Looking at a D5m xl lgp and noticed there is only a 2" difference in the shoe width and 3 more shoes per side. Was wondering if I will notice a difference between it and a regular d5m xl. I like the heavier weight for ripping in water line but will I have problems with an lgp model in the dry conditions of Cali.
You'll definitely notice a difference in soft conditions. But if you rip water lines in in hard conditions you'll want the narrower pads. The concentrated weight of less pads on the ground will provide more traction than the minimal weight bigger/more pads.
*minimal weight gain I meant
Yair . . . fencefool . I have little knowledge of LGP tractors but notice they are being increasingly used on inappropriate general purpose applications I believe O2Dmax is spot on with his comments. Many years ago we had two identical D9 tractors, one on twenty four inch shoes and one on twenty sevens . . . in our normal dry and hard conditions the narrow shoed machine would drag the other backwards with no hesitation and the three inches made no discernable difference in the mud. Logic would suggest the stresses and strains imposed by wide plates (in normal going) would shorten undercarriage life. Cheers.
Scrub is on track for sure , LGP rails last a lot less longer then a regular width , also in rocky conditions you can tend to bend pads and the ride is a lot rougher. New lgp is higher and used is typically cheaper around here. for fine grading they are great as they usually have a wider blade and cover more area. I also believe it puts a bit more stress on the finals.
Thanks for all the info. The rails and bushings look really good but the grousers look to be around 50%. Could a guy replace the pads with a 21" set or do the planetary drives cantilever out to far from the main frame to cause problems?
Standard options for shoes are 20", 22", & 24". After that you jump to the real LGP shoes that are 30" wide. A Scrub pointed out you really need to use the narrowest shoe that gives you acceptable flotation levels. Because the XL tractor has the longer track frames plus the 3 additional track shoes you're going to get good flotation compared to a standard D5M even with really narrow shoes. I would go for 20" if it was mine, 22" at a real push but certainly nothing wider than that.
I'll just have to measure the track width but after seeing the standard shoe sizes, it definitely does not have 30" wide but it does have the 3 extra. I'm going off of ritchiepecs.com so I guess I can't really trust that. Just found out it is just a d5m lgp and not an xl but has the 3 extra shoes. Could it have the same performance as an xl?
D5M LGP has the longer track frames with one additional track roller (8 versus 7) over the D5M XL and therefore longer tracks which accounts for the 3 additional shoes. The LGP version has a 9" wider spread on the track frames to accomodate the 30" wide LGP track shoes. You can put narrower than 30" shoes on an LGP machine but you can't put wider than 24" shoes on an XL machine because the shoes will foul the machine chassis. If you're thinking of buying that machine to use in an application where LGP is not required I would put 20" track shoes on it. Ritchie Specs are sh1te in my experience. Google "D5M Specalog" and you should find the genuine Cat sales guide for the D5M with 100% correct data..........
So the serial number matches and lgp model but the picture shows 7 bottom rollers and 44 shoes. Still do not know about shoe width but might try to pursue
Something doesn't make sense. It's either 7 bottom rollers and 41 shoes or 8 bottom rollers and 44 shoes. What's the Serial Number..? I can look online and see what the spec was when it left the factory......
I'm having to count the rollers through the rock guards and getting seven. There may be one I'm not seeing. The serial number is 3CR00561.
Is the machine online? Do you have a link to it?
This was the picture I was sent on an inquiry. I'm trying to get more. Hopefully it can help.
3CR00561 - built in December 1997. If the undercarriage has not been modified in any way this is an LGP tractor with 7 track rollers and 44 track links equipped with heavy duty link groups. The track shoes were 30" wide LGP shoes when it left the factory. I've never seen like that before, I thought all LGP tractors had 8 track rollers. If you are planning on using that on rock I'd replace the existing shoes with 20" shoes before it even had chance to wear the paint off what's on it right now.
I've been comparing it between the 30" track machines and they do not seem as wide. That is why I think they may be 24" but hopefully will have chance to measure. I'm not in a lot of rock but a lot of rough hill country and I think the wider track frame may be an advantage and get by with what is on it then replace the pads. We'll see what happens. Could the heavy duty links be shorter and that is why it has the 44 pads?
No, standard & heavy duty links are all the same pitch. The wider gauge of an LGP tractor would definitely have a stability advantage but run too wide a shoe on hard ground and it will tear up the rest of the undercarriage system in short order. Back to the shoe width. I'm looking at the gap at the front of the tractor where the shoes run close to the blade arms. If those are 24" shoes now you would need that gap to be at least 4" right now in order to fit 30" track shoes which would be 3" wider on each side of the centreline. TBH I'm convinced they are 30", unless they are aftermarket 27" shoes because Cat shoe sizes jump straight from 24" to 30". To give you an idea why I'm recommending 20" wide shoes we used to run D10's in rocky terrain on 24" shoes. A D10 is probably double the weight of this D5.
Nige, thanks for making coffee come out my nose. Pretty sure the blade alone on a 10 weighs double a D5.
Referring to ground pressure as opposed to weight of machine perhaps? Coffee never tastes as good going through the nose.
Yair . . . I never can understand the need for all the grouser options . . . 20", 22", 24'' on a little jigger like a Five, who could tell the difference? If twenty inch was standard and then it jumped to a (sort of) true LGP thirty would make more sense. As I have mentioned three inches of extra width on a fifty five ton tractor made no difference to where it could walk. The extra width certainly never made the difference between getting bogged or not getting bogged. As well as I remember the first popular LGP tractors over here were the Komatsu "Swampys", an early 65 on 36'' or 42'' pyramid plates and they were a revelation and made a huge difference on coastal development projects, Cat was very late to the party. Cheers.
D5M ground pressure on 20" shoes - 7.57psi - on 30" shoes - 4.93psi. D10T on 24" wide shoes - 20.41psi. Now you see why it should really go on 20" wide shoes........
Oh well. If they don't measure up right and becomes a problem, I'll cut them down with the hot saw.
By that time the rest of the undercarriage system will probably already be screwed anyway.
Best plan if you end up buying that machine, pony up for a new pair of track groups with narrow pads and put the LGP track groups in a corner for when you get a swamp job. One machine, more or less the best of both worlds. :my2c
:iagree
For someone that needs an LGP half of the time, it's like me and my tracked skid steer. Do I need tracks? Not necessarily, but the increased production and having them when I need them outweigh the con's of increased cost and maintenance. Same with a lot of guys that run wide track crawlers. It's a business decision. Have two machines sitting around, try to rent an LGP when needed, or just have an LGP and accept the consequences. In the kind of ground we have here in ND, I will just have the LGP and be done.
Good viewpoint Shimmy, a person can almost always accomplish with an LGP what a conventional tracked machine can do, but a conventional track machine cannot accomplish what an LGP can do when the footing gets soft.
LGP machines don't often wear out links and bushings. They generally loosen up in the seals in SALT tracks which lets the oil out which ruins the insides of the bushings and outsides of the pins letting the chains stretch out and run out of pitch. Running on side hills further stresses the link joints making problems show up much faster. They are made for running in loose underfoot conditions where the material will move reducing the side stress on the link joints. A machine that size with the wide pads will generally be able to work in places where a man can't walk through. A five is a finish machine anyway. The extra blade width in finish work will decrease the time it takes to accomplish the job and likely more than make up for the shorter life of the chains. Also keep in mind that you can usually run two sets of chains and sprockets before you have to replace the bottom rollers and idlers. That might sound OK on the face of it but you are almost doubling you undercarriage costs when working in the hard underfoot applications. One other item is that it has been my experience that an LGP is more prone to slide on a side hill than a standard gauge machine.
An LGP five is the top of the line for soft work as far as I know, when things get jelly anything bigger may be okay for making a pass through but if you're doing much turning, the bottom can fall out pretty quick. Watched some video of Morooka dumpers working a levee repair, hauling gumbo off the top of clay and the clay out of the borrow pit to a reload pile going into artics and highway trucks, saw a 1500 Morooka with a good jag on fall through the crust. LGP 5 with pyramid pads made three passes from different directions to find a solid push on the dumper after the load was dumped, bumped the corner and the Morooka popped outta that hole like a cork from a bottle. Stuff was literally like jello, I was truly impressed.
All good points, John C. Another I might add is the machine your breadwinner, or is it just support equipment. Here in ND, generally all dozers you'll see in that D5/6K, D51/61 Komatsu, 650/700 Deere range will be LGP because they are in the muck most of the time. Then, when you step up to the 6R/T, 65 Komatsu, or 850 Deere, a lot of them will be LGP because the larger road contractors are using them for topsoiling inslopes and backslopes. Since we have quite a lot of wetlands, a fair bit of road ditches are wet and require the LGP. So, once again, instead of having 2 machines, they just have the LGP. I don't know if any of this makes sense to anybody but me, but you have to look long and hard here in ND to find a non-LGP dozer under 40,000 lbs, unless it's a rental. Just the way it is.
Same here Shimmy. If I only have one machine, it NEEDS to be LGP. My second will probably be LGP as well (this week I think). When I grow up and get a third, I'll consider a standard track. All wet conditions here. Probably wetter than what you deal with. I do very little rock work, tree tipping or heavy digging. That's what the excavators are for. I use my D65 to spread piles, push muck and pull narrow track dozers out of the mud. If I did heavy slot dozing or a lot of land clearing, maybe. Until then I'll live with the disadvantages and reap the huge advantages of a LGP in this country. It's all application.