New to me 1949 Cletrac AG6H

Hello all,

I recently picked up a AG6H at an auction. All of my experience lies with old fords, so this is quite a change for me. I purchased the instructions manual and the parts book for it from Zimmermans. My intention is that my first project will be draining and replacing all fluids before freeze up here in West MI.

I'm really not sure what I have other than what I found on the serial number tag and that it's an old state owned fire dozer.

Are these things great machines? Duds? Hard to find Parts? All opinions and suggestions welcome so that I can get a feel for what I have. There's a lot less resources for these compared to fords. Thanks in advance!

Well the AG6H means it has a Continental F226 engine which still has good parts support. Read the manual before changing the fluids. You need to use the correct oil in the transmission otherwise you will have steering problems. To lubricate the rollers I would use corn head grease instead of oil or gun grease!

I hired on with the State of Michigan as a Fire Officer in 1978. We still had a Cletrac as our backup Fire Dozer at the Gladwin Field Office where I worked. I really liked the thing. Biggest issue was when
it got warmed up, you didn't want to stall it on a fire as it wouldn't want to start. We used 8 volt batteries instead of 6 volt, but when they were good and warm they didn't want to restart. If you had
another dozer around, you could bump start it by pushing it blade to blade. The other thing I heard but never experienced, was that if the gas tank was real full and you were going up a steep hill or if the
blade climbed up a tree, you could get a lap full of gas. Not a good situation on a forest fire! There might still be 2 letters followed by 2 numbers visible on the roof. They were there for our aircraft to
identify and know which unit it was communicating with on the ground. The 2 letters identify which Field Office it was assigned to, and the 2 numbers should be 53 which would identify it as a dozer. It might
also have the letter B behind the number 53 which would indicate it was the second dozer at a particle Field Office if in fact that office had 2 dozers. Enjoy it!

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From what little I've been able to find on these things I've seen that they came with the F226 and that people recommend that corn head oil. Any idea where I can get the applicator can? This one has a FA244 Oliver engine in it...
Interestingly enough, it's got a tag on top of the engine that says Central Repair shop, Gaylord Michigan on it. I don't see any markings on top of it's roof however. I did find the old inventory tag on it though. I did also contact the Gaylord repair shop to see if they could track it down.

Hopefully they can track back to where it was assigned. Curious where you bought it at? I am in the Traverse City area, and though retired stop at the Gaylord Repair Shop occaisonally, and was there a couple
weeks ago.

I bought it from a guy here in Hart (Oceana County). It was only a couple miles away from my house. I called Gaylord repair and spoke with a lady there who said she was going to do some digging. I would really love to find out all I can on it. I actually work in PRD at Ludington SP. Do you know anything on maintaining these machines? Or did you just run them a little?

We just did basic maintenance at the Field Offices. Oil changes, fluid checks, belts, batteries, etc. Anything major went to the Gaylord Shop. I don't recall much about the maintenace on them, ours was only
there the first couple years I was hired on, and that was more than 35 years ago.

The 244 is a larger bore than the 226. For your cornhead grease it is available in tubes that go in a grease gun. You will need to get the fitting that adapts to the rollers.

Bummer. I'm really behind the right ball on this one, very new to crawlers haha

Looks just like the one we had, although ours stayed inside and the paint was real good on it. It sure didn't have that seat on it though! Looks like the hitch for the fire plow might still be on it.

Hard to see clearly, but pretty sure the plow hitch is still on it. Guessing it still has the hydraulics and valve to the rear that was used to raise and lower the fire plow.