i workd for a company that had all d9g, hs mostly for their bigger dozers pushcats with petersons and a couple regular dozers. company policy was to never put them on the side of slopes, leaving that to the d6s and scrapers, seemed like we hardly ever had track problems, you were taught to go back and forth straight lines never spinning on one track to turn, always use the three point method. the place i work for now i always see some one on the side of a slope trying to shine it up, either with a d10r, or 9r, or 9L. yesterday they walked the 10 out of its tracks and today the 9r went down with similar probs. does any one else have company policies about sidesloping bigger dozers? i have on a couple of occasions gone behind the d10 after hes made a pass on the side of a slope and seen a trail of tiny metal shavings coming off the rails on the bottom side.
None of the ones I worked for have if the tracks are adjusted it shouldn't be a problem.
company that i worked for would hand a written warning to anyone who put a 10 or 11 on any sort of batter. and be sacked on the spot next time.
This last job I worked, the two D9's were all over the slopes working with slope boards and GPS. They had a D6 doing the same on the slopes the 9's couldn't stay on. The outfit swore by the GPS stuff, but it seems like every other day they had to go back and rework a slope or a ditch some place cause the state came out and handed them an updated GPS model. The one big fill I worked on, we dug out a large portion of it twice, then filled it back in cause the state couldn't make up their mind how they wanted it to look. This is a California company and they love their slope boards. I was taught to bring the slope down with the cut and then you didn't have to get back on the dern thing. None the less, slopes are hard on cats of all sizes and you have to look at your machine pretty sharp to stay ahead of problems. I've had to rescue many a dozer that popped a rail off on a slope. Not my idea of fun.
That is what my dad taught me and that is how we do it. My dad told me about how back in the day, they would drag a pair of D9 chains across the slope to clean it up. You don't see anybody doing that anymore.
my biggest complaint is that i work in a mine now and the slope is not that important.the engineers mark out the highwall with stakes 2:1 with a 20 foot offset, the 20 foot offset is for a road around the top of the pit. scrapers usually start the slope when taking off the topsoil,with three different shifts the 2:1 ends up looking like a variable slope. then it never fails the dozers come in and some one always trys to pretend were on a road job building a slope on an interstate, some of our slopes have some pretty wild tracks on em, ive seen D10 tracks where a guy slid sideways and how he didnt roll was just sheer luck.
Dozers on slopes. Hi, 637Slayer. Slopes of any sort are hard on tracks of any sort on dozers of any size. Some companies have this notion that using smaller dozers for slope work may be cheaper 'cos the tracks are smaller and cheaper. I don't how the economics of the situation work out but I can tell you that the same rules applies to the size of dozers on slopes that applies on flat ground - "The bigger they are, the more dirt they move and the quicker they do it". Having said that, many of the medium-sized dozers are a little more stable on slopes than the bigger machines. You can still see metal shavings from the tracks of smaller dozers, just less of them and smaller ones, mainly 'cos there's less metal to shave and less weight to do the shaving. There is also a school of thought that reckons sharp turns with a crawler wear the tracks more than slower turns. What they don't seem to think of is that the tracks may be copping less strain on a slower turn but they are copping it for a lot longer. On a spin turn with clutch-and-brake steering, the inside track stops altogether while outside track does all the moving. Even so, there is still some small movement of rails against rollers, idler, sprocket- to-bush, and pin-to-bush, etc.. Meanwhile the outer track is almost trying to tear itself to pieces with rails rubbing against roller and idler flanges, bush-to-sprocket contact, pin-to-bush contact, rail-to-guiding guard contact, etc.. On slower turns, these wear areas may incur less actual strain in terms of the forces involved but they cop it for a LOT longer. AND it is happening to BOTH tracks at the same time. As I said above, I do not know the economics of all of this. I only know that it IS. Another thing that I do know is that an operator can do a LOT to reduce track wear simply by being aware of the many factors that cause tracks to wear and do what he or she can to reduce those factors within the constraints of getting job done. Even soil conditions and minor ground contour variations can make a difference and a good operator will be keeping an eye on them as they work. F'rinstance, a crawler will always turn easier with the inside track on a hump rather than in a hollow and they also turn easier on harder ground that in softer soils. Softer soils also get picked up in greater quantities to get ground up in rail-roller, rail-idler and bush-sprocket contact. MUD? A whole 'nuther set of problems, including increasing the side loads imposed when turning. ROCK? Introduces more extreme twisting forces against pin-bush contact and tends to increase wear from all the other factors too. Another big track killer is speed. Use no more speed than is necessary to get the job done on time. If high speed is necessary to achieve this, either there have been a lot of delays in the job or the estimators and engineers have stuffed up big time. Again? As Surfer Joe said, keeping on top of the track maintenancne is the key to long track life. Just my 0.02.
i guess that is what i was trying to say was the economics, the rebuild price of the undercarage between a smaller dozer compared to a larger one.i believe if you bring the slope down right when your done you shouldnt have to go back except for minor touchups.i guess my biggest complaint is about the new D11 the company i work for just bought,i seen the guys running that on the side of some pretty steep slopes, trying to do things that dont need to be done, i gave them a hard time about it for awhile,ide tell them that machine is made to sit in a hole and push dirt in straight lines, they never listen.the other day i was checking out the tracks and other wear places and sure enough right around the plate you take off to tighten the tracks on the big tube a big crack. i dont know if this was caused by transfering all the weight {238,000lbs}on to one side while sidesloping but i know it dont help.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am trying to drag a 2000 pound chipper 500yrds up a 25% grade using a T190. I dont know what the hell I am doing. I am a simply a do it yourself weekend nut. As I start up the hill I get 10 feet and then it just digs into the soft dirt. I was going to laydown ply wood on top of the dirt but it is tearing the ply wood up. What can I put in the rutts or over the ruts to get traction? Should the T190 be abe to pull a 2000 pound chipper up a 25% grade. I ahve logs I can lay in the ruts but the T190 just spits them out. Any thoughts. CG
Gday 637slayer, the cracks you refer to are they around the cannon (top side) just foward of the main pivot pin? If so what model 11 is it? I have seen this a lot on 9Ls and 10s but I havent been around too many later model machines. If it is a late one you would think they could have rectified it by now cos it must be a 25 year old problem. Usually the dead giveaway is the faint oil stain where the oil is coming up the crack. Cheers.
hello i need to take the slack adjuster out of my d9g. it is a 1970 model with a hydraulic cylinder. were hydraulic track adjusters around back then? the track walked off front idler and i'm thinking might be good time too fix the adjuster and then roll track back on. we're farmers and we don't beat this unit. it is in very nice shape. question is, how does the adjuster come out? everything on a d9 is heavy so i know it won't be easy. i just need to take out to bring to a cat shop. any help will be greatly appreciated. jim lapham
You need to go to the website acmoc.com and look for posts by rolyd8k.He is very generous with pics,has several D8s and does his own repairs.The D9 should be much the same. Also classicmachinery.net is a good place for pics.tctractors and nicky are good contributors with pics for reference there.Ron G
Hi guys I worked them scrapers for many years and built lots of hiways in Rogers pass the trans canada mica dam peace river, we would cut our slope down with the scrapers, about 15 ft then the forman would move us over or into another cut, then the grader would clean the slope up and we would head back in again. I only saw them use a dozer if somebody read the stakes wrong and they would have to redo it.
Good post Dea's. If you do all the slope work with the dozer going down hill the wear in the push is not going to be any worse than pushing on level ground. If you try going sideways then you start to wear roller flanges and rails on the up hill side. So these places that would fire ya for doing that must not do any clearing with a large dozer then.
Downhill - no wear??????????? Hello, Dozer575. I agree that working downhill is going to be better than side-cutting slopes. Trouble is when you get to the bottom, how do you get back up there for the next downhill push without loading all those pins, bushes, sprocket teeth and final drive gears with reverse load all same heavy back-dragging, only worse if the slope is pretty steep? Or do you subject the tracks to all the stresses and strains of doing a 180 deg. turn to drive up face first then repeat the process when you get back up to the top? Just curious.
opcorn
Popcorn??????????????????????? Hi, John H. Would you prefer the duel to be with printed words or feather dusters, either one at a distance of 12,000 miles? LOL.
slopes a little hanomag on a steepish slope http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeXNWS0d5so&feature=related cheers graham
I'm just waiting to see what HIS replay is to this one Deas.
Don't hold your breath. Hi, John H. Just a suggestion, M8. Don't hold your breath. This guy possibly has/had ambitions of being a Marine sniper or some such, maybe a wild West bushwacker. He likes to take a shot and dive into cover or even shoot from cover. Trouble is, his aim is mostly pretty woeful. I've seen him posting under various names for around 7 years now and I don't remember him EVER scoring a clean hit. He has put up the odd good post here and there. Sad part is the relationship between his good posts and his 'less exalted' offerings is a lot like fish in the sea - there's a lot of fish in the sea but there's a LOT of water between 'em.
I'll try not to Deas. But I do like the way you call him out. Semper Fi
How you doing down under Deas? Those "summertime blues" and warm temps getting to you yet? (75 degrees here today, sunny and dry) In my time in the coal mines in Kentucky and West Virginia, we had to restore the slopes everywhere we did a side hill cut. (also called mountaineering or side hill mining) As we always mined out exactly to the edge of the mining property, we could not work the slopes from the top as that would have placed us on someone's property and then there would have been a big squall. These slopes were generally engineered in West Virginia. In Kentucky they were usually just "eyeballed." So, the haul trucks would dump excavated material at the base of the slope and our dozers would push that straight up, with the occasional slight turn into niches and corners of course. Next would come the task of walking the slope in with the grousers. This helped with erosion control and also provided some grip for the next process. After slopes were prepared, haul trucks brought in top soil. This was also pushed straight up, them when all was ready, the slope was walked in, then seeded. We usually did not have to water the slopes, as it rains enough back there to provide the needed moisture. For stripping operations, it was usually all straight down hill, with, again, some side hill movement to account for corners and certain tough to reach areas. The dozers usually backed straight up, but many times the hillsides were too steep and they would have to turn around at the bottom and head up frontwards, or even sometimes take a longer way around because it WAS WAY TOO STEEP to climb. I also remember a couple of occasions where we had to tie one dozer to another to clear very steep sections because there was no place to turn around initially and it was too steep to back up, so the back dozer pulled the lead machine back up. This was a tricky maneuver as we usually only used a twenty-five foot tow cable. The back dozer operator had to have a good feel for things going backwards down hill. We used Cat D9L's 14Y, D10's-84W, D9H's, Fiat Allis HD31's, and Komatsu 475's. Once in a while in WV, our two D11's got involved, but they were usually cutting benches, or feeding the loaders and front shovels. We did have one D7G in each mine, but they were usually used for erosion repair and control work. Side hill dozing was generally avoided because of track wear and besides, some slopes were so steep a dozer couldn't stay on them sideways. They just turned possum! We had an enormous amount of pin and bushing problems, also front idler and roller frame trouble. Pivot shafts and roller frames cracked or busted every day and tracks just fell apart on the 10's. No fun retrieving those bustards when you couldn't hardly stand up next to them on a slope. Most of the operators in Kentucky were very good with many years of experience. The UMW operators in West Virginia were not so good, as many of them were recently underground miners whom had posted onto a dozer when the underground mine closed and their seniority allowed them to switch over to the surface operation. As a Maintenance Manager, I hated to see dozers working side slope on a regular basis. It is very wearing on rollers and rails, not to mention sprocket segments. It's just plain hard on the entire U/C, and it's expensive.
I've had to on very steep ground, just turn it and go forward up hill, one job it was a pain, had to litterally drive a long distance around to get back up there. It was clearing a hill side, and still got it done way faster than trying to build a couple of roads for excavators to do it. I try not to over stress in any turn, but there are those occasions.
I hear you. Hi, Surfer-Joe. I hear you. I have done a fair bit of side-cutting of batters with bigger dozers, although not high-sprocket drives. I was always conscious of the added wear inherent in this work. Funny thing was that a lot of the operators on those jobs preferred the D8H's and K's for side-cutting while I preferred a D9G or H. I also did some pretty steep side cuts with a D7F but my all time favourite for side-cutting was a wide gauge Cat D5B with standard 'boots'. I have used a grader on a tether for cutting batters but not a dozer. I would guess that having a dozer on a batter tethered to another on the flat above would take a lot of the strains and wear factors out of the equation. Dozer 575, I can tell you one dozer, an oval-track Cat what's more, with which you could NOT climb a slope face first if you couldn't back up it. Wanna guess which one and why? I faintly suspect that the first JD 850 hydro-static dozer that I played with would not do it either - and for the same reason - although I never got to try it. It's JUST a suspicion. Wanna guess at the reason while you're at it?
One reason that ole 8 did'nt back up too good was it had only a winch on rear, a 4 bbl ripper will balance them better, and yeah the grouser won't clear going backwards. But one huge problem with el cheapo's machines worn tracks, and slipping sprockets etc. With all the slipping through the sprocket that machine never had a final problem in the 10 plus years it ran, no not the same tracks that long, new to us was 60% used ones so.
WOTT?????????? No guesses????????????? Hi, Dozer 575. WOTT??????????????? No guesses??????????? I would have thought that a lad of your 'vast and varied experience' would have leapt at the chance to 'edjewmackayte' some of our newer, less experienced members and maybe save them some grief in the process. Ah well, I guess if you don't know, you just plain don't know.
around here in western nc. we just yo- yo the dozer off the steep slopes and pull it back with a winch cable you just have to keep an eye on your cable for bad places just my 2 cents