Deere's Quad dozer a must see!!!

[Greg]

Don't put those rubber tracks in the rock. I have seen the same set up on the large CASEIH ag tractors.

 

[EZ TRBO]

i'll throw out a specialty market idea.....

worked around a large dairy in school, they chopped silage and packed it in bunkers. mounted (or deas terms "rube goldberged") a dozer blade to a 9400 ag tractor. something with tracks would have more push and pack for something like making silage bunkers.

how about guys in peat or composting applications? might be a decent snow pusher?

i'm going to talk out of the other side of my mouth and say i would think that would be a little too niche to engineer a completely seperate unit for...

I have also thought bout your idea for the silage side but one large dairy we have done a ton of work for claims that they dont' have the PSI that a rubber tire machine does. That makes sense as most track machines will spread the weight out over a larger area where as the rubber tires ground contact is of a smaller area.

Trbo

 

[95zIV]

I have also thought bout your idea for the silage side but one large dairy we have done a ton of work for claims that they dont' have the PSI that a rubber tire machine does. That makes sense as most track machines will spread the weight out over a larger area where as the rubber tires ground contact is of a smaller area.

Trbo

You're right, tracked machines don't apply nearly the pressure that wheeled machines do. If anyone doubts that, put a leech field in then run a 310 TLB over on section, and say a 550 sized dozer over another section and see which section is crushed.

 

[Turbo21835]

You're right, tracked machines don't apply nearly the pressure that wheeled machines do. If anyone doubts that, put a leech field in then run a 310 TLB over on section, and say a 550 sized dozer over another section and see which section is crushed.

Hmmm, I remember a member here talking about food plots. He said using a wide track dozer would be bad for the food plots because it weighed more than the tractor.

I will say this. You can make pretty good compaction with a tracked machine if you spread material in thin lifts. Ive done some fills with clay in small sq foot areas. Small being relatively speaking. I needed better access to a topsoil pile. I pushed all the topsoil and mud out of the way. Then started pushing clay into place in about 4-6 inch lifts. Then tracked it in the with D6 I was pushing with. You should have seen the dirt cop flip out. He told me there was no way I could make density that the parking lot required. Had him test, I hit the numbers on the dot. Would I want to use a dozer to compact all my fills. Hell no.

I still think this dozer is more of a pan puller. To me it doesnt have a wide enough real world application. Cant use in rock, cant clear with it. Im willing to bet is better balanced than a Case quad track with that heavy blade hanging off the front. I wouldnt have a problem send a few to a job to strip topsoil, and maybe run my cut to fills. But with all those dozer blades on site, its going to be like having too many cooks in the kitchen, they are going to ruin the soup

 

[North Texan]

Interesting looking machine that's obviously intended to specialize in something. I just have no clue what that is.

To be honest, my first thought was it might be useful with a Fecon-type clearing head attached to the front of it, assuming it has a hydraulic pump capable of handling that level of flow.

I don't see an ag market for it. Most ag tractors do their best on about a 55/45 front/back weight split. Vary from that too far, and a lot of them will start crow hopping. It has decent rear visibility, but on an ag tractor, it is very helpful to be able to see the hitch.

It might push silage around ok, but the tracks wouldn't be very helpful for trying to pack it down and get all the air out.

 

[iron kid]

Needs a three point so it can pull a small pan too. I live in dubuque were they are testing them, i seen this thing work its fast. Great for road work.

 

[EZ TRBO]

Hmmm, I remember a member here talking about food plots. He said using a wide track dozer would be bad for the food plots because it weighed more than the tractor.

I will say this. You can make pretty good compaction with a tracked machine if you spread material in thin lifts. Ive done some fills with clay in small sq foot areas. Small being relatively speaking. I needed better access to a topsoil pile. I pushed all the topsoil and mud out of the way. Then started pushing clay into place in about 4-6 inch lifts. Then tracked it in the with D6 I was pushing with. You should have seen the dirt cop flip out. He told me there was no way I could make density that the parking lot required. Had him test, I hit the numbers on the dot. Would I want to use a dozer to compact all my fills. Hell no.

I still think this dozer is more of a pan puller. To me it doesnt have a wide enough real world application. Cant use in rock, cant clear with it. Im willing to bet is better balanced than a Case quad track with that heavy blade hanging off the front. I wouldnt have a problem send a few to a job to strip topsoil, and maybe run my cut to fills. But with all those dozer blades on site, its going to be like having too many cooks in the kitchen, they are going to ruin the soup

Turbo, I was thinking about your comment on using a dozer to compact small amounts of fill dirt in small lifts. With our 15's we have done just that many times as well with clay. Working in a small location on the side of a previously built manure lagoon we hauled clay fill in with dump trucks and my uncle did the entire site with just the dozer and we achived a very good compaction rate. There is a difference between clay and silage, silage doesnt really PACK in like clay does. Pack in an area of clay then try to dig it by hand, very hard to do so. Take an area of packed silage and do the same and you can remove it easier, just the difference in materials you are working with.

Trbo

 

[KMB83]

turbo21835,

in the food plot arena that wasn't me thinking tracks compact more than tires... i know better than that!

i was thinking a silage application because when they got done its in the 2-1 slope range on a bunker and tires just dont do as well on slopes. your probably right in the long run on a pull pan, why would they engineer a vehicle just for silage bunkers & other off beat duties.

ezturbo has it right that stuff has a lot different charateristic than a clay as far as packing

 

[hvy 1ton]

HSD for silage

Heres a video of a farm in CA using a d6 and JD 9000 series to push and pack silage. Take note that the JD is wheeled.
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=CiDJCASvelQ&feature=channel
It can be done i've read many arugments on the web about the subject. I've come to believe that tracked ag tractors don't have enough weight to pack but, dozers have the weight to pack and can push harder.

I still think that the HSD was designed as a bridge between a dozer and grader for finish grading.

 

[KMB83]

cracked open my deere stock holders annual report (while sitting in my fine mahogany trimmed study.....or maybe just over my dinner table with crumbs on it from last nights dinner) to find to a picture of something i recognized, the very topic of this thread.

quote: "Primed to set the standard for speed and productivity, the John Deere 764 HSD is the industry's first articulated, tracked, high speed dozer. New for 2009, it can handle finish grading at twice the speed of other machines and not damage surfaced areas while in transit"

in a year or two we will know how many of the random ideas put forth earlier by me and others this thing can do. but the manufacture has spoken.

 

[OzDozer]

I'm with JimInOz. These things will be a money pit. Just got word from a mate about how a Case Quadtrac undercarriage rebuild, will set you back a cool AU$100K (about US$65K). Compare that to a D9L undercarriage rebuild at AU$70K - and hightracks are regarded as having expensive undercarriage repairs. Speed costs with any tracked machines, and if ya wanna race around at high speed, be prepared to pay for it.
Anyone ever seen any figures on tank undercarriage costs, and lifespan?? They look great, racing around at 40MPH, but it's lucky we got the military to pay for them, 'cos no-one else could afford them.
Even in WW2, tank track costs and (short) life were a nightmare, and the authorities stopped driving tanks from state to state, here in Australia, during WW2 .. and trucked and railed them instead .. due to the tanks requiring major track rebuilds, often just after 1000 miles of driving at road speeds ..
Modern rubber undercarriage designs have better life .. but no-one ever mentions anything about rebuild costs ..

 

[Greg]

:Banghead If it is so great why didn't Tucker Snowcats start building them for this application 30 years ago. That is how long this setup has been around. Face it. Rubber tracks are not meant to do heavy dozer work.:ban

 

[KMB83]

dang,

i was proud of myself for finding the answer!

the good news is i own a couple shares to get info on their ag lineup, not for their proficiency in designing good construction equipment.

i'll go on record for never saying it was a good idea. betcha deere is thinking its a good one though...

 

[Greg]

Has deere ever said they did not have a good idea?

 

[JDOFMEMI]

What a lot of folks are missing is that in certain parts of our country conventional dozer undercarriage wears out in 500 to 1000 hours due to the gritty soil. I even remember a post by SurferJoe about a job where D-8's were only getting 300 hrs on a seet of tracks. I am fortunate to not live there, and my newest D-8 has nearly 5000 hrs and still over 50% remaining.

In those high wear applications, I would have to think that running rubber would outlast steel by a long ways. I guess only time will tell, and right now with work as slow as it has been in anyones memory, it may well be a while yet before the Deere gets a chance to create some sort of a track record.

 

[Greg]

300 hours? What were they running in? Diamond Dust? Silicon Carbide Dust? they had to be doing something wrong. I get about 3,500 hours on Berco on a D3 here and am still going strong after much more on a D7 and D8 in a wide variety of soil types here with the exception of not much sand. Oh ya, I can give you several examples of deere's track record on a few wonderful ideas too.

 

[Engineer4255]

all I can say is that I hope that they did more research than Case/IH did with their quads. We averaged 50hrs between breakdowns on the first set of 3. Got it up to 250hrs between roller and idler failures, and approx 500-600hrs for track replacements. After 4 years of dealing with this, and a couple of threatening letters, finally changed over to rubber tire machines.

 

[Greg]

Lets face it. Case IH is flowered up farm equipment. The ag division and industrial divisions may as well be on different planets the way they communicate, not that Case industrial impresses me much except for the skid steers. And just how much did the track replacements every 500 hours cost?

 

[alco]

Face it. Rubber tracks are not meant to do heavy dozer work.:ban

When did anyone ever say it was intended for heavy dozer work?

Brian

 

[Greg]

Maybe not. But I guarantee you that it will happen cause people don't know any better, or that is the only machine that is there or the hired help don't and can't think. Around here if it pushes dirt it has steel tracks on it.