Page 402 - Peterson 85 Years and Going Strong

The vast majority of both these machines is
still original. At least 90 percent.
– Ron Spencer, foreman, San Leandro main shop / Peterson
“The design is pretty amazing for back then,” con- tinues Spencer. “I wasn’t familiar with it because I hadn’t been around it before. And then to really see it, was like, Whoa. That was pretty incredible. That was ingenious engineering for back in those days. There’s a hydraulic cylinder on the rear ma- chine that raises the trunnion ball to be able to hook these machines together. Some pictures and information I’ve seen in the past don’t have that cylinder, and you have to manually raise it up and down with a forklift or crane. But this one had a hydraulic cylinder for that function. So you could disconnect and reconnect the machine relatively easily without making an oil mess. And then all the air hoses would connect the front machine to the rear from a manifold block. I think there were twelve to fourteen air hoses.
“A lot of it you could figure out easily enough on your own. But when Caterpillar bought the patent and started producing their own model, they put out quite a bit of Cat information,” says Spencer. “The parts books and service manuals weren’t very informative, but there were some generic opera- tion and service manuals that we did use. And we found them, believe it or not, in our Peterson li- brary. I couldn’t believe we still had them.”
According to Jack Ravazza, special services man- ager in San Leandro, “it was cool to see the nostal- gia, stuff that was built here in this building, being done again. We all knew we were doing these ma- chines for Duane. He was recreating a little bit of history, and these guys were a part of it. That was cool.”
400 | PETERSON: 85 YEARS AND GOING STRONG
Quad D9G in progress at San Leandro main shop in 2015-2016