strokes) were frowned upon because of their emissions. Of course, nowadays, anything in CA that isn’t battery powered, CNG/LNG, or subsidized by CARB is frowned upon. Besides, if they were Detroits, you would here them screaming over the push CATs.
Gary jUNG, Yes, my bad. The Series 60 didn’t even cross my mind, or what’s left of it, anyway. They have only been around for 30 years....duh! When I think of Detroit’s, my ears just hurt, but admittedly it’s a sound I miss.
What is the purpose of the lengths of rubber that are on the front half of the sideboards? Also, why are the white stripes painted across the planetaries on the rear axles of the tractor? One of these days, if California continues its 'green' bent, they will be demanding that the mountains that have been flattened, be restored to the original contours.
The rubber skirting is to keep rocks and other thing from getting in between outside can and draft arms and for let management see if the operator is spinning tires. That is a huge cost to replace tires
