Posted a while ago about undercarriage cost for a D6c and it seemed I was getting a decent quote. Still considering whether to spend the money on the machine or trade for a more modern tractor. Regardless which way I go I'll need to fix the RH dead axle that's loose ( bore and bush the axle taper) I'd hate to stick someone with the repair if I sold it without disclosing the problem. I've put a ton of work into the tractor over the years but it's not getting any newer. A few repairs/ mods I've done are: new radiator core re-skinned blade (complete strip and replace) new cutting edges weld on grousers new blade trunion balls & bearings, bushed blade braces changed to D6D joystick blade control added brush screens steering clutch seals head gasket & many many other smaller repairs and leak fixes...........and there's always more to do. The repair on the dead axle will probably run $4000 by the time Cat bores it and an independant shop does the rest. But is it worth dropping another $13k in a SALT undercarriage? If I were to trade it, I could put on a set of dry chains and new sprockets and call it good. I put less than 500 hrs a year on it and the machine does most everything I need, but with conventional steering clutches it limits it a little. Something with differential steer or hydraulic drive would be nice but I'm not enthused about a high track. A little more weight & power would help with tree clearing, which I seem to do a lot of. I don't really mind if it's an open station machine and with doing clearing I'm not sure if I could keep glass in it. Brush screens would be a must either way. Not sure what's in the 35-40,000 lb size that's oval track....Deere or Komatsu? When is it time to call it a day and trade?
There is a good chance that you will not find a newer used machine any more reliable or cheaper to operate but sometimes a guy just has to move on and work on a different machine
Yea, might be just buying a different set of problems unless I spent a lot of cash.
Got to keep her in the family. That machine deserves some new UC. And some fresh paint to show off your investment. You know what you have and you know the maintenance history. Just keep her rolling.
Agreed. At least you know what you’ve got.
Not too many honest sellers like yourself. Another machine is just opening up another can of worms. You could probably save a couple grand putting dry chains on. Salt is better but you're not using the machine for high production. To upgrade will probably cost a lot more than the new undercarriage and you still won't know what you've got. You're machine looks pretty tight for a D6C.
Put greased chains on her and keep the old girl. Salt tracks can be a pain when clearing, they don't like twisting and once they drop the oil out of the bushes they'll wear out faster than anything you've seen. With good care and attention that tractor may out live you.
keep it, you know her inside an out, buy a bigger/newer one and your head aches start over , and 500 hours a year you have to justify payments and repair payments
From your pics that would be a tough decision. I "cut my teeth" on a wore out D6C and absolutely despised the foot tilt thing. About half of the time it would stick one way or the other. I'm assuming the blade tilt is incorporated with the blade lift when you changed it over to the D6D controls?? We do a fair amount of terracing and tree removal. I have a Komatsu D65 EX-12 that has served me very well over the years that being said I also have a Komatsu D65 EX-15 that I wish I would have never seen. I have not had any major problems with it but we are constantly fighting wiring gremlins it seems like. Usually it is a disconnection in the wiring harness somewhere that will throw a code and derate the machine. So half of the time it is sitting off to the side while the older one is just working away. If you decide to upgrade you might take a look at the Komatsu D65. It will be a little heavier than your D6C but not alot and have @ 40-50 more horsepower.
The 10K is one of the finest machines CAT ever built. Sounds like you've put several thousand hours on her. If you're spending $25 or less per hour on machine wear, you're doing very well. Put an undercarriage on her. As has been said, you know what you have. Another machine will have it's own set of problems and you will still be working on it every year.
Yes, the lever is a joy stick for lift and tilt. Found I didn't have enough feet for all the pedals. I had the same problem with the tilt pedals sticking. Was a job adapting the new control. Took lots of measurements from a D6D and had to build an enclosure to mount it in. Might have been better off originally getting a D6D. The power brakes on a D would be nice and they have a direct injection 3306 engine.
I can imagine it was quite an undertaking to switch the controls. FWIW I have a good friend that bought a D6D that came with some heavy brush screens. He took them off and they are probably in pretty loose hands if you happen to upgrade to a D6D and are looking for some. It has a factory cab.
Your decision needs to be based on your business and the actual numbers. It would be nice to have a lot of things, but what you can afford up front and the projected returns are what should be guiding your future purchases. Average auction on your machine model is around $10K. In general, old dozers are worth what is left on the undercarriage. Yours doesn't have much value showing. A dealer looking to sell you a newer machine doesn't have any room to move around the cost they have in a used machine, so won't be interested in yours at all. I can see a $7K offer real easy and more likely it would go directly to an auction yard and they would apply the proceeds toward the machine you want to purchase. As far as newer machines go, they are all more complicated and get harder to work on depending on what you get. Dozers in the northwest don't hold value real well so you can probably find something relatively inexpensive and then have to put a new undercarriage on. Retail average on a Komatsu D65EX-12 is around $41K while auction average is close to $24K. They are a whole lot easier to run and just as much more expensive to fix than your D6C.
Tell me more about this, Tones. I'm going to put new chains on my 1150 this winter, and was figuring on SALT chains. It's an LGP, and it spends more time crawling around in rough ground than it does in the swamp, but when I need wide pads, I NEED them. Dozer gets a maximum of 200 hours per year. I can get leftover OEM vintage chains for $1500 per chain, or ITR SALT chains for $2000 per. Case doesn't make chains for this dozer any more.
If you upgrade you will still have repair problems I have a customer who upgraded his 953 to a 953C run it one week and the hydrostat went out that is a 30K repair machine is really not worth it he only paid 40K for it so now he is down one loader and the guy who bought his old one is still running it
Dang, that sounds cheap......
You are at same point I was with my Fat Allis, had so much time and effort and let it go, wish some times was still here even as GLAD and did a Happy Dance when left. NOT going to find one better and in as good overall condition that you CAN still get parts for. KEEP IT, FIX IT!!!!!
An old bloke who owned a trackshop told me this. On dozers doing clearing or forestry work he would only fit greased pins, reckoned SALT tracks weren't worth the grief for him or this client's. His theory was a dozer doing earthworks the tracks were following the blade on a reasonably flat surface which was ok but when the dozer has to travel over rough terrain the tracks twist to much and chop out the seals leaking out the oil. The wider the grousers the worse the issue becomes.
Are what you call greased chains the same as "dry chains"? The track shop has a set of dry ones (no lube) that they recommended if I were going to sell the machine.
Based on his commentsabout twisting, etc, I'd be interested to know how that works in mining. The dozers almost never run on level ground yet SALT joints losing lube are almost unheard of these days.
Not my field, but don't most mining dozers run narrow tracks....?
Dry is no seals as far as I'm concerned, or I guess it could be sealed but no lubrication. You'd have to ask. Greased are usually used on excavators because of slower travel speeds and less travelling than a dozer. Can be used on dozers though.
if you would call widths in the range 24-28" narrow I suppose the answer is yes. Big thing with smaller machines is that invariably you see machines in LGP configuration (or non-LGP with wide shoes) working on hard ground. Nothing is going to take track pin joints out fast than that. Our yardstick was always to use the narrowest width of shoe that gave adequate flotation.
Yep, that was my point, like Shimmy said, when he needs wide tracks, he's got to have them, and he can't take them off when he doesn't. And yeah, I'd call 28" narrow under 250,000 lbs....
Greased tracks are just the old sealed tracks that dozers started out with. They have the Belleville washer springs which act as a seal to keep the material the tracks are running on out of the insides of the bushings. The grease acts as a lubricant if you run the machine all the time. If you park the machine for a long period of time, the grease can act as a glue and hold the link joints hard. SALT now days is real good about the seal technology and they usually last until the link loose the press fit on the pins and start to spread. The Caterpillar brand tracks for a long time were only better because the seals lasted longest. They didn't wear any better. You still see issues with the off brand stuff. Berco, Intertractor, ITM, Trex and all the rest still come up with a bad batch of chain from time to time. Wider pads do put more strain on the chain joints than narrower ones. They do not generally last as long even if running on soft ground. The primary failure is the spreading of the big ends of the links on the track pins and exposing the seals along with lessoning the tension holding them in place. Wide track dozers also have the track frames moved further away from the main frames of the tractors. That can also add to the strain somewhat on the tracks themselves.
Agreed. That's why Positive Pin Retention (PPR) track links on the bigger dozers have been such a success - the links don't spread. What's amazing to me is that PPR is now available as far down the range as D5 tractors.
I didn't know that they made it available for smaller than a D8. Nice to know. Thanks
So, what we have here it appears to me is the classic "6 one way, half a dozen the other" scenario. Yes, wide pads are harder on chains, but the seals are better than they used to be. The million dollar question is are SALT chains going to outlast greased chains to the point that the extra $1000 is absorbed? Too bad we don't all have that crystal ball in the basement.
I think "horses for courses" could also be an apt metaphor. What works best in a 24/365 mining operation is not necesarily the best option for either a contractor machine working maybe 40 hours/wk and likely not the best option for a farm/hobby machine eihter. All I can say is that SALT PPR chains will far outlast greased chains, and I mean far.
I will say all Cat SALT chains will outlast and deliver better cost per hour service in the dozer application than any sealed chain. I agree totally with Nige on PPR as well.
My D6C has 20" pads so not too wide. Almost always run in soft ground.
18" is standard shoe. If you don't have sinking problems the narrower you can go on shoes the better it is on the chains.
I think I might have chipped in with this one before, a few years back I was on a wide track D6K slotting in sand. The sand ran round the blade so the edges of the pads were running on it and twisting the chains. This was with System One and after five weeks most of the pins were shot.
From what I've read not many like System One undercarriage. I went with SALT because it was only a couple hundred $$$ more per side. I wonder if a machine that used infrequently and sits outside all it's life is more susceptible to dry links seizing? They certainly can squeak a lot more than SALT tracks.
Dry chains are just that, no lube, greased chains are greased on assembly with seals on each end of the bush but over a period of time the grease will leach out.
About 25 years ago I was working with a communication company installing optic Fibre cable. They D10n, D9ns and 2 375 Komatsus doing the prerip About every 2 weeks a Cat fitter was out fixing leaking or dried out pins. The Komatsus were never touched. I understand that improvements could have made in 25 odd years.
Where to start.? PPR, deeper hardened links, improved pin/bush joints, improved seals, different lubricant all within the last 20 years that I can remember. Probably other improvements also. This afternoon I asked around the shop when was the last time a D10 lost a pin joint here due to a seal failure and nobody could remember without digging into machine history files..... which I guess shows how infrequent it is.
Just lash out and get one of these. HeavyEquipmentForums You might need to smuggle it in under a coat or something
Well thats interesting.... my D6C 10K has 24 inch tracks and I was thinking that was the narrow. Silly me.
Indeed. A 150,000lb D10 can run on 24" wide shoes..........