Nige
Senior Member
D5M ground pressure on 20" shoes - 7.57psi - on 30" shoes - 4.93psi.
D10T on 24" wide shoes - 20.41psi.
Now you see why it should really go on 20" wide shoes........
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Cat LGP tracks versus regular
- Thread starter fencefool
- Start date
D10T on 24" wide shoes - 20.41psi.
Now you see why it should really go on 20" wide shoes........
fencefool
Well-Known Member
Oh well. If they don't measure up right and becomes a problem, I'll cut them down with the hot saw.
Nige
Senior Member
By that time the rest of the undercarriage system will probably already be screwed anyway.
Best plan if you end up buying that machine, pony up for a new pair of track groups with narrow pads and put the LGP track groups in a corner for when you get a swamp job. One machine, more or less the best of both worlds.
:my2c
:my2c
Nige
Senior Member
:iagree
Shimmy1
Senior Member
For someone that needs an LGP half of the time, it's like me and my tracked skid steer. Do I need tracks? Not necessarily, but the increased production and having them when I need them outweigh the con's of increased cost and maintenance. Same with a lot of guys that run wide track crawlers. It's a business decision. Have two machines sitting around, try to rent an LGP when needed, or just have an LGP and accept the consequences. In the kind of ground we have here in ND, I will just have the LGP and be done.
Good viewpoint Shimmy, a person can almost always accomplish with an LGP what a conventional tracked machine can do, but a conventional track machine cannot accomplish what an LGP can do when the footing gets soft.
John C.
Senior Member
LGP machines don't often wear out links and bushings. They generally loosen up in the seals in SALT tracks which lets the oil out which ruins the insides of the bushings and outsides of the pins letting the chains stretch out and run out of pitch. Running on side hills further stresses the link joints making problems show up much faster. They are made for running in loose underfoot conditions where the material will move reducing the side stress on the link joints. A machine that size with the wide pads will generally be able to work in places where a man can't walk through.
A five is a finish machine anyway. The extra blade width in finish work will decrease the time it takes to accomplish the job and likely more than make up for the shorter life of the chains. Also keep in mind that you can usually run two sets of chains and sprockets before you have to replace the bottom rollers and idlers. That might sound OK on the face of it but you are almost doubling you undercarriage costs when working in the hard underfoot applications.
One other item is that it has been my experience that an LGP is more prone to slide on a side hill than a standard gauge machine.
A five is a finish machine anyway. The extra blade width in finish work will decrease the time it takes to accomplish the job and likely more than make up for the shorter life of the chains. Also keep in mind that you can usually run two sets of chains and sprockets before you have to replace the bottom rollers and idlers. That might sound OK on the face of it but you are almost doubling you undercarriage costs when working in the hard underfoot applications.
One other item is that it has been my experience that an LGP is more prone to slide on a side hill than a standard gauge machine.
An LGP five is the top of the line for soft work as far as I know, when things get jelly anything bigger may be okay for making a pass through but if you're doing much turning, the bottom can fall out pretty quick. Watched some video of Morooka dumpers working a levee repair, hauling gumbo off the top of clay and the clay out of the borrow pit to a reload pile going into artics and highway trucks, saw a 1500 Morooka with a good jag on fall through the crust. LGP 5 with pyramid pads made three passes from different directions to find a solid push on the dumper after the load was dumped, bumped the corner and the Morooka popped outta that hole like a cork from a bottle. Stuff was literally like jello, I was truly impressed.
Shimmy1
Senior Member
All good points, John C. Another I might add is the machine your breadwinner, or is it just support equipment. Here in ND, generally all dozers you'll see in that D5/6K, D51/61 Komatsu, 650/700 Deere range will be LGP because they are in the muck most of the time. Then, when you step up to the 6R/T, 65 Komatsu, or 850 Deere, a lot of them will be LGP because the larger road contractors are using them for topsoiling inslopes and backslopes. Since we have quite a lot of wetlands, a fair bit of road ditches are wet and require the LGP. So, once again, instead of having 2 machines, they just have the LGP. I don't know if any of this makes sense to anybody but me, but you have to look long and hard here in ND to find a non-LGP dozer under 40,000 lbs, unless it's a rental. Just the way it is.
Same here Shimmy. If I only have one machine, it NEEDS to be LGP. My second will probably be LGP as well (this week I think). When I grow up and get a third, I'll consider a standard track.
All wet conditions here. Probably wetter than what you deal with. I do very little rock work, tree tipping or heavy digging. That's what the excavators are for. I use my D65 to spread piles, push muck and pull narrow track dozers out of the mud. If I did heavy slot dozing or a lot of land clearing, maybe. Until then I'll live with the disadvantages and reap the huge advantages of a LGP in this country.
It's all application.
All wet conditions here. Probably wetter than what you deal with. I do very little rock work, tree tipping or heavy digging. That's what the excavators are for. I use my D65 to spread piles, push muck and pull narrow track dozers out of the mud. If I did heavy slot dozing or a lot of land clearing, maybe. Until then I'll live with the disadvantages and reap the huge advantages of a LGP in this country.
It's all application.