Editor's Note: This story was updated June 2, 2023.
The 36-year-old Cat D9L dozer came into the shop with its undercarriage worn out.
The engine and final drives had high hours on them. It had been working hard over the decades pushing Oftedal Construction's scrapers through the craggy terrain of Wyoming and nearby mountainous states.
Finding parts for the old D9Ls was not easy nor were they cheap. A cylinder block set the company back about $12,000 a couple of years ago.
It seemed the old workhorses might be getting too costly to keep in the fleet. Oftedal has nine of them and one it keeps for parts. The dozers have helped build the 57-year-old company, which is now employee-owned with 400 workers at the height of construction season. It has a fleet of 900 pieces of equipment. The earthmoving contractor works on a variety of projects, including highways, power plants and mine reclamation.
"If there's dirt to be moved, we can move it," Shop Manager Aaron Elrod says.
Many of the D9Ls were bought new, maintained and rebuilt over the years because they fit a special niche that no other machine can. Oftedal deploys them to push their fleet of single-engine Cat 631 scrapers. The newer D9R and D9T dozers aren't large enough to push them through the rocky ground, and the company's more powerful D10Rs are a pain to haul. They often require parts to be removed so they can meet the transport weight and size restrictions.
