The property is almost all peat bog, very soft and very easy to get stuck in. More than once we had the little beast buried so deep that the you couldn't see the tops of the tracks. But I was young and strong and my father-in-law was pretty savvy and, with the help of wood cribbing, come-alongs and a big 'ol stump puller we picked up we always managed to get it out and working. Over the course of 4 or 5 years we managed to open up two home sites and yard out enough timber to make most of the payments on the place.
We were pretty happy with our little "cat" and for years it was a fixture in the yard but ultimately, we pretty much wore it out in spite of the fact that we completely rebuilt all the running gear. I have run my own welding and machine shop since '69 and my FIL was a semi-retired mechanic so we pretty much did everything ourselves--track frames, rollers, front idlers and drive sprockets all got built up at least once. Would have been nice to throw new parts at it but with our budget at the time it wasn't going to happen.
Eventually it got to the point where we seldom needed to use the crawler and when we did it was almost impossible to keep the tracks on. She got parked in a corner of the yard--pretty well abandoned. There was always a thought in my mind that I'd pull her out and do a rebuild and/or restoration but with a wife, six kids and a business to look after the time was never there. My father-in-law died in '81 so I didn't have a "partner" to help me with the project either.
But that little machine has a special place in my mind--I can still see my FIL chugging through the slop pulling a 30" + spruce log out of the bush. I've always felt badly about leaving her sit as long as she has and although I'm 66 now and still working I do have a bit more time and I'm thinking seriously about having a go at "fixing" the crawler.
As you can see from the picture below I don't have much to work with--pretty much a basket case. The first step was to clear away all the brush and blackberries and knock down an alder tree that had grown up between the blade and the rad--kinda gives you an idea of how long she's been sitting. So, for better or for worse, I'm going to drag it out of the bush and see what I can do. Wish me luck, I think I'm gonna need it...
![Image](http://lkeithr.zenfolio.com/img/s1/v46/p839684306-4.jpg)