The Classic Machinery Network

Hi All,
I have just finished an engine rebuild on a 1950, David Brown Trackmaster crawler.
My crawler is serial # 23 out of 700 "Trackmasters" manufactured, then they switched over to the 30T (Petrol, TVO) & 30TD (Diesel) crawlers.

Long story, short. I bought this crawler a few years ago from a collector in Lincolnshire, the crawler was mixing engine oil with coolant. I thought it might just be the head gasket. When I stripped it down she already had a new head gasket, new valves here and there and the cylinder head looked like it had been skimmed at some time.
The condition of the cylinder bores however looked terrible !
Cylinders 2&3 looked to have bad water damage and signs of seizure at some time.
When it was all stripped out I found 2 cracked cylinder sleeves, allowing coolant to enter the bores, subsequently hydraulicing in the bores and then bent x2 of the conrods.

The Crank was chewed up due to the bent conrods, luckily it was at standard and it needed to be reground by .020" to clean it up.
New main & conrod bearings were fitted, along with N.O.S pistons which i found and x4 new cylinder sleeves

I have lots of photos of the rebuild, to share & for you to enjoy
Here is the link >>>>>> https://goo.gl/photos/kmyY9booKYXDoFx59

Thanks
Carl Hargreaves

The production line, Output in 1950 was 2 machines a week but by 1951 output had risen to 14 per week. The crawler pictured is slightly later than mine, note the air cleaner. My air cleaner oil bath is mounted in the chasis frame.



Crane is a blaw knox


Thanks,
Carl Hargreaves

Google is our friend .....

Nice one Carl

Jeremy

Great project and documentation - worthy of a change of Avatar!!
Thanks for posting.

modelman093 wrote:Great project and documentation - worthy of a change of Avatar!!
Thanks for posting.

Haha,
I've just got myself a fowler VF and a Series 1 Marshall. They've been on my wish list for a long time. My dad has a series 2 btw.

Looks good done a good job,

Hi all
I made a bit of a slide show, out of all my pictures of the rebuild. I've also done one on my Field Marshall tractor rebuild over in the the Tractor section of the forum.
"The things you get up to on these winter nights"

Thanks,
Carl Hargreaves

Here is another little nugget for the information store. I have just been looking at a Farm Mechanization handbook dated 1952 and there was a nice drawing in there of a DB Trackmaster
Thanks,
Carl Hargreaves

Picked up this DB 30TD & Fiat 70c today, Locally 5miles away to be exact. A fellow collector was downsizing his collection and came to our open evening back in July 2019. He seen the crawler collection and wanted his tractors to stay local, so he could still see them. I have just written an article for the "vintage scene magazine" about the restoration of my petrol/T.V.O DB Trackmaster crawler mentioned in previous posts here.
Here is a couple pictures of today's additions
We tow started the fiat, and it started within its own lenght, I was quite amazed it has 15+ year old fuel in, No heater plugs. Just a cold start device on the pump.
Thanks,
Carl Hargreaves