Hi all, great site you have here. Hey, I'm 65 and all my life I've always wanted a dozer. And now I have a project so I'd like to make it happen. My project: I had 40 acres of woodland logged off and now I would like to push a few trails/roads in there. The property is in northern Wisconsin. The stumps are cut low and they are 6 to 10 inches in diameter. They are almost all black spruce and poplar. And the soil is pretty much all sand. What size dozer do you guys think I would need to push out these stumps? What type of blade would I need? Can I get by with a straight blade or do I need a 6 way hydraulic blade? I know I could hire this done, or rent a machine but I have a couple other projects in mind and besides, I want to be the only guy on my block with a dozer! Thanks so much for any thoughts you might have to help me make a decision.
I would get a straight blade with tilt I would get a D6 a little big for what you are doing but they are pretty much bullet proof. Then get a rake to go on the front. With a tilt blade you can tilt it and use a corner of the blade to hog out stumps
Welcome to the Forums Joe! How much heavy equipment and mechanical experience do you have? There is no right or wrong answer but it'll help us give you better advice.
They can be really expensive to own. I can tell you that first hand. Just today I hired two low boys and skidder to get mine out of the woods today. After that bill many more will come To get it done. Mine wasn’t ancient and wasn’t wore out either. Just luck of the draw. However it’s nice to own one. I would look at d6 and or 650 deer
Shop around. Mine is a Dresser TD7G 1989 model. I bought in 2016. Spent a winter going through it. One too many phone calls, my son forgot to tighten a bolt connecting a negative battery cable to the frame. It used to be hard to start. Now, bolt found & tightened, it is a sweetheart! I'd choose a bigger tractor than 14600 for stumping, but it is a perfect size for everything else. See my avatar, just right for trucking. These blocks are between 750 & 800 LBS. The boat is about 1200LBS. At least 23700, maybe 25200 Tractor is rated 70 HP with a Cummins B4 3900 CC This day, none of the big boys with BIG tractors showed up. Our little local event began as an antique tractor pull, but we have relaxed the rules a bit. The awards had been passed out. 27 blocks was all the biggest wheel tractors pulled. I hooked up. I'm the only puller to pull 30 blocks this day. My son in the plaid shirt. Other son might be in the picture, he'd be just a blur, (he moves fast)!
Hi, thanks for the reply. I have very little to no experience. In a part time job during college, I worked at a rental place. I drove, moved, turned, cleaned, fueled etc, a medium and small dozer. But did no actual work with it. So I'm pretty green. Any advice you have would be appreciated. Thanks you.
Nothing wrong with working on a bucket list. Been there "doing" that. Make sure it has some type of canopy. Working in brush can be dangerous.
OK. Third question - What is your budget for equipment?
It’s not what you want to hear but as a professional heavy equipment mechanic, I highly advise renting with the appropriate insurance if you want to DIY. The majority of old, “affordable” dozers aren’t and are ripe for major component failure at the worst times and in the worst places. These pages on this forum are FULL of regretful buyers who found that out the hard way. You will immediately loose your desire to own when you have to break track and pull a final or pull an engine or trans. Parts can be a real headache to get as there are a lot of orphan brands and what you could get parts for 20-30 years ago you have to crawl wrecking yards for now in the mere hopes of finding what you need.
Well, there is that.
I just got the crawler I had sold, was done with it as to working on it and justifying keeping it, was a old and tired machine required attention. I in the near future will rent as need and not deal with having to split track or make repairs out in the scrub.
lol, as much as I want my own dozer, you probably have the best response here. I've got a fair amount of dozer and clearing work on my own property to do and have conceded that I will probably rent a weekend here, a week there, as I can dedicate the time to do each task. My grandpa has a 550G Deere for farm work with fairly low hours, but it's been a lot of wrenching on little things every dang time we need it. Hydraulic hoses, rear sprockets, muffler (my mistake...) and most recently, replaced the left hand track chain. It doesn't end. The machine doesn't get used 100 hours a year, but it seems that every time it comes out to do a project something breaks, or needs attention prior to doing the work.
I'll go along with JD & others. Your admitted lack of experience in operating & maintaining a piece of Yellow Iron makes any dozer purchase for you a potential minefield. What happens after that could easily become a Black Hole into which you throw money in increasingly large chunks. Rental would be the preferred option by far, and bucket list be damned.
Proudest days of HE, Boat, Rolling Sh!thouse and Trucking owners is First Day with New to one's self machine, and other is day watch it leave the yard.
Get the newest, lowest hour name brand machine you can afford. Look at the 25-30k pound machines and have a qualified field tech go over it before purchasing.
When pushing piles of brush or trees, watch for limbs spearing you or your machine. Even a canopy won't protect you from a spear. One hurts your body, the other hurts your wallet. I've posted this before but it's worth a repeat for you.
You can’t fix stupid....
Any completely idiotic mistake you can walk away from huh? Wow.
I agree. My D5G is a 2004 model (bought it new) it now has just over 5K hours and it's a dependable machine - still needs work but fairly easy to work on. It's valued around $45K which gives the OP a baseline.
I would think a tractor loader backhoe would be a more versatile investment. Prolly better resale value too.
As CM1995 pointed out, a budget of somewhere around $45k would get you something decent.
Excavator
Man, you guys sure know how to throw a wet blanket! Lol. Yeah, I'm gunna think on this long and hard and I see what you guys are saying. My budget for this is about 10K. I know that doesn't buy me much and repairs are costly. Thanks for giving me some straight up honest advice. I gunna keep lookin', but with a little different viewpoint! Thanks again.
Where are you at in Wisconsin? I do that kind of work with a TD9-H Dresser dozer. Have many hours of experience and am in NW Wisconsin. If not me, maybe you can find some one else to work for you and not break the bank. FWD
I don't know. I'm an electrician and more mechanic than some who make their living. I bought a 3500 hour TD7G, spent some time fixing what was wrong. Some frustration, but more satisfaction. I've likely got $16000 + Labor in it now. I love my crawler. If it all comes down to dollars, you might opt for hiring someone. I find it very pleasurable to own.
I hear ya. Been there, doing that now. I always wanted a full-size Tonka toy to play in the growed up with trees/brush sandbox. Bought a dozer that was 3/4 wore out. Been wrenching on it since. I could had farmed out the clearing work and come out cheaper. I'm no mechanic but if i keep this dozer long enuff i will be. But whats the fun in just paying to have dozer work done? Mines a early model CAT D4H. if i did it again...id consider a D5H at least.(more balls but still mid sized) High track H models are powershift or direct clutch with no fancy electronics, and either straight blade or 6-way. If your so inclined you can work on it yourself...and you dont need a CAT tech to plug into the computer and figure it out. Since its a "farm dozer" now i just dont push it as hard...knowing its frail. Its not a 10 hour a day money maker. Your going to be hard pressed to find a decent dozer with enuff balls to do any serious pasture cleaning for $10-15k. Hell if someone gave you a D4-5 with a wore out UC, you will spend $10-15k just for a new under carriage. not saying its impossible. A estate sale with a good old D6D thats been hidden away for 20 years can pop up, But those are few a far between. There's a demand for these older more simple dozers for the reasons i stated above. Good luck.
I agree. There is a convenience to having your own. You can poke at projects on your own term. Yes, there is upkeep. But he's not going to run it 12 hrs a day. And old machines are much more simple. I have a Cat D7E for sale that runs great and has a really nice undercarriage. Semi U blade with tilt. Yes,it does need the left final repaired. A good size job. But then it'll give years of good performance. Guaranteed? No. But very likely. And worth the gamble for only $9000. ****, the tracks are worth that. They are really nice. Just my opinion though of course.
Aye ...There's the rub... With the price of the machine, Hauling will eat up the rest of OP's budget. So then he'll have a machine that needs repairs "on the left final". He has spent his budget and has a broken machine. The parts are heavy and expensive. Tooling to break the track and lift the parts back into place still to be sourced. Some dreams are not to be ...for $ 10,000 Now, the education acquired doing the repairs himself (if no bodily injuries) ... will be priceless.
To each their own. Sounds like he wants to own one. He is not far from me, in northern WI for trucking. Thill track and tractor in Eau Claire, WI has all the used Cat parts ready to go for it. Dead shaft is tight. Only got a few pieces of a tooth out the plug. I have the Cat puller and press tooling he can use for free. Jack it up higher than the track frame and a small tractor or cherry picker can handle the sprocket etc. I realize it's a big job, but let's not make it sound impossible. For 15k including purchase, it'll be pushing. Doing the work himself of course. I've decided to thin out. Too many machines.
I still think the OP's $10k budget is way too low to buy something anywhere near reliable, especially in view of his admitted lack of operating and maintenance experience.
Shhhhhh! That is just what he told his wife!
A boat is a hole in water into which you pour money. A crawler is a _____ in _____ into which you pour money. But, it is a fun place to pour money! In my case I fixed on a tilt, angle blade to plow snow now & again. It'll last longer than me & both sons were firm, if it can't plow snow, it isn't as useful.
Hey guys, thanks again for the input. I haven't given up, just waiting for the right dozer to come along. I know it will be tough but I've never shied away from big projects; building a house, building a log cabin from scratch, building , cutting, grinding, welding on many, many projects through the years. But I will be cautious. So if you guys have any ideas about the original question; what size do I need, I'd love to hear it. Also, some I'm looking at are a long way from home. Do you guys know, can I hire a local dozer mechanic over the phone to check over a dozer and report back? Are those services offered? And about how much? Not giving up the dream, but not going to dive in without checking the depth but not diving in at all get's you nothing. Thanks again guys.
That is John C's profession. Maybe he'll stop in and check the thread again.
Willie B that's funny, but also a lot of truth!
FWD, thanks. I'm in NE Wisconsin, 18 miles west of Amberg WI. Northwest of the Crivitz area. I want to make a little road/trail for about 1/4 mile. And two 1/4 acre spots for food plots. Stumps are cut low by harvester.
Price out how much to have someone come in and do it. Could save you thousands in the long run.
Maybe it might pay Joe to get hold of a copy of John's first book..? $30 in paperback or $20 for Kindle. https://www.amazon.com/Appraisal-Heavy-Equipment-John-Craughan-ebook/dp/B073ZXGQNJ
Yup ... ignorance either costs or hurts. $20 IS CHEAP to avoid ignorance when purchasing something that involves thousand$ of $ in acquisition, repairs & maintenance costs. Avoiding injury is priceless. (as they say)
No correct answer to the size question. How will you haul it? Do you need to haul it? Is it a one time thing to clear, & build road? In the 1970s Green Mountain National Forest wrote timber harvesting contracts with very exact specifications as to dozer size. A local logger running several Chevy Suburban sized crews used only John Deere 350 sized crawlers. At one time he bought 10 new ones at once. The advantage of little crawlers (13,000 LB) is they are narrow, fit through tight gaps between trees. The disadvantage, is they are little, take forever to do the job a bigger one does quickly. Mine is Dresser TD7G. Sometimes I'd like a bigger one, but look at my avatar. I carry it on a medium duty truck. Mine weighs about 14,400 LBS. It's similar in size to John Deere 450, Case 450.
Lucky he did not kill someone on the road. Not to smart.
If you run it 12 hours a day or 3 hours a week, it is going to take the same amount of hours needed to do the job. More maintenence is probably needed on short days due to more startups and shutdowns, and perhaps more condensation in things that dont get run long enough to dry them out. No one works a machine at less then capacity. Most machines should be run at rated capacity to work correctly. Old machines are simpler, they still require lots of maintenance and some specialty tools at times. I'd do this first before I bought any machine. If you want to clear your own roads, I'd recommend at the least to rent a D5 or 700 series dozer for a week when the weather and soil conditions are favorable to your land, Take some vacation time, make your roads, have some fun, learn a fair bit about dozers, and then decide if you still want to own one. You can make a lot of trails and roads in a week with a 700 series or D5 sized machine. At least you will have an idea of what you are getting into, without the repair and maintence of course.
Finding a retired operator to give you lessons on it would be worth some $$ too. I will be that guy soon
Yeah, I bought a Dresser TD7G, near identical to the International Harvester TD7E owned by a friend. I believe their clock now reads over 30,000 hours. I got the basics of operating down OK, but not the fine grading. After the antique tractor pull I was shaping the soil back where it could be seeded. I asked my friend to run it. He climbed on, and with 1/10 as many passes had it perfect. He angled the blade just short of where he couldn't see the corner of it on the grass. This, he gauged blade height. He worked from the grass on both edges of the torn up sod area, then the middle. He switched direction of travel each pass to avoid each angled blade dip from growing. As it got smoother, the blade was less affected by the height corrections. Of course, this was sandy loam soil. Any rocks, or roots in the soil, all bets are off.
Old cat skinner that graded out our drives used a 750 Deere on lower and D6H on the upper Shoved the spoil piles to the fence lower about 150’ beyond where stopped grade and where the house sits on upper He was a artist with a plain semi U blade Slick, sod cut away leaving undisturbed soil save track marks He made it appear so easy.
One of my faves was a d5 high track with a ripper for balance. When grading R rock, the bare butt ones with no ripper seem a little nose heavy.
That kind of work is what I have done a lot of and enjoy doing that, but that's too far away as I am near Rice Lake. There is probably someone in that area that would not break the bank, perhaps a logger who is not real busy in the summer. FWD
^ That's a great idea. @Joe Nowak , you could start asking around for reputable contractors and take your time. Line out the big work and then be flexible on the schedule for a hopefully better deal. Pick his brain on what would work for a rental and some advice, and watch how he knocks out the big work. Then line out the secondary work and get a nice rental.
Mine lives in a gasoline tank 3 miles from home. It was cold yesterday afternoon. I made several excuses, my wife says I was just playing. I tried to drive the half mile driveway with my four wheel drive van, but too much snow to make the first hill. I went home & got the JD 410C backhoe, did a half job of plowing, enough to get a truck in. The batteries in the crawler were a little sluggish, it wouldn't take. I went back with the heavy booster to discover it had been used but not recharged. Next try was with my sons 2500 GMC with Fisher plow. I had the big battery charger, and inverter. That was a huge disappointment! I later figured out the traction control was the problem. By this time it was dark. Mrs B. came down to get me. Seth came along about 7:30 PM temperature was 4 Degrees F & snow was like shattered glass (good traction). It drove right out. This afternoon I'll take a generator & big charger, see if I can warm it up. No legitimate work to do with it, I just want to exercise it. Deer struggle to find food, they've been pawing for acorns a lot! I'll move some snow for them. DO YOU STILL THINK YOU WANT A DOZER?
Hi guys, Thanks again for all the honest info and advice. Gonna put this project on the back burner till spring. Gives me a better chance to think this over and evaluate all the possibilities. Again, thanks a bunch! Joe