Greg,

Not sure if this is what you are talking about or not, but the Cat dealer I work for here in NJ performed a complete rebuild on a Cat 988A about 5 years ago for a local contractor. The machine had steel track pads wrapped around all four of the tires. The rubber part of the tires had "Caterpillar" molded into them. It was a crazy machine, and even crazier to think that we completely rebuilt this machine in 2005. It was a really big and expensive undertaking for an obsolete machine built in 1967.

I took some pictures of it when it came in to the shop before the rebuilt. At the time I was a field mechanic, and unfortunately, I never had the chance to get pics of it when it was all done. I cant access the pics I have of it right now, as I need to get them recovered from an external hard drive that failed.

-John

Greg, Dad said he worked around 2 992s with that style tire. They only had that style on the front as far as he can recall and only saw them on the 992. About 10 inches wide and the grousers were 1.5 to 2 inches high. The "tire" was like a air bladder and one company had a rubber "shield" made for the side wall to project the air bladder. If you have any questions, shoot me a PM and I'll see if dad can answer any. Hope that hepled.

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Real men drive diesels!

Dystred was developed 0n the 988 and the concept then extended to the 992, it was the forerunner to the Beadless Tyre. Difference was that the Dystred basically used the std rim of the machine and even had bead seat bands, flanges etc like a regular tyre, it had Y shaped links on the outsides set up basically like a dozer track chain the cleats/grousers bolted to.

The beadless tyre as the name implies was in affect a tube on a 2 piece rim with a belt or "driver" around the outside that the grousers attached to.

I vaguely remember some copy right infringement or something like that with a conflict in design to a similar Goodyear product and i think it was in court.

One thing for sure each type of design gave the Cat machines a very unique look and the 992B & C machines when equipped with Beadless Tyres, sound suppression package and real heavy duty V edge rock bucket certainly looked fit for purpose, maybe CCM are reading this!!

Rohan, that is a 992B mate and IMO a classic look about them with the pin on slopped ROPS and Beadless tyres, would not have been dissapointed at all if CCM chose this one to model.

Great to hear Greg, I bet she will look great next to that tracked 988 you did a while back....





Rowan.

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1:25th scale CAT 375L excavator

I was able to find a pick of the 988 the day it arrived at Foley a few years back. This is the only picture of it I can find. We performed a complete rebuild on this machine around 2005 or so. The machine came out really nice. I wish I had taken pictures of it when it was done.

The 988A in the pic I posted went through an almost complete rebuild back in 2005. It was in the shop for almost 6 months, as I recall. We rebuilt the engine, transmission, final drives, all the cylinders. The bucket was completely rebuilt with a brand new base edge and almost the entire shell plate being replaced. The cab was redone with new interior and new glass, and the whole machine was repainted new Cat yellow, but with original decals. I will see if we have any pictures of it laying around at work when it was finished.

The machine was rather rough when we took it in. It did run, but it had been sitting in an abandoned quarry in South Orange, NJ, for quite a few years. The tires were Caterpillar branded, and I remember it took quite a while to get the track joiners from Cat. We had to replace quite a few of them as they many were stripped.

Really cool machine. Would make a nice model.

-John

988 Dystred Cushion Track