allis chalmers dd grader

Great looking DD grader John. I have a D grader about the same vintage. Yours looks as if it has had a fairly easy life because I don't see obvious repairs to the pipe frame. My grader and several others that I have seen have all had places on the pipe frame where they have cracked and been welded and reinforced. I see that you have a ripper mounted at the back. I mounted a ripper from a JD 350 crawler loader on the back of mine as I often have to deal with tree roots and rocks. I have also added power steering to mine, added a foot controlled throttle to make it easier to double clutch when shifting between 3rd and 4th gears and moved the hydraulic pump to be driven off the end of the crankshaft. Is your left rear wheel loose or is there just some oil leak. When I got my grader one wheel on each side was loose on their axle. The nuts where tight but the washer under the nuts had come up against a boss at the end of the taper on the axle before the hub could be pushed completely onto the taper. It had been run that way for a considerable length of time as the tapers and keyways all needed to be redone . The machinists cut me cupped washers so that the nuts could properly push the hubs onto the tapered axles. The reason I mention this as I exchanged some emails with a guy that encountered a similar problem with an Allis M65 grader. It had to be a manufacturing defect.