Me and my buddy were bsing over the Idea of a high track track loader. I think It would be a great machine. Looks, pushing. what do you guys think
The Cat high tracks tend to be nose heavy without any counterweight so that might be a consideration in that application.It seems like the newer track loader designs have the engine in the rear these days.Ron G
High track designs seem to be on their way out. Cat is introducing flat track models in the higher level machines now according to the pictures from Con Expo. High tracks really don't have many advantages over the standard flat track. They are costing allot more because of all the extra steel involved in them.
"Looks" is the first benefit you can think of?? Sounds like thats your main perogitive
The tracks would be easer to clean... I'm sure one could be made with a rear engine but you would lose a lot of visibility.
Hmmmm a high drive track loader...... No. Not now.... not tommorrow.... not ever. If you have spent some time in a rear engine track loader like a 953/63/73 you will never want a hi drive model. You already sit very high on the machine platform. Trackloaders are narrower in their size class than a bulldozer, so working on slops is a different feeling. Any angle feels much steeper than it actually is because your so high... and sitting any higher would not be fun. If you still want to play with a Hi Drive in a track loader come to Edmonton... I have a 973 you can play with. Put it on any slope... you'll never think of it again. You'll start designing the low profile undercarriage track loader.
Well generally someone wouldn't pick a track loader for side hilling to start with.
Probably not.... but we do all the time. We have to slope our ditches so that the mainline hoe can sit on the edge and dig water and sewer services. And..... its fun too!
SAY WHAT?:beatsme
Normally when we run water and sewer through a subdivision we run the water and sanitary sewer at the same time in a double trench or double ditch as we call it. My job in the 973 is to backfill this until we are aboug 3ft above the waterline. As I backfill the ditch I actually don't bring any dirt in from the spill pile, I cut it all out of the banks making the ditch wider every lift. When I am getting close to my 3ft above water I end up sloping the walls so that when we pull the services in, the excavator can sit on that slope and dig the smaller trench. After the services are in, I start cutting out the walls even more to backfill them, and then I have to backfill the entire ditch high enough that we can run the storm sewer in. Basically when we dig the water and sanitary sewer the hole is usually 25-30ft wide and between 15-20ft deep. As I backfill and get to about 5ft of depth for the storm sewer the ditch usually ends up around 50-70ft wide. We call it uniform backfill. By the time everything is said and done, that one ditch is wide enough that I have cut from property line to property line across the future street.
jeez, we're lucky to have enough room to even get our big hoe in there to dig, let alone end up with a hole 50 ft. wide.
At what point in this sequence does the water line get tested...........how much work is involved to repair it or find the leak if it does not pass?Ron G
Water lines that deep are either concrete or 1 inch thick plastic PVC pipe, and the testing is obviously done as the pipe is laid in. BTW, Sureway is in Finning's "Tracks and Treads", quite the article to read! They sure have quite the history of big iron.
We test the waterline after the services are all in. Usually once the job is finishing up we do a pressure test on the line. All of our waterline is Blue Brute between 4" and 24". We we go at a new subdivision we go balls out with everything from digging to backfill.
We have two 953s trust me I have plenty of hours on it. I dont think you would have to make the machine any higher. If you raise the drives you could leave the machine at the same hight. IDK I just think it would be a badass looking machine. I no it will never happen. But Like couple guys mention it seems like every one is going back to flat tracks. John deere doesnt even make a high track dozer. Like I said I think a high track could push more and have a amazing stabilty but who knows cat will never make it.
It'll never happen. And you would have to make the machine taller. If you wanted to keep the hydrostat that means you would need the drive motors up where the sprocket is, which means the cab gets moved up. Look at the space on a 953, your already sitting on top of the engine and transmission. Actually Deere put out a study a couple years ago on why they don't make a Hi Drive bulldozer, think about it no one does. It might be a badass lookin crawler...but 973's are bad enough.
There has been plenty of choices in flat track dozers ever since elevated sprocket was introduced and who is still the clear leader?? ES drive works best with a bogie undercarriage and Cat capitalised on this position with smaller than D8L machines all those years ago, elevated sprocket is now supplemented on the smaller machines with flat track models. ES will not work in a track loader as the design goals and application of the machine are totally different, not to mention manufacturing cost vs volume sold in an excavator hungry world these days
Guys: I just came to your forum these last few days, and I have to say I learned a lot already. but here is my thoughts that I need to ask for some advice on. I am a Dairy farmer in S.E. Minnesota, and have to make some changes here soon, I hope to purchase a 953 series or 63 series Cat for the purpose of digging our new pit silos and various other drainage jobs as well as working at building logging roads of sorts in our woodland acreages. I've had the work estimated but I feel that maybe this amount of work would warrant the purchase, as well as having the machine for future use. As for logging roads...........guys, don't worry........I'm not going down over the edge.........I've seen what it takes to pull Dozers out of the hole and it don't look fun! I've had about 20 years experience on smaller loaders and payloaders and skidsteers but this is new territory for me and would like to ask for advice on what to look for in this series machine, what are it's weak points? ,Strong points? Thanks for your time,
Monte 1255 Ditto here too
As far as high treack dozers goes i love mine.Has giving me years of great service. Since this is about high track loader and Deere not building one check this out! Who says Deere doesn't have a high track machine! If they can build them this size why not bigger? Carry on.:usa
You know I was never a fan of the old Deere skid steers. But just last week I got to take one of their new CTL's for a cruise.....WOW I liked our 257B Cat MTL, it was a nice machine to run. Way too hard on undercarriages but it was a good machine. After running the Deere for 45 minutes, I wouldn't wipe my butt with the Cat's.
I am by no means an expert on high track machines or low track for that matter. But strictly from an observational standpoint I don't see any advantage of the high track.....only disadvantages. Like said before there is more track involved which would be more costly, and there is an extra idler which is more cost. We had a D10N on a jobsite that had a very worn undercarriage but what was most noticeable was that the rails had a very bad concave shape worn into them from going over the idlers. This makes sense.....twice as many idlers would equal twice as much wear into the rails and that made for a very bumpy ride. That was the last job that tractor was on before putting on new tracks. I was told that high tracks are more stable on slopes but that seems to go against basic physics. The transmission and final drives are higher so it should be more top heavy.....right? I have also heard of sprockets slipping on the pins on steep slopes because the teeth make contact with less pins. It would also make sense that the track pins would wear faster because they rotate more. I could be wrong about some of this but these are just some of my simple observations. I think cat could come up with any weird design and most people and companys would buy them just because cat is "what you buy" in the business.
Hi there, this my first ever post so brace your selves. It is my understanding that high drives were introduced for rock applications. With the final drive being elevated it stops large rocks from damaging them with regular impact, but this has limited use on a D6 compared to a D9 that is in regular quarry use. On the smaller machines the only advantage is that it shakes sand out of the chains to reduce wear in the pins and bushes etc compared to a low drive that can be constantly running in dirt stuck around the under carriage.
Hi guys, newb here...... The ET tractors are a lot easier to pull and repair the tranny and final drives than the oval-track machines. I don't know if this was Cat's prime motive for the design, but it certainly is a great consequence.
Tracks everywhere... From 1987....I never did get the follow up info,but it's a common picture.:
There are some hi-drive tracked loaders out here in Northern Ca. They are Cat 931's with LGP pyramid tracks. I've never seen them with buckets, only forks. The farmers out here use them at harvest time to load the pallets of freshly picked produce onto flatbed trucks and trailers, usually when it is muddy. Don't know if they came from Cat configured like that. I commute through the farm country often. I'll see if I can some pics of one of these loaders soon.
Some pics submitted on a Swedish forum. Found at; http://www.tpaktopc.net/allis_chalmers.htm :beatsme
Hi. I've never done rock work with a big dozer, apart from a short spell on a 82-50 Terex. I 've put some hours on smaller kit, and I was sceptical about the first EP D6 I operated. that was until I saw a press release about how a D6H compared to a D6E on batters - very little in it, but the EP is slightly better, on standard tracks, let alone bog tracks. If the tracks are to tension and the sprocket has all its teeth, they can't slip. Look at the engine and transmission and they are actually slightly lower on an EP. As for loader stability, look where the iron is on a 953/63 and how low the engine, pumps and motors sit, and they're a lot more stable than the seat of your pants tells you they are.
The modular design of the elevated sprocket tractors does make the repairs alot eaiser. The transmission can come out in as few as 2 hours, and the final drives require virtually no special tooling and press/puller equipment. In the environment that we run them in they seem to hold up just as good as the oval sprocket tractors. Most everyone around my area will go for a D6H or D6R over a D6D anyday. However, I see no feasibility in building an elevated sprocket track loader.
I saw an ES tractor built by the Italiam Industrial and AG firm Macmoter. They build a large range of machiner in cluding a couple dozers one is original and the others look to be New Holland machines. and they make some rear engined trackloaders to that look similar to Cat machines. They make a Hitrack Ag tractor on steel tracks that looks like a smaller Cat set up. I saw one in a video a friend of mine shot in Italy visiting his wifes family. They had a farm loader mounted on it loading manure on a farm and later doing something in a vineyard. Heres pic I got off their site of the bare ag tractor.
We build the Cat high track loaders for Celery and Ag produce. We have built over 50 units. If you have any interest give me a call. John 805 644 7990
That is really a wide guage tractor.
Wide Gauge Ag Loader The new one we are building is on a Cat 939C We make a High Drive and widen the sprockets out to 80" With 30" Shoes. If you send me your e-mail I will send you a picture. John [email protected]
i would like to see this please send a pic. [email protected]
RE: purpose of raised drive sprocket raised drive sprockets were developed to reduce wear, because raising the drive sprocket keeps it away from the ground, and because the track does not wrap under the sprocket, dirt and rocks fall out of the track before they get to the sprocket. one disadvantage is they generally get less than 90 degrees of wrap, which is generally fine, but it concentrates the force on less of the track than if it had 180 degree wrap as in track loaders. the common applications of track loaders i would assume do not mandate the raised sprocket, because they are generally not expected to sink into the material they are working on.
Cat literature on the Hi track design that I have seen & read says that by having a suspended bogie under carriage and elevated final drives it reduces verticle impact shock loads by up to 50%, as well the final drives only drive, they take no impact loads from the blade as the track frames are mounted to the pivot shafts and as for the number of teeth in contact with the bushes, its only the first 3 teeth to make contact with the bushes that take the load be it a Hi drive or Lo drive. The Hi drive is mainly for larger dozers working in extreme impact conditions where it seems to have proven itself over many years to be superior to the other brand of Lo drive dozers judging by the number of the Hi drives in the mines etc. Just my 2 cents worth. Cheers RDG.
Wow here's a blast from the past. I think the High-Drive vs. Low-Drive has been done to death. I would like to ask though, if its such a superior design? Why is no one jumping on board with them now that its a free market on building them?, and why is Cat running away from them? Once upon a time they had it from the 4-11. Now your buying 7's with a traditional undercarriage.
They finally decided that the advantages were mainly on the models with the bogie style bottom rollers. 8's and up? So most of the smaller machines are getting phased out.
On the smaller machines it's less to do with advantages/disadvantages than production costs. People will no longer pay the Cat premium when there's no clear blue water between them and other manufacturers in terms of reliability and output. And the "flat tracks" still have a raised sprocket, just not as far.
Here in the bay area of California the track loader is all but obsolete. Demo guys rarely even use em. Peterson tractor which invented the demo bucket for the 977 doesnt even have A crawler loader in there yard!!!! I went by last week and snooped around! Seems like the excavator has claimed the tasks! I went to A vocational school primarily sponsored by Pape Cat and those guys said the primary reason for elevated finals was almost purely maint driven.. The modular design made the downtime very efficient and any other advantage was just circumstance. Seems to me the most important thing about any piece of equipment weather it A human or machine is its cost to run/ move whatever per hr. I know if I was involved W Caterpillar or any machine manufacture I wouldnt put ten cents into A shrinking market.. Already enough built.
I just saw a documentary called "Bad Seed - Danger of Genetically Modified Food" and I saw what looked like a 935 c with the high track and pyramid style pads moving a pallet load of some kind of produce. I could not figure out why anyone would need such a machine but it sure looked nice! ALso has what looks like some kind of platform on the rear, not sure what that was about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go_29vbOdlI from 13 minutes it shows the high track loader @tallrick the platform on the back is a forklift mast carrying 2 more pallets
I never saw a forklift on the rear of a track loader. Must be only for carrying, then drop off and load with the front. There are a few celery farms around here, but they just seem to load on wagons pulled by a tractor. I would really like to know the advantages of the high track loader over other machines. Maybe because of the soil the celery grows in?