This little gem of a dozer was spotted alongside the road, about 6 km. north of the Hummingbird Bridge and about 21 km. north of Highway 3 in the city of Grand Forks. Already being overgrown by wild roses, we expect that this dozer will one day appear to passersby as simply a very large rose bush, quite pretty later in the summer.
Note the extension of the exhaust stack, sending the (NON-muffled) exhaust and noise over the ROPS structure. A home made addition, that extension would have made a
very noisy and smelly beast a slightly more amenable machine to operate.
Manufactured from 1940 to 1969, the TD-6, and its gasoline powered sister, the T-6, were the smallest in a line of dozers producer by International Harvester in this era, the largest a 50,000 pound behemoth producing 230 hp.
Newcomers to International Harvester tractors may find themselves a tiny bit confused upon a close examination of the engine, finding a diesel injector pump and injectors on one side and a magneto, distributor and spark plugs on the other. Many International Harvester diesels were configured in this manner, to allow starting on gasoline for warm-up, then switching over to diesel. International referred to this as their "
Quick Start Diesel". A small (.66 U.S. gallon) gasoline tank is mounted under the hood, just aft of the radiator, while the main diesel tank (20 U.S. gallons) forms the back of the operator's seat.
After getting pix of this TD-6 we learned the location of the serial number plate and went back to glean the dozer's serial number. Alas, the plate had been removed, only the four rivets remaining in its place, so we cannot provide information on this TD-6's year of manufacture.
Following is the pertinent date on the TD-6, taken from Tractor Data. There were three versions of the TD-6: the standard TD-6, manufactured from 1940 to 1956, the TD-6 Series 61, from 1956 to 1959, and the TD-6 Series 62, from 1960 to 1969. We'll include here the data for the earliest, standard version.
- Engine: International Harvester 4.3L 4-cyl diesel
- Drawbar hp. (tested): 31.91 hp - Belt (tested): 48.99 hp
- Displacement: 264 ci - 4.3 L
- Bore/Stroke: 4.00 x 5.25 inches - 102 x 133 mm
- Air cleaner: oil bath
- Compression: 16.76:1
- Rated RPM: 1550
- Starter: gasoline ignition
- Transmission:
- Gears: 5 forward and 1 reverse
- Speed Range: 1.6 - 5.7 mph.
- Brakes: manual contracting band
From Tractordata