Is this blade worth fixing?

[D6c10K]

The blade skin on my D6c was paper thin when I got it several years ago. I've put a few small patches on it and welded up some cracks but after this fall I figured it was time to do a re-skin.....more areas cracking and so thin it's hard to weld on a patch.

There is a local shop that has a large plate roller they use all the time and they quoted a 3/8" x 4' x 10' AR400 plate for $550 plus $225 to roll it.
I may end up getting a 5' x 10' sheet and have them roll it the narrow direction and cut it into two sections to make it a little easier to handle.....that will cost a little more for material. Sounds like a pretty reasonable price.

Here's the problem.....

I cut off the center push plate that was 3/8" and found the skin worn through underneath....no problem except there is another skin under that. I suspected it had been re-skinned before because of the way the top edge welds look but didn't know if they had removed the old skin first.....guess not.










On the left side of the blade about 1/3 of the way up the outside skin was dished in. (see first pic) To see what was there I torched a hole in the skin and found in that area there isn't any skin underneath. Looks as though someone torched out a section of the original skin in that area before overlaying the new skin.
It's kind of a mess.....I found about 2" of wet sandy mud inside the blade where the lower part is boxed. The way the other side looks it may well be in similar shape.




So....do I go ahead and torch off both layers of skin and start over or is it time to find another blade? Not long ago I replaced the trunnion balls on the blade corners and welded in new trunnion bearings in the front of the push arms. I've also tightened up the other pin holes for the braces, so except for the skin it's in pretty good shape.
I do know where there is a used dozer from a D6c.....don't know the price yet, but he did say the blade face was pretty good but it was a little loose in the pins, etc.
Might end up with quite a bit of work fixing up a used dozer blade if I went that route.

What would you do?

 

[Hobbytime]

like anything else it comes down to economics, whats gona be cheaper and less problematic??? whats your cost in time and materials fixing what you have and how much is a good used blade adding in all your expense to go get it and install and any repairs it may need..

 

[Tones]

Repairing your blade and doing a proper job to my mind would be heaps better than buying another blade which may be no better behind the skin.Like buying a mud guard (fender),shiny on the outside, shyte underneath.

 

[fast_st]

I've happily skinned a few blades and buckets, having a plasma cutter made the job a lot faster! Find a good steel shop nearby and get the blade made up in sections, employ some drains to get that sandy goop out of there or a way to wash it through. My first was 8' wide and the shop wanted a fortune to get the curve put in some 1/4 inch plate, asked why so much and they would have to use the big press brake, the roller could do 4' so had them do 2 4' pieces and seamed it up the middle, more than 50% cost savings

 

[Scrub Puller]

Yair . . .

D6c10k. It all comes down to what a replacement blade costs and how much you value your time . . . you would have to drill and measure the plate thickness on the new second hand blade as it could well look okay but still be pretty worn.

It's no big deal to reskin a blade.

For a one off first time job allow about a week. Just cut off all the crap and patches and overlay the rest. I would put it on in at least three pieces and plug weld it back onto the ribs. I never had access to a roller or press and used to curve them roughly to shape with down pressure from the cutting edge across a couple of railroad ties or some such.

Over bend them slightly, get a good tack along the bottom and push them into place with an offsider holding a piece of cut off railroad tie between the blade and a decent stump or tree. . . . or you can dog them or pull them in with all thread welded to the face.

All the best with it and cheers.

 

[hvy 1ton]

If you cut it all down to the structure at least you will know exactly what you have when you weld it back up. Good odds there is more dirt packed in other parts of the blade from holes worn through. Used blade could be a basket case with a thin sheet put on to pretty it up. If i remember correctly you are planning to put some hours on this dozer.

 

[oldirt]

I have forgotten where you are, I live 40 miles from omaha and have a 6D that I reskinned. I got ar200 plate rolled from puritan steel for about 600 bucks. I made a template of the curve, and the dimensions including the curved end cuts and it fit absolutely perfectly.

cut all the scabs off your blade, grind off all the goobers and it will work fine. I plug welded it in four spots kind of in a rectangle in the center. the tractor will noticeably roll more dirt into the load now, so it really helped. if you need that push plate you can put it back on.. I did not. mine had a rather huge hole across the left side of the blade after I got the big patches off. also.. puritan said 200 was the hardest stuff they could roll so I went that way.

now.. that plate would not scour, no matter how often I stopped and shoveled all the dirt off. I finally had to scrub the gray coating off by hand with a grinder wheel, not in the grinder as it would fill up and not cut. this sounds weird but it is polished now. took a long time too.

 

[D6c10K]

I have forgotten where you are, I live 40 miles from omaha and have a 6D that I reskinned. I got ar200 plate rolled from puritan steel for about 600 bucks. I made a template of the curve, and the dimensions including the curved end cuts and it fit absolutely perfectly.

cut all the scabs off your blade, grind off all the goobers and it will work fine. I plug welded it in four spots kind of in a rectangle in the center. the tractor will noticeably roll more dirt into the load now, so it really helped. if you need that push plate you can put it back on.. I did not. mine had a rather huge hole across the left side of the blade after I got the big patches off. also.. puritan said 200 was the hardest stuff they could roll so I went that way.

now.. that plate would not scour, no matter how often I stopped and shoveled all the dirt off. I finally had to scrub the gray coating off by hand with a grinder wheel, not in the grinder as it would fill up and not cut. this sounds weird but it is polished now. took a long time too.

oldirt,
I'm south of Des Moines about 40 miles. There is a company here that makes tanker trailers for hauling LP that is willing to roll the plate. I'll make sure to talk to them about the AR400 to be sure they understand how hard it is before they order it.
I'm expecting to find big holes under the plating on the end angled sections. This tractor must have a ton of hours on it to wear out two skins.

What thickness plate did you use on you blade? I'm not sure how thick they were from the factory.

I figured I might have to take a disc sander to the skin and polish it up. As hard as the AR plate is it would take a long time to break in.

 

[51kw]

Maybe find a gravel pit in the area to go push in for a few hours to take the coating off?

 

[oldirt]

I think it was only 1/8".. the old skin looked about like yours, really beat up. I think it was in a quarry for quite a while the way it is bashed in. anyhow, I was able to cut the true curve rather easily out of cardboard. it still pushes on those high spots, and I used them to plug weld them back. Looking at it now, you cannot tell it was a complete disaster. the last guy welded a slab of flat 1/8 mild steel across the lower half of the blad covering all the sin, and half of that wouldn't clean.

I still neeed to tighten up the middle brace thing, and somehow take the outside push arms apart to tighten them up too. would be nice if the track frame had another roller to stretch it out some too.

I must live straight west of you, I am 7 miles east of the missouri river, and 20 miles north of the missouri border..

 

[D6c10K]

Got all the top layer of skin and plating off today. RH side wasn't quite as bad underneath but still has a hole in the corner.

I will at least cut out most of the rest of the original skin and I think I'll cut out the angled pieces at the ends. I could leave some of the upper part but it may be just as well to cut it all out and start clean. Going to be quite a bit of torching no matter what I do.

Doesn't show up in the pic, but the original skin had been patched on the ends at one time. There was also weld/torch marks that make it look like it had a center push plate on the original skin....There was even some paint where the plate had been, so it might not be worn much in that area if the plate was added when it wasn't too old.

I'll blow a hole or two near the top to see if I can tell how thick it was originally, but so far I haven't seen anything that looks like it was any more than 1/4". I suppose I could call Cat and ask if they know what it was. New replacement skins are still available but are real pricey.

 

[oldirt]

interesting, my blade had a hole in it just about like yours and in just about the same location on the left side, but about half as big. a word of caution, isn't the blade skin what holds everything else behind it together? I think they start with the skin in a jig then weld all the back bracing to it? You could cut some blanks out of keystock and weld to the cross pieces to get it to the same height as the old skin, I don't think you need to take all the rest off. makes it all that much stronger.

 

[DMiller]

Mold board is just mold board on blades. Makes the materials of note roll back onto itself just as with plows and such. Doesn't have to be structural but will need good structure behind it. Check with Cat as to OE thickness, that will give a head start as to what to order.

 

[D6c10K]

interesting, my blade had a hole in it just about like yours and in just about the same location on the left side, but about half as big. a word of caution, isn't the blade skin what holds everything else behind it together? I think they start with the skin in a jig then weld all the back bracing to it? You could cut some blanks out of keystock and weld to the cross pieces to get it to the same height as the old skin, I don't think you need to take all the rest off. makes it all that much stronger.

On this blade there is boxing in the back that the blade framework is welded to. The skin seems to be attached only at the edges and not to really a part of the framework. I could leave the skin on, at least the upper part, but I'd like to be able to clean out all the dirt and water that are packed in the lower boxed part of the bolster.

 

[oldirt]

cleaning the dirt out is a great idea for sure.

 

[lantraxco]

Typically on high strength plate, 3/16" is the minimum thickness available, one exception being Domex, but that's essentially a high strength cold finished mild steel, not really made for wear parts.

On the Formalloy 400, (not AR, formable AR if that makes sense) etc. forming will be done in a large press brake, the process is referred to as "bumping" a curve by making many small bends spaced a little ways apart. A sacrificial strip is usually formed first to define the amount of each bump and match the desired profile.

 

[alan627b]

I was going to say, consider putting a blade from an International TD15C or newer on, they have more curvature and roll dirt better than the Cat design. But I see you've already started reconstruction, so I wish you the best of luck and hope the work goes smoothly.
That, buy the way, is about the only time I'd recommend crossbreeding! From what I know, The TD15 isn't a bad machine in it's own right either.

 

[D6c10K]

I was going to say, consider putting a blade from an International TD15C or newer on, they have more curvature and roll dirt better than the Cat design. But I see you've already started reconstruction, so I wish you the best of luck and hope the work goes smoothly.
That, buy the way, is about the only time I'd recommend crossbreeding! From what I know, The TD15 isn't a bad machine in it's own right either.

I've heard the TD15 had a good blade. I actually looked around some for a TD15 before getting this D6.....at the time I didn't run across any I liked that weren't a long haul to get it here.

 

[oldirt]

I did the same thing and the only thing I found was going to cost about 6G so I did this. It will plow up dirt just fine now, although I do have the blade tilted back about as far as the upper arms will go, unless I move the mounts back some more. It can be a little hairy trying to polish without gouging now, but it will cut.