Reasonable push distance? Need to come up with a plan

Looking at a job that seems to mimic my own that I need to do next yr. Basically cut a couple ponds to create privacy berms. The location of the berms will first be stripped back of topsoil so it can be reapplied.


Haul distance would be around 800ft at the furthest part, but there is also discussion of putting ponds further away, which would make distance about 1000ft. The total job is probably close to 5000yds of digging/moving, not counting the topsoil scraping.

I have a D7E with SU blade but I have never run calcs to figure out how much it can move and at what distance it becomes impractical. I know some guys will probably push 1000ft just because that is all they have, but not looking to kill a UC over it.

The goal is to minimize equipment and personnel on the job. Obviously the hoe and a couple ADTs would do this but ADTs are not even common around here. The hauling really could get done by highway tandems but then they are on the clock doing very little but sitting.

I had a thought to bulk dirt out of the ponds and run a loader either back/forth, or filling trucks, but then that seems silly due to double handling.

The size of the ponds will probably be 1/2ac or so. Just not big enough for a scraper IMO. I think some of them could just be pushed up with the dozer and later transition to the hoe if/when needed. I want to see pretty steep banks that making doing the bank final easier with the hoe.

So, I need some help optimizing the job. I don't mind buying equipment if it will work, but I need a strategy. I also had a thought to sort of lay material out with the dozer so I could get a pull pan for the tractor, but I am not sure how that would go trying to grab traction over freshly spoiled dirt. Sounds like a traction problem!

EDIT: to me more clear, I am looking for ideas, but being in the dozer section, I need a way to determine how much I can move with the dozer over time. I have reasonable cycle rates for everything with a bucket, but pushing....I just don't know. I don't want to push up a pond but digging with the hoe is faster. I am pretty sure scraping the topsoil and top 3-5ft would be a no brainer for a dozer. At some point, it seems more practical to get the material out of the hole so I can focus on moving it.

I think cat has production numbers for dozers that include pushing distances, but from memory, i think anything over about 300 feet, its better to load it and haul it. I'm thinking for a pond that 2 trucks would be best to keep the hoe working? If things get squishy it may get interesting, are pull pans behind a tractor available? They could self load or get loaded by a hoe. ADT would certainly be the best bet.

What a old strip miner told me is if its more then 3 minutes from when the edge hits the dirt till it hits for the next turn that it is cheap to load and hual it. I can't say one way or the other

You need to hitch up a Scraper behind your D7 and get moving that dirt, nothing wrong with a cable scraper they have shifted soil for 80 years and more, if you get a hydraulic scraper it might fit better with you, but don't be scared of running a cable outfit as they are easy to use and very low cost to run, to push soil 200 ft is just a waste of time and tractor, with a scraper you dig carry and tip with 1 tractor and 1 driver it's the cheapest dirt you will ever move, with a D6 R or T lgp dozer every push of around 60 ft cost's a £1 in the U.K. if you pull in Dump Trucks you need an excavator to load them and a dozer to level their mess, so that's 3 more wages to find and more fuel, then there is brake down time to consider, if the excavator has a problem that's 3 men standing, 1 D7E hooked up to a CAT 70 Scraper would eat the job and do 10 more jobs like it. tctractors p.s. on the load total i would expect you to easily manage 8 to 10 loads an hour with an easy to get 12 to 13 cube yards, so it's not hard to get a pen and paper out and see that little job would take a week for the bulk dig and a day or so to tidy up.

A scraper is something that I just have never done. Many guys around here pull them with a built ag tractor. Usually a fleet, and they do move mountains.

However, not ever doing this, I am curious if you just build a decent ramp out of the pond and shape when done? One of the concerns I had was in a smaller pond, not being able to get loaded in the limited space. Again, no experience with pans. Soils here would be loam topsoils and mostly clay but as we near the bottom, I am certain to get into a little gray shale and I know pond will have to get clay lined.

But that does bring concern in shale as I know someone else that did a pond, hit a spring, and he has a lifetime leaker. My goal would be to work the whole area down in cuts so we can salvage as much material as possible in case of a spring. Matter of fact, my own neighbor had this exact thing happen, but luckily the pond was mostly done and now just stays full. Lucky b*****d.....

If you take the blade off of the dozer when it is pulling a pan your production will skyrocket !
I worked along side D-9's that had the dozer blades and the belly pans removed.
for pulling scrapers.

fastline said:

But that does bring concern in shale as I know someone else that did a pond, hit a spring, and he has a lifetime leaker. .

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That feller could have stopped the leak with Bentonite.
https://lonestarbarite.com/products/sodium-bentonite-pond-sealing/
I mixed hundreds of semi loads of it with regular on site clay and then made a slurry out of it to seal trenches around garbage dumps.

Tinkered why would they pull the belly pans off seems risky to me

Tinkerer said:

If you take the blade off of the dozer when it is pulling a pan your production will skyrocket !
I worked along side D-9's that had the dozer blades and the belly pans removed.
for pulling scrapers.

That feller could have stopped the leak with Bentonite.
https://lonestarbarite.com/products/sodium-bentonite-pond-sealing/
I mixed hundreds of semi loads of it with regular on site clay and then made a slurry out of it to seal trenches around garbage dumps.

Click to expand...

How in the world do you get a spring sealed? What I am seeing, he hit a spring which allowed water in, partially filled the pond. Then as it rains and tries to fill the pond, the hydrostatic head pushes water back down. If there is a way to stop s spring leak, I'd love to hear it.

I did a little work just the other day and was about 6ft below the pond waterline as I cut into the bank to get some material for a repair. I got a good leak pretty quick so I grabbed a bucket of clay, threw it on it, and smacked it down. It helped slow it down at least but then I got rushed to drag as much dry material out as I could. It was on.

fastline; I quoted part of your post about the pond that leaked.
Sand points can be used effectively in the right soils for springs and high amounts of seepage filling an excavation. Not cheap for sure.
Tyler; I don't know. I would guess to make the tractor lighter. Those D9's were really fast !
We were working in clay. No rocks to worry about hitting the oil pans. Plus there were some really good operators running them.

With my luck I'd find a tusk for along lost critter and tear a hole in something or a hose off

Many years ago, I ran a self loading paddle scraper on some pond work. I was able to cut, load, maintain my haul road, dump, compact and level the grade of the fill with the one machine. It was a very efficient method of moving dirt. I just hated the fact that it was top heavy and tippy. I did not like the amount of time I spent on 3 tires!

I've seen a few of the old machines locally, maybe 8-12 yard machines, that sell for $10k-$15k.

I nearly bought a 633 several years ago. Needed work. Made offer. Seller declined so ran it through an auction. It brought less..... I was pissed. Guy was an idiot.

I am just not sure on making a bowl shaped pond with a scraper. Or even doing something like berms at drop zone. When the big pan pull guys around doing housing stuff, they do massive hills of dirt. Not saying this can't be done, just not yet sure of my comfort level.

A towed rope scraper behind your D7 would be my best idea.
If you are doing ponds,simply have plenty of rope on your hoist drum.That allows you to dig very deep on the edges and snatch a load out in a small or confined space

Get yourself a Caterpillar Performance Handbook. It will have charts and calculations to help you determine an efficient way to move dirt with your dozer. The charts will show (in graph form) production with distance as a factor. As I recall it one can't beat the efficiency of moving dirt with a dozer, of your =/< 300'. That doesn't mean that you can't push the dirt 800 to 1,000'. It may not be as efficient as scrapers but you said you wanted to do it without help. a 7E S/U will be pushing around 9 yards. More if you slot doze (20 to 30%). Since you already own the dozer it seems pretty straight forward.
Scrapers are a great way to move mass quantities over distance. Firm soils and/or short loading distances will hurt production rates. Lack of haul road maintenance will too. Regardless this is certainly a viable option as well. I would think that a 1/2 acre pond (+/-21k sq. ft.?) would be enough room to get them loaded if the soil is not too hard. They can stack dirt into a berm as well but one must start wide as they do not do very well with side slopes. It will require a dozer to shape the ponds and berms to the desired finish. Since you have one already this shouldn't present much of an issue.
I've never understood pulling scrapers with steel tracked tractors. I have only seen this set-up east of the Rockies. I can't imagine how the cost of running steel tracks is ever less expensive than ag tractors or straight up self-propelled scrapers. I've never personally run a cost comparison but it doesn't seem to make sense. If the dirt is hard then you'll possibly need a push-cat to help get them loaded.
Excavators and ADTs are also a viable option. One sees this method more and more. This is a very versatile way to get things done..... But it takes personnel.

if you can keep a good road I would just hire solo dump trucks and be done with it.
you'd start with two trucks and end up with four when things got going well and knock it out pretty quickly.
If you can't make money doing it that way then you shouldn't be doing it at all.

The Bulk muck to shift you have as 5'000 cube its to small a quantity to get a team of Dump Trucks in, if you want to wear your D7 out pushing a 1'000 yard trips use the front to back dozing method, so that is start where you want to finish your push by dozing 15 or so ft off, then reverse back over the track you have pushed by the similar distance and push off another 15 or so ft but keep it within the slot you have made and so on, this keeps the soil on the blade and as already said by others is Slot Dozing, always leave a small margin between slots to aid soil retention on the blade, never start pushing from the back all the way forward as this is very unproductive and a pure waste of fuel and day light, but still you will find the best method is to hitch up a scraper behind your D7 then you can be the Master of the Muck Shift. tctractors

Really appreciate all the input guys! No problem considering both the scraper and the dig/truck methods. When I mentioned pushing a long distance, I was not implying that was a direction I was willing to go, but rather that I have heard of some people doing that. Due to the cost of a UC, I just won't do that to my equipment. If it was a big, expensive job, maybe.

What I was trying to get hammered out was the push volume of the dozer. I mention this as I know it can vary depending on soil and moisture. I have pushed dirt that was wet clay and it clumped and I could get an insane heap going. Obviously sand is at the opposite end of that.

I'd say 300ft is probably my person limit before doing something different unless it was a really small situation. Because of the variables for a dozer, I have never been able to quantify the production very well. I guess I have never tried to dig a pond with a dozer, then I would just know!

I do have a CAT performance handbook somewhere but usually I can find other math points to guide me. Just not the case with the dozer for right now. Not enough bulking jobs where I can just get after it.

On the hoe, I know I can cycle about 6yd/min in clay/loam soil, 180* swing, max reach, just dig and spoil, no trucks. The issue I see with a hoe here is I either need to get down in the hole, or dig to finish depth and work my way around. Going right to final depth can present issues if a spring pops up. IMO, much better to drop down in lifts, which scrapers and dozing can do it better. I mean, I guess I could work out a way to drop down with the hoe, just doing a little thinking out loud on here.

Just to be clear, I won't be doing any 1000ft slot dozing here. I was just looking at "popping" and pushing the dirt out of the hole, then deal with it. Just not sure if the hoe or dozer would do that faster.

fastline said:

Really appreciate all the input guys! No problem considering both the scraper and the dig/truck methods. When I mentioned pushing a long distance, I was not implying that was a direction I was willing to go, but rather that I have heard of some people doing that. Due to the cost of a UC, I just won't do that to my equipment. If it was a big, expensive job, maybe.

What I was trying to get hammered out was the push volume of the dozer. I mention this as I know it can vary depending on soil and moisture. I have pushed dirt that was wet clay and it clumped and I could get an insane heap going. Obviously sand is at the opposite end of that.

I'd say 300ft is probably my person limit before doing something different unless it was a really small situation. Because of the variables for a dozer, I have never been able to quantify the production very well. I guess I have never tried to dig a pond with a dozer, then I would just know!

I do have a CAT performance handbook somewhere but usually I can find other math points to guide me. Just not the case with the dozer for right now. Not enough bulking jobs where I can just get after it.

On the hoe, I know I can cycle about 6yd/min in clay/loam soil, 180* swing, max reach, just dig and spoil, no trucks. The issue I see with a hoe here is I either need to get down in the hole, or dig to finish depth and work my way around. Going right to final depth can present issues if a spring pops up. IMO, much better to drop down in lifts, which scrapers and dozing can do it better. I mean, I guess I could work out a way to drop down with the hoe, just doing a little thinking out loud on here.

Just to be clear, I won't be doing any 1000ft slot dozing here. I was just looking at "popping" and pushing the dirt out of the hole, then deal with it. Just not sure if the hoe or dozer would do that faster.

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Why not try a Scraper behind your D7, after a few laps you will love it for the amount of soil shifted also for the effective way the outfit works, I have just finished a small bit of a Job with a Komatsu D65E and Scraper moving a total of 9'800 cubic Metres, the Tractor made very easy work of the task that was a tricky dig due to big chunks of concrete etc, then a long ride to tip with the turn spot at the very end of the fill. tctractors

No issue with the scraper! Other than cost, finding one, and the issue with cables. I only have a single drum winch. I am not opposed to converting to hydro, but there is yet more work and effort.

I think every time I looked at pull scrapers, the price moved me towards motor scrapers, but I also know many of those don't do well with self loading. Elevating can, but are slower, or twin engine, which is probably insane expensive to own/operate.

I did see one guy on YT running a very custom D9 with modified pull pan arrangement. I really want to see that go! Seems more power would be a plus here. Not sure I want to hassle with removing blade as you can bet as soon as I do, I will need to doze something.

I had another thought here. Just a thought. I know several guys with end dumps as well as belly dumps. My lowboy guy also moves grain and runs a belly. I have never tried to move dirt in such a thing, but certainly see sand in them. He also has an end dump, and my best friend also just bought one. because I am strictly offroad, I don't know how heavy I can load one but assume it will comedown to the terrain and traction issues.

I don't see this done very often and probably a reason. I know end dumps can be very dicey, and like to roll.

I see it like this, if the general conditions will support trucking:
Somebody loading trucks with the excavator, rough cutting to grade. D7 finishes to the hoe, maintains the road and dozes the fill.
I'd figure ~50 loads per truck-day, 500 yards, 10 truck-days total. Put on 3 trucks and done in 4 days.