Oc-46 Motors, good years to target

45cole · Jul 22, 2020

I'm in the market for an oc-46 (heavier duty, more made for use than oc-3) and I understand that there are two basic groups, series a and series b. A's were original and had 4 cyl gas (mostly) and the series b's are 3 cyl gas/diese with a different appearance.

Overall is there an accepted bias towards one variant of the 46 over the others? I absolutely need one of these for general have-to-have-one reasons. I'll find something to do with it, but I don't have a task I have to have done. Looking at a series a with loader and scarifier. Figure all the crawlers go for ~1500 (not sure if it runs but looks good group) and more the better condition.

Looking for what everybody knows, ie stay away from xxx and "you really want xxx". Are the 4 cyl engines pretty good, I know they are not sleeved and people say the 3 cyls run circles around them.

Looked at cletrac.org, but looks like that place is pretty low on members.

MikeS55d · Jul 27, 2020

I have a OC3 and and first year (1957) OC46 which has the 4 cylinder engine. The new 3 cylinder engine was not ready when the OC46 started production so Oliver just continued to use the 4 cylinder OC3 engine for the first year. The 3 cylinder engine is probably twice the power of the 4 cylinder, the OC46 is close to twice the weight of the OC3 although the 4 speed transmission helps somewhat to offset the extra weight. If you are going to do any work with a OC46 the 3 cylinder is the preferred engine.

The series A and B is not defined by the engine but more to styling and improvements. All 4 cylinders where early Series A. It is sort of like Corvettes, The first ones where 6 cylinder powered until the V8 engine was introduced.

All OC46's have loaders (there are a few, very few, exceptions) and there were tons of options from auxiliary transmissions to 3 point hitches.

Most of the Cletrac/Oliver discussion has moved over to Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/cletracgroup/

45cole · Jul 28, 2020

MikeS55D, thanks for the info, that's what I was after. Is there any preference between the late A's and the B's? I assume you can flip the bucket down and crudely doze with it (saw this in a Oliver ad for the ware loader). Are the parts interchangeable between the oc-46's (other than engines and some body parts?

Oc-46 Motors, good years to target

45cole

Member

MikeS55d

Member

45cole

Member

Similar threads