Anyone have a D6K2 running counterweights? If so, how much weight? Seems to be front heavy without weights. Tuning GPS is difficult in different soil types which stems from not being balanced well I believe.
The guy I work for has a couple of these tractors with gps and I know what you mean. I think they need some weight on the back too. We tune the gps and the blade still "jumps" around bad in certain material. I've seen a lot of these tractors and none with a counter-weight, just rippers or sometimes a winch. I've never seen a d5h with one either but I think I'm getting ready to build one for mine. It's 75% or more about the weight in my opinion for balance and pushing. It's aggravating operating a dozer that is unbalanced. That's just my 2 cents worth
if a tractor is not running a winch or a ripper a counterweight is recommended to maintain balance. Someone else posted on here not long ago regarding a D6 counterweight, not sure what series it was though. PM me if you need to see some details of what the counterweight setup looks like. It will likely weigh around 1500 pounds.
To add to the discussion, it weighs 1178 lbs. and runs in the $7000 range for a D6K Series 2 XL tractor with WMR serial number. It looks like this: The counterweight group number is 340-5429.
I was talking to you Nige about a counterweight for my d5h. A guy from the cat store called me back the other day and said he found the attachment in a book for my dozer. He never could find anything on the computer when I first called him about it. He said it showed it to be 2000 lb. That sure seems like a lot to me.
Did you ever figure anything out? I just got a D6K2 and it needs a weight bad. We have a D5k and they built a weight with by adding 2 inch thick slabs on the back, it really helps. I don't know the weight, but they found the center of tracks and walked up on a piece of angle iron and started adding weight to the back. They said they had it to where they could pull on the rear of machine to make it rock. For the D6K2 I saw that a winch or a ripper from Cat weigh about 2000. The 6 also has a big rear step to stack the weight on, looks easier than the 5
My fabricater has built my counter-weight but I haven't even been out to see it. As soon as we get it mounted on dozer, I'm going to take some pics and I'll let you know if I can tell a big change as far as balance and pushing
I would like to see those pics. Yesterday was my first day grading stone with the K2 and you could watch it walking on the front half of the Undercarriage, and when I would stop with the blade up in the air, the 3 grousers at the rear were barely touching the stone. I asked the owner if we could make a weight, He bitched to Cat, now they say Cat is going to put one on and it weighs 1200 pounds. We will see.
I'm going with around 2k pds. Gonna mount and bolt it on the draw-bar. I hope it dnt make me too heavy in the rear. I have the straight angle blade instead of the 6-way. I thought maybe mine would weigh more but who knows. Maybe Nige or someone could answer that for me
So apparently our machine was ordered with a counterweight, and was delivered without one. We just got it installed, here's a before and after.
Well, what's the verdict??? Can you tell a big difference with the weight? I still haven't got mine on.
It's definately better than it was. The tracks sit more even on the ground when working. If anything it needs a little more, but is working pretty good now. The fuel man loves it too.
I'll be glad to get my weight on and see how it does
Obviously there is quite a difference in the 2 hitches, but I was expecting to see more weight than that. Maybe some heavy plates stacked up or something.... Andrew
Now days technology! Cheap as they can get by. IMO that's why cat doesn't have the "name" it did years ago