The Ultimate Small Dozer

[Willie B]

And this one here has a four ripper set up, now that's a power house.

Truck Shop

View attachment 174773

Buried under a pile of rocks (it wasn't worth the commitment to restore) I have a Roto-ette. It's the predecessor to the Troy Built roto tiller. One wheel behind the engine, & the tiller was two very short augers. Might have tilled 18" wide, with a gap in the middle.

 

[Willie B]

Oh, I see, posting dirty pictures now! Short tracked JD 350 with snow grousers (mostly worn) Just completed putting in a driveway so an astronomy group could utilize a couple abandoned fields as parking lot and observatory area. The road was about 5' below the edge of the fields rock wall and there was a big void on the other side, nudged the rock wall into the void and pushed excess dirt atop that to make a 20 foot wide driveway entrance, spread two triaxle loads of gravel atop that. First load leveled it out and then I set to trimming back the edges and cleaning up the slope and approach flare, it came out looking pretty nice.

My friend had a 350. It had been a bog tractor with some ridiculously wide tracks on it. Blade was equally wide. Whether the set up for wide tracks was John Deere, or a machine shop build, I don't know. By the time he got it it had standard tracks, but set very wide. He did a lot of land clearing on overgrown farm land with 16" diameter trash trees. Burning a pile of brush pushing into the fire, a track derailed. He had a panicked minute crabbing away with one track, decided he best not do that any more.

 

[Truck Shop]

 

[materthegreater]

Any thoughts on this?

Case Minotaur

 

[Welder Dave]

Have to wait and see how operators like it for dozing.

 

[Willie B]

A real dozer has a disadvantage of the operator not able to see the bottom corners of the blade. Mine has about an 8' blade with about 6' track width. Only with the blade square across, can I see the bottom corners.
I'd have to run one of these to say, but the advantage of most skid steers or track loaders is the operator can see the whole cutting edge of the bucket. Makes grading easier.
This looks to be a very narrow blade & it mounts very close to the track idler, so I'm not sure how visible things might be.

 

[DGODGR]

A real dozer has a disadvantage of the operator not able to see the bottom corners of the blade. Mine has about an 8' blade with about 6' track width. Only with the blade square across, can I see the bottom corners.
I'd have to run one of these to say, but the advantage of most skid steers or track loaders is the operator can see the whole cutting edge of the bucket. Makes grading easier.
This looks to be a very narrow blade & it mounts very close to the track idler, so I'm not sure how visible things might be.

I find the blade visibility (particularly to the corners) is better on a dedicated dozer (I run a D5k). Whenever I have run a skid steer with a dozer blade attachment (admittedly only a few times) the loader arms obstruct the view of the blade corners.

 

[CM1995]

Whenever I have run a skid steer with a dozer blade attachment (admittedly only a few times) the loader arms obstruct the view of the blade corners.

How bad did you mess up to get that contraption as punishment?

 

[ClarkBailey1969]

Here’s our little fella dozer (Mitsubishi)

 

[cuttin edge]

I find the blade visibility (particularly to the corners) is better on a dedicated dozer (I run a D5k). Whenever I have run a skid steer with a dozer blade attachment (admittedly only a few times) the loader arms obstruct the view of the blade corners.

Being a grader guy, I like an angle blade tractor. I ran our D6 today, and it erks me to no end that I can't see the corners. Tractor guys always tell me to look at the back of the blade between the track and frame, but I would still like to see the corners, or at least one.

 

[DGODGR]

How bad did you mess up to get that contraption as punishment?

You might find it even funnier if you consider the following:
I am the boss, and therefore there was no punishment handed down....I actually chose it each time.

I'm not sure if you're poking fun at the me running the skid with the dozer blade, me running a skid, regardless of the attachment, or both. In truth, I used to scoff at skid steers and thought that they were nothing more than glorified wheel barrels. I bought my first one (an '06 Bobcat A300) and grew to find the places that they work well and now even enjoy running them. They have their place in my opinion. Now putting a dozer blade on them...I still haven't found a my "happy place" with that set up.

Being a grader guy, I like an angle blade tractor. I ran our D6 today, and it erks me to no end that I can't see the corners. Tractor guys always tell me to look at the back of the blade between the track and frame, but I would still like to see the corners, or at least one.

I'm definitely NOT a blade hand but I still like seeing the corners too. I usually try to set up my pushes so that I can and then angle (if I need to) after I begin pushing/cutting. I have found that this seems to work pretty good and one gets even better at it after putting some time in.

 

[CM1995]

Just messing with you DG.

I’ve tried a 6 way blade on an 863 Bobcat once - what an abomination that attachment is on a skid steer.

 

[1693TA]

When I first purchased my 1845C tractor I installed new tires with ballast and "demo'd" a new "Grouser" brand six way dozer blade attachment for it. Not only was there not enough power available, there also wasn't enough weight. I couldn't even approach a full blade load and with any angle set the tractor would not push straight but rather want to slip to a side.

I used my TLB to do the spreading of the gravel for the drives and parking area(s) as this wasn't going to work. I did use the skid steer to backdrag and groom with my bucket once the gravel was placed. As mentioned above the six way blade was an "abomination" in the application I found, but at the time I had very little seat time in the tractor.

I have no problems pushing snow with a 102" wide "Meyer" snowplow modified to fit the skid steer plate, but there is still not enough tractive effort to the ground for even light gravel work.

 

[Welder Dave]

I think the problem is the blade gets too much load too easily and the force on the cutting edge causes the machine weight balance all on the front wheels. It basically digs in and doesn't have enough counter weight at the back to prevent it. Skid shoes prevent this on a snow blade but don't work very darn good in dirt. I imagine a CTL is a little better but still too short to get the right weight balance. Pushing from the loader arms probably contributes to this as well. That's why this Case machine has extra push arms down low and a completely redesigned dozer blade attachment. If it actually works properly could be a bit of a game changer.

 

[Willie B]

All snow blades I've seen for skid steer are pivoting so the loader can be frozen in one position to plow with the blade floating to follow terrain. Snow being less dense than driveway, shoes do the trick. That ain't gonna work on dirt.
A "Harley Rake" uses gauge wheels to follow terrain, I'm not sure that will work with a dozer blade.

 

[craig60]

The Sutter 480 has been working out pretty well for me. Got some good use out of it this spring and summer.
Cleaned up a slide and a lot of other things.
Tried to send some picture, but it said the file is too big.

 

[JD955SC]

First of all I am not a dozer expert by any means but have owned a few. Our new D3 (formerly the D5K) is one fine small dozer. Cat refined their small dozer line as they were falling behind with the G and K series IMO which resulted in a very well balanced finish tractor.

Ours is LGP so that has something to do with balance. Speed is infinitively proportioned along with power to the ground. Only have 300 hours on it and of course it has a lot of electronics so time will be the true judge.

View attachment 249885

I haven’t worked on the newest redesigns yet but the K series were very much easy machines to work on for many service operations. much better than working on a D6N. The Ks also seemed overall quite reliable when taken care of.

the new D5 (D6N’s new dress) is supposed to have a cab that pulls off in a few hours easily at least.

 

[catalystgilles]

https://olympic.craigslist.org/hvo/d/carlsborg-cletrac-model-restored/7403514063.html
View attachment 249877

Wow! Scrolling back through this thread and wasn't expecting to see the cletrac. That was my post. Ended up selling it to a guy in Michigan for $4k.

 

[DGODGR]

First of all I am not a dozer expert by any means but have owned a few. Our new D3 (formerly the D5K) is one fine small dozer. Cat refined their small dozer line as they were falling behind with the G and K series IMO which resulted in a very well balanced finish tractor.

Ours is LGP so that has something to do with balance. Speed is infinitively proportioned along with power to the ground. Only have 300 hours on it and of course it has a lot of electronics so time will be the true judge.

View attachment 249885

In this quote you (CM) mention that your opinion was that Cat was falling behind with their small dozers. This makes for, what I believe to be the opening of an interesting discussion. I have heard many folks talk about the superiority of Deere dozers with the introduction of the J models (some may even say with the H models). While I haven't been in the seat of a J model Deere, I have been in an H, and I've been in several Cats (C, G, Ks). I personally don't see the small Cat dozers falling behind. I currently own a D5K, and have always felt that Cat dozers have set the bar that others strive to reach. I would love open this discussion to hear what other owners and operators think.
I'll start by saying that performance, longevity, support, and re-sale (maybe other things too) should be part of the criteria for the discussion. I have already said that I haven't operated any Deere newer than an H, and I don't think that those on par with the Cats.
Are the J, K, and P (has anyone even run one of those yet?) dozers better performers than the Cats?
If so, in what way? Even if the J's and K's are superior performers, how much so?
In my opinion, the Cat dozers have superior undercarriage, bushings and pins, and better longevity over all. Is that disputed?

 

[Whordell]

First of all I am not a dozer expert by any means but have owned a few. Our new D3 (formerly the D5K) is one fine small dozer. Cat refined their small dozer line as they were falling behind with the G and K series IMO which resulted in a very well balanced finish tractor.

Ours is LGP so that has something to do with balance. Speed is infinitively proportioned along with power to the ground. Only have 300 hours on it and of course it has a lot of electronics so time will be the true judge.

View attachment 249885

I have to disagree. I do not like the way the new cat line D3 are balanced. The LGP does help it some. The older G and K models were built to be a little front end heavy to where it helped with slope climbing and also we put a winch on everything and the winch balanced them out nicely, especially for skidding logs. We have a few new D3 with winches on our new job and I actually hate them, especially for pulling anything. They just feel so light in the front end now.