Whilst chatting with a friend in 2006, I mentioned my interest in restoring a small Caterpillar crawler. It was not even two months later when he called me with news of the discovery of an old Caterpillar crawler that had been parked in the weeds behind a shed in Kinglake, Vic, for the last 10 years.

During a weekend inspection, I decided to buy it, as to my eyes it looked like a relatively easy project and not needing a lot of work – how little did I know and how naïve was I? 

Impatient to get started on the project now that I was the proud owner, the