Operator Francis Kus Manjawg loves the additional productivity the Allied arch gives him. More logs, more pay.
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A new generation of W6F winch is bringing greatly improved skidding performance to Caterpillar 527 track skidders. The W6F winches have many years of proven reliability in Malaysia. The direct drive version of W6F, the W6FDD, was the standard offering on the previous Caterpillar D6D direct drive tractors for the past 30 years. Samling, one of the major logging companies in Malaysia, has several hundred W6F DD winches mounted on their Caterpillar tractor fleet. The current W6F Power-controlled (PC) winch shares a common gear train, shaft and drum with the DD version, but adds self-contained, hydraulically controlled multi-disk oil clutches and brake.
A huge advantage for the W6F winch is that it is designed to support the loading from a logging arch. The Allied arch features heat-treated rollers for long wear, load bearing arch support brackets to transfer the load back to the tractor rear face, and careful placement to maintain tractor balance. This keeps the tracks on the ground, enabling the tractor to pull multiple heavy logs at one time. Preliminary results indicate that adding an arch helps boost the track skidder productivity by 20 percent, making it a very savvy investment.
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Shorter Lead Time! Finally! Lead times are starting to drop to a more reasonable level. Thanks to some major increases in our production capacity and some new manufacturing procedures, we are now in a position to quote 3-month lead time on all winches of size W5C and larger. Even better, all W3C winches are now at 30 days. We don’t want to let our lead time keep you from winning an order. If you have an order you know you can close with a shorter lead time, give us a call and we’ll do all that we can to help you out. |
Tractors Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. (TMB), the local Caterpillar dealer, is known for its expertise and customer support, especially in the logging and construction industries. One of their keys to success is their heavy emphasis on operator and customer mechanic training. To support TMB, Allied sent Territory Managers Dan Lanxon and James Smith to job sites in Sarawak and Sabah, Malaysia to conduct on-site winch training. TMB sent Chiang Kwong Hoong and Khew Kok Leong to assist.
Mechanics at the training sessions opened up the winch, studied the gear train, and traced through the hydraulic schematics. After understanding the hydraulics, they found that the winch was as simple to service as the DD model. Each mechanic used a single pressure gauge to answer troubleshooting questions such as:
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The weight-balanced W6F winch enables the Cat 527 to keep its tracks on the ground, so that it can pull two logs at a time. |
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With the training, they can now rule out or pinpoint any problem before opening a single service cover, with the winch still mounted on the tractor.
“One pressure gauge does it all. It tells whether the clutch is fully engaged, brake fully released, and winch adequately cooled,” said Chan Hui Kwong, the Chief Mechanic at the Samling logging camp in Sarawak, Malaysia. That was the consensus of the mechanics at the two Allied winch training sessions in Malaysia. They all agreed that the Allied W6F winch is easy to operate and service.
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Mr. Wee Chong Seng, Assistant General Manager of Equipment Management at Samling, sees one more benefit from the simplicity of the Allied winch—operator training. Keeping things simple and clear certainly helps.
Allied engineers make it even easier by putting green and red bands on the face of the gauge. “We now have a simple and clear guideline to the operator. If it is green, operate it. If it is red, stop and call the mechanics,” said Wee.
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