Page 401 - Peterson 85 Years and Going Strong

To this day, I still say there is nothing that can push a scraper around a curved cut like the Quads.
– Randy Krieg, Caterpillar test operator, Tucson Proving Ground
Quad #79 worked on the Glen Hwy in Alaska—from Sutton to King’s River—for Wilder Construction in 2000
cooling systems, the track frames, the mainframe, the engine, transmission, final drive, and all the main structural parts of the machine. At least 90 percent is original.
“You can tell that, over the years, people had re- inforced the mainframe, the track frames, and the hard nose because there’s a lot of stress in those ar- eas. But the air-control system, the hydraulics, the blade, and the coupler device that hooks the two machines together, that’s pretty much all original. We didn’t completely rebuild them,” says Spencer. “But we did a lot of rewiring, even though there wasn’t a lot of wiring on them like there is now- adays. Duane wanted lights on both machines, so we installed new, updated lights but kept the old round style. So we had to wire the lights in, and we also did a lot of the rewiring on the starting system and the new gauges and indicators.
“The way Buster designed the connection between the two machines made it relatively easy to con- nect and disconnect. But to get to the point where the two operated together, that was a tremendous amount of work because everything was air con- trolled. Everything on both machines had an air system on it—the steering, brakes, transmission controls, and throttle. So you had an air compres- sor, air tanks, and all the related valves and lines. And then linkages heavily modified to make the design work, which was always mechanical and hydraulic.
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