David brown30td crawler

[IANOZ]

Hi all 30td owners out there.I have bought a 30td and i am trying to work out a serial number for it as the ID plate is missing It is the first series one with the steering levers wide apart .If you 30td 0wners out there could post you engine number and serial number,i may be able to get a close idea of the serial number .My Engine number is AD4 3 846 .Any help greatly apprecated .Ian.

[Scooby]

You need to go to www.dbtc.co.uk

Register on the site and then post the quetsion on that Forum. We have a few DB crawler owners on there and some of them come from Australia.

Let me know if you have any problems. admin@dbtc.co.uk

[IANOZ]

Hi Scooby, Yes mate I am registered on the david brown forum and have asked the question over there but as yet have not recieved any answers ,I have contacted peter murray But because the Id plate is missing and there is only an engine number to work off ,.he was unable to help, As i regard the machine as a dozer I have posted on the dozer section here but as you guys mainly use them for plowing etc i now put this post up in the tractor section .John Gaunt has given me his engine and serial numbers from his machine and i am trying to do a bit of sherlock holmes detective work myself.So far ,with only Johns engine number to go on It tells me ours was about the 110 off the line as a 30td if the engine numbers and the serial numbers followed each other .and neither machine has had an engine change . If I am reading your forum info right on the 30td there was only a bit over 600 made and after 50 years some of them may no longer be with us .If david brown sent them all over the commonweath like fowler and marshall did ,they in numbers are a rarer machine than a fowler vf or vfa . .Scooby i have read in your posts that you have the last trackmarshall or one of the last off the assemberly line .So you know the feeling of knowing the history of a machine. and thats what i am trying to do know the history of our machine . So any help from where ever it comes from is greatly apprecated . ian.

[Scooby]

Good morning Ian. I have added a plea to your post on the DB site, if nothing else it will bump it up to the top.

My fellow Administrator and I did the Model Range scetion last winter but that only really covers the wheeled agricultural tractors. We really do need more info. on the crawlers. You are correct in that DB sent their crawlers all over the World. They exported 80% of whatever they made.

My TM isn't one of the last, in fact they made 121 after mine but it is the last model of steel tracked crawler that they made. And mine is a "true" 155. Before mine they made a 135 and they had a problem back-end and they were modified, the pump opend up a bit, and re-badged as 155s. It all depends on the serial no. I searched long and hard for one in the condition that I wanted. Most of them end up on the beach hauling boats in and out of the water and that just destroys them eventually. Mine has only done 2500 hours and is in mint condition. And although it wasn't ready for it I had the pins and bushes turned and new sprockets fitted.

I have just made some street plates for it but I still need to do some more work on those.

[IANOZ]

Hi Scooby ,Thank you , I see your request On DB forum .We aren't into this to the money we are doing it because we love crawlers .My dad had one as his first machine and this is the first one i had come across.He had a 5oTD,but a 30 is a good start. We have two trackmarshall55's, a fowler VF ,cat d24u and d47u ,and just bought an oliver OC6..If 80% where exported as you said you may not get a big responce on the forum.There is only two other posts on 30td's on the forum One was from australia ,but have not been back online for 2 years and one in the UK and its been a long time since any thing was added to that thread .My posted had not had any replys for over a month till i refreashed it and about 30 people have looked but no one has posted. Maybe most are owned by farmers who are not into the forums.We will just have to wait and see what happens. As we are not realy interested in wheel tractors,We may have a little gem sitting under our noses and not know it .A mate left a red 990 with us to sell for him ,I will get the serial number and put it up on the forum for you guys to check out . Thanks for your efforts .ian.

[Scooby]

Hello again Ian,

I see that someone has answered my bump up. To be honest crawlers were really only in cetain areas in the U.K. There were quite a lot in the heavy land part of East Anglia and also in Bedfordshire on the brick clays. Also quite a lot in the south of my home county of Warwickshire. That's Roger Dowdeswell country and that's why his ploughs were built like brick outhouses

But in Warwickshire they were mostly Fowlers and Track Marshalls. A few Allis Chalmers but I never saw a DB working in anger.

[IANOZ]

Hi Scooby ,I have seen his reply and will check it out .I am really hopeing that he is right where others have saidits not the case ..Will have to chase up some sort of forum in new zeland as i would say there is a fair few that made their way over there .All info gathered can only be of help to others along the way . Thanks again . ian.

[IANOZ]

Hi All, well the david brown forum members came through with a build date for our machine and a within 50 number for the serial number. 8th or 9 th month 1953.Which makes it in the first year of production and serial number 10700 to 10750. My attempt at detective work was 40 out at best and 90 at worse as going by the serial and engine number john gave me for his machine ,i had come up with 10660..Thanks to scooby and john gaunt for the help with this on here . Would still like to see serial and engine numbers and the good people at the david brown forum would also love this infomation to help build up their records . ian.

[IANOZ]

Hi Guys ,We are about to get our injector pump back,So went to clean out the fuel tank to discover the bottoms rusted out on it .QUESTION is ,do any of the wheel tractors have the same fuel tank and if so what model ? The part number for the fuel tank is 62566 AS there's not a lot of crawlers ,i thought if tractor ones are the same,it would be easier to find a tractor one than a crawler one .ian.

[John Gaunt]

Hi Guys ,We are about to get our injector pump back,So went to clean out the fuel tank to discover the bottoms rusted out on it .QUESTION is ,do any of the wheel tractors have the same fuel tank and if so what model ? The part number for the fuel tank is 62566 AS there's not a lot of crawlers ,i thought if tractor ones are the same,it would be easier to find a tractor one than a crawler one .ian.

To be honest, Ian I don't know however, I would be very surprised if it was different. I'm in the process of putting a new bottom into the fuel tank off my cat R2 4J as they are a very unusual tank (a tank within a tank) and peculiar to that model. It's not too difficult to replace the bottom of the tank if you're any good with a MIG welder. Just make sure that there is no fuel or fumes inside when you are working on it !!!!!