Any of u guys run a cat D5N xl with a ripper attachment? Very curious if it's worth the cost to add it to my machine? Obviously a 5 is only 28000 lbs, so you're not gonna rip rock, but what is it realistically good to handle? I use my dozers to install alot of parking lots, thinking about using it to break up hard pack for subgrade finishing. Any pros or cons from operating experience? Thanks
People have a tendency to use what they have even when they shouldn’t. I can see the machine getting torn up.
Would be ideal for what you do, loosening up compacted gravels and the like as well as drying out wet material. Once you have had a set of rippers on the back you would have anything else on the back except a winch if you were doing tree work.
adding new rippers to your dozer will sit you back about $7k in just materials...for a typical 3 shank setup. You sink those down in hardpan and you will test the max capabilities of your dozer. You will add between 1500-2000 extra lbs to your dozer. You can always drop the outside two shanks or just the center. That will help alot if you want to rip deep on each pass. I got a 3 shank ripper on my D4h and is handy for loosening up hard ground...but i cant sink em all the way down all the way every time...all i'd do is spin. They work for me but are almost worthless for deep ripping alot of hard ground quickly. Dozer is just too small and light wt. to rip efficently. With rippers on my dozer im at about 24000lbs.
Guy built a root rake for a D6 on the 3rd page about half way down the page. Saw something similar on the front of a td15 . The guy was ripping with it. Mind you they had a hoe on site to lift it on and off the blade. It had shanks like a grader scarifier.
What's the name of that thread?
If you have nothing on the back now I think you will find once you add the ripper the machine is balanced better and easier to fine blade with. Cats are actually designed to have weight on the rear..
Root rake advice for D6 I think
I just updated the post " Root rake advice for D6N" with a picture so it is on the 1 page now. The teeth are 18" long. I can sink them that deep and go with no problem but I had all ready pulled stumps so ground was worked up some and I have dirt with out rocks for about 24". I havent tried it any where else yet to see how it will do with rock.
I don't think I've ever seen a ripper on anything smaller than a 6. Looking at pictures now and it seems funny. They even have them on a 3
Wow i checked out your thread, my goodness you and the other gentlemen do some fantastic fabrication! What type of steel did u use to build? Did u make the pieces? The precision of the main hangers and pin/ bushings is impressive. If you made them, that type of machinery do u have. I'm not afraid to fab, but to make the precise pieces would be impossible in my shop. Torch and small plasma aren't gonna cut it. I can weld that all up no problem. Thanks so much for sharing. Help of a job brother ! Extremely impressive. Joe
Thinking about picking one up at auction, do you recommend the rear ripper? Seems like its a important piece for u? Any idea if my machine would be ready immediately to hook up to new ripper? Or do i need to have cat install control valves and or plumbing? My machine has the factory ripper lever installed on the right arm rest area. Right now my machine just has the draw bar attachment on the back. Thanks for your input bud.
You can achieve possibly the same or better results with aftermarket backup rippers made by VAIL. We install them on all of our dozers because we cannot go without winches mounted on the back of the machines. What we have achieved is the getting rid of the lost cycle of making a ripping pass...since you are ripping in reverse after every pass.
Any pix of his setup? Id be concerned of tearing up the blade bushings and pins. Most of my dozer work is hard pack grading. Rough on any machine
Do they drag when you push ahead, and engage the ground when you back drag? You just pin them up when you don't want them? Fisher had something like that on their snow plows for scraping in reverse
I used 1 1/2” AR400 for the rake. Your not that far from me. Probably 1 1/2 hours from Pittsburg. I could cut parts for you and you weld them up. You can can come and see how it works if it would do what you need it to do.
I don’t have any experience with back up rippers, but I would think they would be tough on undercarriage too. I would be interested to find out what kind of accelerated wear, if any, Cyclone77 has experienced with pins/bushings and sprockets on his machines that rip in reverse.
Oh absolutely! I would love to check that out. Where u from? I'll drive that no problem. What's your name sir? Would u want to hook up on Facebook or text? Id be happy to send u my cell#
Lenny Lottig. 814-442-6771 Metal man hooked me up with initial drawings so I’m glad to help pay it forward. Contact me how ever and you can see mine.
I will go to the shop and get you pics of our setup. they just free float when dozing forward and if put on a PAT blade can be chained up when not being used as to not catch them with the tracks when blade is kicked off to one side or the other. As to the effect of premature wear all the dozers in our line of work in this area are outfitted with them, we have never experienced any failure as far as premature wear we typically get anywhere between 5-7k hours out of a cat system one or cat hd undercarriage. I can honestly say we do not see any downside to this setup but perhaps since this is the only way I've ever run dozers maybe I'm overlooking something. Ill get pics posted ASAP
I was wondering the same thing, they would be hard on the undercarriage especially sprockets and bushes.
Don't get me wrong, its a great idea. Efficient as hell! Just nervous on a PAT blade that it would really tear up and loosen the blade especially in hard pack gravels.
Some understanding of how undercarriage reacts when the tractor is in reverse might be helpful. The link bushes rotate with respect to the sprocket whereas they don’t when the machine is travelling forwards. Think also about the impact on the track tensioner and recoil mechanism when the tractor is in reverse. Loading the power train & undercarriage with the tractor in reverse might have some less than desirable consequences.
Those are definitely aspects that I've never really considered.....mainly just due to only working the same machine setups that Ive known since I began running equipment. I didn't know that the bushes did not turn while tracking forward I just assumed they did since the system one uc came about. I can't say that we've had any problems that could have been attributed to the backup rippers of course you get some operators that don't care or are not paying the repair bills that will use them to try and pull thru solid rock They have to be used with some discretion. On a different topic I've seen a few threads when youve mentioned the total machine rebuilds....is there any determining factor or hour mark that would help make the decision to do a total rebuild? and also what kind of money would one be looking at for this process? We are running 6R series 3 dozers I know I could talk with our local CAT dealer but it seems at times they are quite a bit higher than some rival out of state dealers on most parts that we purchase. I definitely appreciate your amazing wealth of knowledge Nige also appreciate any input on the rebuild topic.