Backdragging ?
Holy cow, I can't believe
the length of this discussion.
Never knew I could get fired for back dragging till today, 39 years later . LOL
The 800 Mile Trans Alaska Pipeline was built, with Angle Dozer D8K's, D8h's doing the final clean up. finishing it. And they backdragged every bit of it. No dozer tracks when they got done.
I was there doing my share of it.
You can't get off the pad or ROW to push from behind the spoil pile for backfilling. Most of the time. Some places you could.
The trick to making a smooth pass in varying underfoot conditions is to use every technique possible.
If your track ruts are very deep, then you have to apply some down pressure to get the material to fill in your ruts.
Sometimes backing up in sweeping arcs, like buttering toast.
In sands use hold and float at varying times , to avoid heavy windrows .
In gravels use slight down pressure, float, and hold at varying times.
When you have a pile at the edge, or a cut to make, just take a little at a time , don't expect to do it all at once.
On gravel windrows, the height of the windrow will tell you when you can float, hold, or apply down pressure to spread it out smoothly across the width of the blade without creating new windrows.
Onto commercial work, finish grading for floor slabs was always done by backdragging,with small dozers. Of course the new laser and GPS controls help eliminate lot of that. But the final passes still cannot have the grouser indentations.
Never heard of Cats losing their prime during start up. Working on steep slopes , I've know D7's and D9's to lose their prime, and a wild backward downhill ride at that. Overfilling the transmission was the cure. Yes, old hoses with cracks will leak allowing air to get in, and lose prime. Sometimes the sync pump had to be replaced.
Backdragging doesn't create any tremendous work load , unless you have lots of down pressure. It's just the weight of the dozer blade. On loose material.
If you need to move a lot of material,or heavy cutting , of course then forward doze.
But as in landscaping work on road work, or pipeline work , with the varying soil conditions and tight ROW's , finishing is accomplished by backdragging.
Almost forgot, the D8K Angle Dozer and D6C Angle Dozers were my favorite for cleanup or finishing work . Now the new PAT D-4,5,6 dozers are the choice. Much more agile, for the narrow confines .
Anyway, that's what I've got to add . :usa
