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Dozer help

craydul

Member
Joined
Jan 20, 2017
Messages
14
Location
Texas
I’m mainly an excavator op, or so I tell my self. I want to take that mentality out of my head because I think that’s holding me back to be a proficient dozer op. I’m really struggling to keep a nice smooth grade any tips that can help me keep my blade level I know common tips like take it slow and not to adjust my blade as much but to also look at the horizon and not just my both ends of the blade I find dozers for difficult to master than motirgraders btw I’m using a D3K any tips we’ll be help full to me.
 

farmerlund

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 22, 2014
Messages
1,237
Location
North Dakota
Occupation
Farmer/ excavator
Experience is you friend, I am still learning how to be good with my 700J after 5-6 years. some times it helps to angle the blade slightly so it can't bite in. If you get washboards change you direction a little so you are not on top of the same bumps. Its easier to keep it level from the beginning than trying to fix a disaster later. old timer once told me, if your butt goes up lift the blade up, butt goes down blade goes down. just keep on trying to learn it will come to you.
 

John Canfield

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 27, 2009
Messages
431
Location
Texas
Occupation
Ranching
Grading with a dozer is all about seat of the pants feel which can take hundreds of hours to become proficient. Angling the blade is a great tip, it will help to minimize the humps you make.
 

catman13

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 22, 2011
Messages
435
Location
oregon usa
Occupation
refrigeration engineer/excavation contractor
I have cat d5h and I just angle the blade and it make a world of difference
 

John C.

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 11, 2007
Messages
12,865
Location
Northwest
Occupation
Machinery & Equipment Appraiser
All D3s are a pain. They are short and the blade controls too fast. The isn't much horsepower. I liked the small Deere and Dresser dozers far better in all applications.

Go into the monitor and slow the blade response down to the slowest setting. If you are fine grading, run about half throttle was well.
 

bam1968

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 1, 2014
Messages
528
Location
IA
Occupation
Excavating Contractor
When fine grading I have found that it helps to start each pass with a little loose dirt in front of the blade.
 

Tinkerer

Senior Member
Joined
May 21, 2009
Messages
9,342
Location
The shore of the illinois river USA
D3's with hydro-static drive are an sob for finish grading. I ran finish dozers for twenty years before I had to run a D3.
Sorriest finish dozer I ever ran. I never thought I would be running a dozer at reduced throttle because the blade is so damned erratic to control. I hope you have a an LGP model.
If you would have had a chance to run a Deere or Case you never would have gotten near the D3.
OK, rant over.:)
 
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