Track Group Width

[DozerPlowBoy]

I am looking at several used D8T's on the market. Most of which have 24" wide track shoe's. We need a bigger tractor to assist our 80K# excavator and grapple in clearing fence rows here in Ohio (farm ground). I have plenty of experience in smaller machines but little if any with D8 size. Considering the typical weight of the machine would you stay with 24" or look for wider? -Oh, and no, I'm not in a swamp, playing in sand or pushing rocks in a quarry.

 

[firedozer]

I had both Cat D8Ks and Cat D8Rs, and tried 22in., 24in., and 26in. shoes. The 26 inch shes were on the 8K. two sets in fact, till I switched to 24inch.
Cat says use the narrow shoe possible for undercarrige life. The one thing that stood out was side hill stability. while the wider tracks gave a wider footprint. the 22 inch shoes allowed for less sidehill sliding.
The 8R had 22 inch shoes, and I would not hesitate to run them again. Had good all around traction less turn drag, good side hill grip.
As far as flotation goes, Never saw what could be defined as a real advantage of the wider shoe. If soft under foot conditions are going to be most of you work, I would look to a LGP machine,.
In what ever class you think you need.
Keep in mind the larger the machine the more expensive the cost to own and operate. Undercarriage will historically be a very large cost of ownership.

 

[Nige]

Cat says use the narrowest shoe possible for undercarrige life.

100%. If you are working with reasonably good underfoot conditions you could go for 22"-wide shoes (that are the narrowest standard track shoe available) but 24" would work equally well. The wider the track shoe the more your undercarriage will get torn up, especially if a lot of turning is involved in your operation.

FYI we run 55-ton D9T & 80-ton D10T tractors on 24"-wide shoes, so an 8T at less than 40 tons should run fine on them.

Calculating ground pressure, an 8T on 22" shoes has just about the same ground pressure (1.11 kg/sq cm) as a 9T on 24" shoes. (1.14 kg/sq cm). On 24" shoes the 8T ground pressure is only 1.02 kg/sq cm.

 

[DozerPlowBoy]

Great Reply's! Thank you. I value the real world experience you guys are willing to share. I looked at a couple machines this weekend. They both had new 24" undercarriages sitting next to each other. One machine had clipped wing pads while the other had traditional pads. I wasn't so excited about the clipped wing pads until I compared running each dozer. I didn't have a lot of time to compare but it seemed like the clipped wing pads had more grip.

 

[Nige]

Did you take photos.?
If so then post them up so we can all see them.

 

[nicky 68a]

I run D8T on 24” and 22”.
They come with 24”,I wear them out,then replace with 22”.
No problem
I run 24” on D9T and wouldn’t hesitate to replace with 22” when they next need doing.
Years ago I ran D8H 68A (46A) pulling scraper boxes.
The 22” pads were not great in those applications and would definitely not carry the tractor into the same place as 24” pads would.
In the UK,many D8 men use 26” if they are on drawbar work with D8’s,but most ripper men use 24”.
I’m rare in the fact that I use 22”.

 

[nicky 68a]

D8 with 22” pads