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I was looking over the Kingsize listings on Nick's web site and I noted he mentions that the Cat tractor on the K8a low loader set is the same casting as the K3a and the blade is just left off. In essence it's basically a true statement except for one detail, there is a hook on the rear of the K8's Cat and none on the K3 Bulldozer. So there were obviously two different molds, one for the K8's Cat and one for the K3's Bulldozer.

This got me wondering if they ever used one in place of the other. Since the blade could be removed from any K3a to pair up with a K8a, a Tractor on a K8 set without a hook could be hard to prove. But, it would be much harder to put a blade on a K8 Cat to get a Bulldozer with a tow hook.

That brings me to my question, does anyone have a K3a Bulldozer with a tow hook on the rear?

There could also be K3 bases on K8 tractors (like the 55/59 fire chief and police cars)

Thats an interesting topic. I think I mentioned it some time ago by the way in any post , but it is a good idea to start an official post on that.
And yes I have a K3a Bulldozers with a tow hook on the rear.
There is also a different exhaust casting, what is not listed.
I will ad some pictures..

Here is a line up showing two K3a with tow hook. One early run with metallrollers, one later run with red plastic rollers.


Here are two picture showing the two different exhaust castings.

This is the unlisted exhaust type. It's on a early K3a with metall rollers.


This is the second type I found on 4 of 5 models in my collection


I will have a look at the bases soon.

Greetings,
Linus

Regarding the bases:
They all share the same Base (K3).

Linus

Tinman wrote:This got me wondering if they ever used one in place of the other. Since the blade could be removed from any K3a to pair up with a K8a, a Tractor on a K8 set without a hook could be hard to prove. But, it would be much harder to put a blade on a K8 Cat to get a Bulldozer with a tow hook.
That brings me to my question, does anyone have a K3a Bulldozer with a tow hook on the rear?
There could also be K3 bases on K8 tractors (like the 55/59 fire chief and police cars)

Hello Joe,

Yes, I have a K3 with blade and hook, a much loved and well played with example from my younger days. I have only seen two others in the past and one of those images attached but sadly missed out on this as an upgrade.

It had me searching for the crossover combinations possibilities for many years.

Back in the days of letter writing and realistic postage I received a K8 transporter but it had a hookless Cat. The days when we relied on sellers description (sounded interesting) as not much in the way of photos back then. I guess the hook had broken and it had been smoothed flat and painted. A previous owner must have thought it ok just to restore without hook. On the plus side the tracks were soft and still are but it did make me wonder what role a Cat without a blade or no hook would have had.

My fleet of these include the casting with the hook but fitted to the K3 base but no blade.(as you suggest above)

To date I have not seen a k8 base on body without hook but with the blade.

In addition to the rollers there are a couple of other variations.
The casting body without the hook can also come with the front chimney (above air filter) in two different heights.

Just like the 18b and 18c there is also the different colour blade to the body colour.

I very much like these kingsize.

Regards
Bert

@ yellowfoden

Are we talking about the same thing?
Yellowfoden

The casting body without the hook can also come with the front chimney (above air filter) in two different heights.

Me

Here are two picture showing the two different exhaust castings.

Greetings,
Linus

Hello Linus,
Very nice line up you have there. Great pics.
Now that was interesting timing , when I logged in your post was not there, so apologies for minor duplication.
So now I have seen two more K3 with hooks and looks like we have similar exhaust variation.
Yes, the shorter exhaust only seems to be on the no hook body.

I will see if I can add some pics over the weekend of the fleet.

All the best
Bert

To avoid confusion, the tall stack is the exhaust, the shorter forward stack is the air intake stack.

I have two Cats from K8 sets left. No anomalies as both have hooks and both have the K8 bases. One of each of the air intake stack types.

I have two Cats with dozer blades. No anomalies, both without hook, both with taller intakes and both with K3 bases.

I wish I had cataloged the features of the ones I sold off, but I didn't. I hope that one day (in the not so distant future) we might begin a Major Pack casting show and a Kingsize casting show. Good information has always been lacking on these series. We have a 1-75 casting show which is, for the most part, redundant since there is tons of info on that series.

Tinman wrote:I hope that one day (in the not so distant future) we might begin a Major Pack casting show...

We do have a member who has told me that he plans to conduct a Nick Jones-style cataloguing exercise for the Major Packs on this Forum with, as a starting point, the U.K. Matchbox and NAMC variation listings. (I won't embarrass the person concerned by naming him/her here.)
Anyone fancy doing the same for Accessory Packs?

To avoid confusion, the tall stack is the exhaust, the shorter forward stack is the air intake stack.

Sorry for that Tinman, thats language barrier from my side. I will concentrate on seperating these two terms.

I have two Cats from K8 sets left. No anomalies as both have hooks and both have the K8 bases.

Could you kindly post a picture of a K8 base? I've never seen one and always assume that both share the K3 base.

It seems that the different parts (bases, bodycasting with/without tow hook) has been mixed on models with or without bulldozerblade.
Next to that we have a casting variation regarding the air intake stack. This detail is found not only on castings without hook as yellowfoden assumed before, because Tinman has a Cat (without blade) with hook and this type 1 air intake stack .

Please correct me if I'am wrong.

A King size/ Major Pack / Accessory Pack cataloguing would be nice. I really like those ranges, but I have less experience (and less models from these ranges) than many other members.
But I would love to participate in this section, in the case it is discussed in the forum.

Greetings,
Linus