Alright guys and gals, looking to see if anybody has a weight on a fully stripped d6h or similiar dozer. What we got going on is I need a bigger dozer at my place, but the barge can only handle 15-19k lbs, in a 8 foot wide opening on the gate. So I was thinking once the blade, nose, radiators, cab, all covers and pans, fuel tank, batteries, pads, and extra rollers are removed it should be down around 20k lbs. Am I crazy? So essentially it would drive onto the barge on rails alone, and it would only run for a few minutes to load so it doesn't need a radiator hooked up. Then another 2 trips with all the other stuff and re assembly on the other end with a 80 size komatsu we have out there. Another option would be to remove finals and track frames and put it on a dolly, and back onto barge and pull it off the barge with my 450b or a d3. Just wondering what all your educated guesses would be on the weight totally stripped would be. Reason a d6h or d6r, I need something with push arms, been around those d6m and d6ns with the 6 ways that crack in stump pushing detail. Any other dozers that would work good? I would love a d7h but the weight is a concern with a d6h already. Tracking it out overland in the winter is out of the question, it doesnt freeze that well here for that stuff and permits are a pain to get. We had the 80 sized komatsu excavator hauled out complete and it was no issue, I think it was 18k lbs with some extra stuff making the load 21k? Any help is much appreciated.
Sounds like you are in Southeast? Also sounds like you can't afford to have the proper sized barge haul the machine for you.
Not being familiar with the D6H I would be curious to know if there are coolers in that nose that would prevent running without radiator installed. Guess if push comes to shove you could cobble up hoses to by-pass cooler(s) to run for very short time.
Southcentral, There is only 1 barge that runs this river that will handle more than 15k lbs, and he limits out at 19k he prefers. Cost is no issue, if there was a bigger barge this would have been done many years ago. The main problem with walking it in the winter is permits, and making a solid trail over the swamps that barely freeze. Too risky to have to pay the fines involved with sinking a piece of equipment in a swamp. Also the c130/l100 guys refuse to land on a sandbar or even homemade ice strip, tried that route also.
I really dont have any helpful advice but I'm sure every body would like pics and progress reports sounds like an interesting project
I wonder what a helicopter would cost?
or drop it out of a C17 whole. The military may come on board and call it a training exercise. I remember when I was 17 seeing a D2 that had been stripped down and the bits were flown to a remote location in a 180 Cessna and thrown out. The owners then walked in and reassembled it and cleared an airstrip. And that was in a national park. A lot of liberty has been lost since then.
That sounds like where there's a will there's a way. You'll have to just start breaking one down and weighing the pieces. Take your excavator down and meet the barge and pull the pieces off and put it together by the river.
Now I understand. If you can get a service manual, there is usually a section in there with weights and measures. My performance manual lists a D6H Series II, power shift with PAT blade and tow bar on the back at weighs in between 39,700 and 45,400 pounds complete. You are going to have to drop over 20,000 pounds. I think those weights are for an open ROPS. Try to get the weights on the tracks and frames first, then the ROPS structure. The blade and tow bar come next. I don't remember if the transmission cooler is air to oil or coolant to oil. I wouldn't want to disturb that stuff if I could help it.
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Have you considered a smaller dozer . You have a Komatsu digger already so must have sorted the supply line for it . A D41 stripped of its blade , rams , hydraulic tank , diesel tank , batteries may well be able to be walked off the barge . Every item has its weight listed in the relevant workshop or operators manuals for some Komatsus . The performance won't be far behind a D6 . If you ever need a service agent in there it would be better to have two machines from the same manufacturer .
I'm thinking Red Green. Several used pontoons, and lots of duct tape. Seriously, though, I'd look into building it's own barge for it to sit lower and made for beaching a dozer. -before I'd take one apart like that.
Would a good starting point be to remove the blade, push arms, blade lift cylinders & mounts, cab, ripper, etc then get what's left of the tractor over a certified scale while it's still mobile to see what you have left in the way of weight.? At that point using the Service Manual John C mentioned above you could use the weights of anything else that you considered removing to get down to your target weight. You/re really in uncharted territory with what you want to do.
So did some research, the 24 inch pads weigh 3198 lbs, track bolts and nuts weigh 160 lbs, bottom rollers weight 113 lbs each, so all together I think I can shave 3600 lbs off there and still be a le to drive it on boards no issue. I know it doesn't add up to much yet, but I need to calculate a good approximation before I pull the trigger on this machine im eyeing. I have 640 acres to clear, and the smaller equipment we have just isnt cutting it. Already have 2 smaller dozers and that komatsu, and the local CAT dealer is very helpful. Not many komatsus running around here. Im seeing Cat offers an assembly and disassembly manual, and was wondering if that would be better to purchase over the service manual. I would assume the service manual would have weights, or even the parts manual? Out of all the data for these machines something out there should have weights of the parts. I appreciate the help so far, Thanks.
how far is the cat dealer from you, and how do they move their equipment
and i would have a cat dealer near the cat do oil samples pressure tests and a complete inspection on the cat before you buy it and move a wore out cat that far and find out it is junk
Nearest dealer is NC about 10 miles away, this dozer is going remote but not to remote. The gist of it is its across 2 major rivers close to town, and walking it in the winter in this exact location would be a whole other ordeal and project involving permits. Been there done that on other jobs, and tearing stuff apart and putting them in planes or snowmachining it out is common practice here and Ive done it a zillion times. If it was the 80s like my old man grew up in, I would just walk it out in the winter, but like I said, now we have ridiculous permits, and winters aren't what they used to be. And yes, I will definately have the machine looked over good, its not my first rodeo. But I have no issue doing major work in the bush, hell I do that for a living sometimes. I already did a undercarriage, engine overhaul, trans replacement on the case 450b, without air tools or another machine. Talk about a chore with a come along and spruce logs, bottle jacks, and cheater bars. Its all in the fun. Another benefit of taking the machine apart is to overhaul what is needed while its apart, to be absolutely sure its it good running order. Ive done engine swaps and wing repairs on aircraft super remote, everything is possible, just takes some more bug dope and a tarp. Thanks for the advice again.
Interesting discussion. Way cool. What Rivers are you talking about close to Anchorage? Big & Little Susitna?
Regarding a comment that you made above. The assembly & disassembly section is just one part of a Service Manual. There are other sections on such things as specifications, systems operation, test & adjust, schematics, etc. Component weights are mentioned in the assembly & disassembly manual. The Parts Manual will not have weights.
Sort of. But this is how you shift a dozer in pieces.
I seem to remember the Usibelli brought their whole fleet into Alaska that way. Assembled most everything with helicopters.
Somewhere I have a similar photo of a grader being lowered down a mine shaft in pieces. What I was trying to say (maybe not very well) is that the OP is probably the first person who has had to reduce the weight of a D6H to less than 19k pounds to get it on a barge. If he was trying to get it down a mine shaft the question of how far it would need to be disassembled would probably be easier to answer.
We have a D6H 3ZF series. Su blade rippers cab and guards. Weight is 52000 lbs. I doubt you will get it down to 19k and be able to move it around. I am guessing that dozer, ripper, rops, cab, track frames neeed to be removed.
There are great stories about moving gear to weird AK places. Temsco Helicopters in Ketchikan moved a new D4 to the Quartz Creek molybdenum project, piece by piece. Ken Eichner mentioned it in his book. Bunkhouse story; There is supposedly a D2, way up in the alpine, on a mining prospect in the Hobart Bay Area. The miner supposedly didn’t have mineral rights and the Forest Service filled the crankcase with ready-mix to stop him. I’ve seen photos of the tractor. No verification the story is true.
You should see how they lower an R50 Euc dump bed down a mine shaft. That really keeps the welders busy.
For 640 acres id be looking at some bigger iron. If money is no object id find a sectional barge. 2 10X40 X5 sections will pack over 70000 lbs @ 2.5' of draft. Then have the local barge operator tow it up for you.
The line from the movie Jaws springs to mind - “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.”
I would defer to the local river pilot's expertise in the matter. Hard to think of a worse day than sticking your dozer and then losing it on a river bar. Now you are out the iron AND have to foot the bill for an enormous recovery.
Cool thread. I believe at a 19k lb weight limit you will have a hard time stripping that machine down to a point where it can still drag itself onto a barge. Is adding ballast a possibility? As far as helicopter work goes you'd have to have very deep pockets indeed. I just assembled a Kubota 080-3 mini excavator for a customer in a very remote part of northern B.C. using rotary wing to transport the dressed car body and stripped house. Because of the distance between sites (130kms as the crow flies) the total weight of the loads could not exceed 7500lbs. I used a load cell to weigh everything on disassembly, rigged everything up for safe transport and trucked the car body and house to the shortest distance we could get between a highway and the exploration site. Everything else (stick, boom, counterweights, buckets and enclosures) was sent to site via fixed wing Sky Van. Used the heavy lift helicopter to mate the house and car body and assembled the rest of machine with a little Kubota 420 wheel loader. Job went very well, but I believe the total bill to purchase, transport and assemble was north of 150k CAD. The point being that anything is possible with enough time, money and determination. Keep us posted! Here is a picture of the helicopter and the client once the machine was at work.
Is there a bigger barge available to rent farther away ? A 19,000 lb capacity barge isn't very big. The water depth is the main concern for the barge draft, maybe that is why they limit the load.
Wondering about this and I still can’t think of a river (remote) in the South-Central region including PWS and Cook Inlet that would be suitable to take a barge or landing craft. Someone help me out and tell me what I’m missing. I’ve seen some heavy loads cross the Big Su. Enstar builds an ice road every few years to maintain the natural gas pipeline from the Beluga gas field. It goes across Bell Island. Chugach Electric takes advantage of it for the Beluga Powerplant. So does Village of Tyonek.
Its the big su to the yentna, yes they do that ice road but thats 30 plus miles downriver, plenty of water. I think he limits the barge due to water depth and also center of gravity. He mentioned to me he hauled 25k once, but something about being underpowered or drafting to much. I flew over the route for walking it out in the winter today, its doable but would require pumping lots of water onto the cleared off ice to cross the big su reliably. Then the issue with permits and 30 miles of tree busting and shallow slough crossings. After reviewing the weights I could find in the service manual, I think it would be easier to remove the track frames and finals and leave the nose and radiator stack on the machine and back it onto the barge on a dolly. Then a seperate trip with track frames, finals, misc stuff like undercarriage and one more trip with the blade and pusharms would be the best route. If a d6h is anything like tearing apart a d8l, the finals and frames come off pretty easy and go on easy. This route of almost total teardown also allows me to look at d7s because the stripped weight is only a little more.
Ive been working up this river driving piles . Had the Inlet Raider 21'X90' packing around 150000 lbs and breaking ice to get there . The right operator and barge can go a lot of places
Just to clarify ,our trip was about 3 years ago not this trip shown in the video. All my pictures of that adventure seem to have disappeared in computerland.
I found that channel a few years ago and really enjoyed his Inlet Raider videos. He has put one up in a couple years though.
I was chatting up my old-time Alaska neighbor and he told me that steamboats ran the yentna all the way to youngstown bend, back in the day. I see where AK DOT&PF put in a barge landing when the Skwentna Airport strip was rebuilt and moved some heavy loads up that River. Interesting thread. Please keep us posted.
Heres my stuff on the Inlet Raider leaving for Kingcome.
very cool tugger. I cut right across there on the way to Ketchikan a couple of times, beautiful country.
We flew a D6H onto a remote mountain top mine exploration site in NW British Columbia in 1990. We used a Bell 205 helicopter with a max lift capacity of 4000 pounds. Originally a Sikorsky S61 with 8-9000 pound lift capacity was supposed to be used but the operator kept pushing back the date for the customer. Eventually the customer told us to just start on it and do what we could and the 61 would do the big pieces when it finally arrived. Dozer arrived at Tide Lake airstrip stripped for a 61 haul with a Finning crew from Houston BC in tow to manage additional disassembly and reassembly on the other end. If memory serves me we did 14 picks. Each track frame with rollers and idler was a pick, each rail with pads, blade, C frame, winch, engine, both final drives as 1 pick, cab, transmission and eventually got down to the main frame which the finning techs removed pretty much anything that would come off and we managed to fly it as well. At the destination end there was a wooden pad with 2 very heavily built saw horse type structures that supported the main frame in a level condition while the dozer was built up around it. Took 2 days to disassemble fly and reassemble the machine. We flew it about 25 miles. Once the main frame was reassembled it was pretty amazing how quickly the Finning crew built up the rest of it. Hardest part was installing the track frames onto the spindles.
Does anyone operate a Shorts Skyvan in Alaska. One was used to move a high drive hydraulic drive D6 in and out of a short rough strip on the Nahlin River NW of Dease Lake about 5 years back. The aircraft used came from Whitehorse.
Nomad Air out of Whitehorse has a few of them. They are in high demand this time of year up here. They have a 4500 lb payload (distance depending), maximum cargo dimension are: 6.5' wide x 6.5' height x 18' total depth. A very capable bush hauler by any metric, the downside being the age of the aircraft and the availability of parts (next to non existent). The pilot had a tire failure while taxiing on the strip before takeoff, and I helped him repair it with a tube insert in a magnesium split rim. When he told me the tire was worth $4k Cad I had to ask what the rim was worth, he told me to add a zero and you'd be lucky to find it at that. Needless to say, he wasn't doing cartwheels when I pointed out what looked alot like a crack in one of them. And I thought yellow junk was expensive...
Thanks for the info, so we know the frame stripped must be less than 8k lbs if it flew by heli into a site. I might send out my d3g lgp, but its hardly an improvement over what we already have out there. Yes steam boats used to run to youngstown bend, and all the way to Curry on the susitna, back when stuff actually got done. Im holding back from the d3g though because the used value of the 2 dozers are identical up here, both in good running shape are worth 50-75k, so why not buy a machine that can get more work done and will last longer. I will definately keep you guys posted, this is a longterm project though and will not happen until next year. Unless a dirt cheap d6d or d6c pops up that isnt rallied to death which isnt going to happen, then I would jump on that and run it till it dies. A day on a case 450b you hardly get anything done, a day on that newer d3g you get a lot more done, and on a d6, well you get the picture.
When I was flying up to Wrangell, the Johnny Mountain mine just across the border in BC was going strong. There was a Bristol Freighter there, and a DC-3 with a giant fuel tank assembled inside for hauling Jet-A/Diesel to the mine. Do you have an airstrip up there that can take a bigger plane?
In 2007 I worked on the Galore Creek project in NWBC. A Russian Mi26 helicopter was operating in Canada at the time on a special permit and was used on the program along with a Columbia helicopters Boeing Vertol Chinook. The Mi 26 was bringing 40,000 pound loads into camp and the Chinook 24000 pounds. A Hitachi 850 a 988 a D10 a 365 10 or more 40 ton rock trucks and D8T's 10 or more various sized excavators a big Kobelco crane for a bridge project and more other stuff than I can remember were all flown in and positioned at various points along the proposed road along with modular camps to house around 800 workers in total. At times there were 20 plus helicopters working on the project. The D6R pictured came in as one lift for the Mi26
This is my first post on this website. This thread is the main reason I had to join. I have always wondered if this sort of thing was done to transport machines into remote areas. Orest Anhel , In the above are you saying that they dismantled D8's and D10's to fly them into the back woods? Just Wow! How much will a Sikorsky sky crane lift?
S 64E model Skycrane is rated to lift 20000 pounds max. S 64F lifts 25000 max Vertol 234 Chinook 28000 max, was delivering 24000 pounds to Galore Creek Mi 26 the big white one pictured was bringing 40000 pounds to Galore, don't know what the max is.
Then my brother is full of it, he said he saw years ago on tv a sky crane moving an old D7 with blade. Have they ever modified them for more lift? I questioned him when he told me that story. Do you have any more pics of the move?
Erickson Helicopters owns the rights for the production of Skycranes plus they are the largest operator. They produce updated models now He sure he saw a S-64 or one of the Russian heavy lifters?
No airstrip big enough, mine is 1900 feet and grass. Sandbars during freeze up are good to land on, but the price is up there, I would be better off just totally dismantling a machine and putting it back together and hire 3 or 4 guys to make it happen quick. Ive seen the mi26 do some impressive stuff, I heard a d8r being moved up here with one in just 2 loads, which is impressive. I would have bought a d6c or an older d7f or e, as they are common up here but I dont want something thats hard to get parts for. I imagine the d6h or d7h series will be supported fully for quite some time still. If I find a highdrive d8 or d9 that would be the ticket, but would be a hell of an adventure to get it out there. 640 acres even with a d6h will still take some time. I wish I would be able to easily get something with bogey track frames out there, the traction would help a lot.
Weeder57 ,could you start making a doco of this move and have the world premier here on HEF as a reward for the help and input from the blokes here?
Weeder57, yes like Tones says take lots of photos and keep us informed. I wish I was in a position to help in that clearing job. What size trees? Are you going to log it first? Better purchase a saw mill with the way the lumber prices are going. Must be nice having a square mile of land, what is it going to be used for?
Beetle kill killed off all the sawable logs, we have a sawmill out there. Its a shame that the beetles moved in. Size of trees is 160 acres of second growth birch, most 2 to 10 inches in diameter in extremely dense large areas. Some of the worst stuff I have ever seen. The old growth is large birch, anywhere from 12 to 36 inches across, some cottonwoods approaching 48 inches or more. Horrible undergrowth that you can barely crawl through. Clearing it out solely because the cabin is a hobby, I like big open areas, and so I can see more moose to shoot from my porch, and just to do it. Including the runway and what I have recleared, I have about 20 to 25 acres I can see moose from my porch. Also would like to extend my runway to a solid 2300 feet, and put in a crosswind strip. As with everything involved with a cabin, its a long term project. Im lucky to clear 2 to 3 acres a summer working the 450b case every weekend. And the piles dont get pushed far. The d3g will be a big improvement, but from working other jobs you can realistically only get 1.5 acres to 2 acres a day cleared out with it, and thats not pushing the piles out to make nice windrows and fields about 300 feet wide.
I was wondering if this was agriculture or mining or what. And how you could do what you want to do without heavy iron, since heavy iron seems just out of reach here. What you need is some trained beavers. Beavers are the only thing I know of that makes clearings in growth like that. Lacking the beaver whispering skills to train beavers, the next best thing would be ditching, levees and flooding to kill the trees. How's the water out there, are you allowed to burn, and what's the plan to keep the area from regrowing?
I was surprised when I saw all the birch on some tv shows of Alaska, I always had it in my head that the main trees would be fir and hemlock in that state, I'm just not too tree or wood wise I guess. So is the ground pretty solid and not wet or mushy? You have enough land there to have nice long airstrip, enough to get a DC-6 in there, is it high or in a valley? Too bad they don't have those Carvair's any more one of those could haul some dozer parts pretty good.
Sounds like there will be a Chinook in Prince Rupert in the near future. Call up Columbia Helicopters in Oregon and see what they can do for you. Chinook lifted the first 2 D8R's into Galore. The D6H would likely go in 2-3 picks.
What all did they have to remove for the Chinook's to lift those D8R's? Just curious has anyone taken down one of the older type of D8's to fly them in? Those newer ones are way easier to break down especially the finals and transmission. And how are they checking the weights of the larger parts? Are they using a scale on the lift line? I just found this.
Maybe some loggers could help you out?
Has a 6-way but looks in pretty good shape! Caterpillar D6 https://anchorage.craigslist.org/hvo/d/wasilla-caterpillar-d6/7336728702.html
I often wonder why the ads don't show both sides of a machine. Maybe they only painted one side, maybe the covers are missing from the hidden side, maybe there is damage on the off side? If you go to the site and enlarge the photos, you can see where the rock guards are cutting grooves on the back side ledges of the track pads. That might indicate the bottom rollers are worn down or that the machine has been working on steep side slopes. That makes me wonder about that idler being so far back in the track frame.
Yeah I saw that d6d pop up on craigslist, first appearance it does look like a good machine, but for my purpose I really need push arms. I have had good luck with d3s and little case 6 ways but the larger ones seem to crack and rip the centers off eventually. That and hydraulic lines. I was told by a guy yesterday that a d6r frame by itself they picked up with a 10k capacity lift, so the frame for sure must weight less than that.
You guys might be looking at this all the wrong way , is the trip upstream or downstream ? It would be easy enough to build two pontoons , one for either side . A beam across the top of the blade and another connected to a ripper tool bar so the pontoons can be lifted to walk over shallows . Calculation for pontoon size is easy , allow on cubic litre of air per KG of weight of both dozer and pontoons and then some for spare .
It would be nice to see a map of the route, how deep are the crossings? Maybe a larger high drive dozer would cross, during the right time of the year?
Downriver 20 miles, then upriver 15 roughly. River is anywhere from a foot up to 50 feet deep. On average the main channel is about 15 to 35 feet deep depending on speed. The pontoon idea I thought of, but the same amount of effort could be put into tear down and re assembly or fighting it in the winter. Im going to go fly the route again and see just how hard a winter walk will be, definately would have to be pumping water onto the ice in a few crossings to be safe.
I believe that your time and money would be well spent in exploring the "ice road" option. I can certainly speak to longer, colder winters as of late (in my neck of the woods at least), which would be essential for the walk. With enough drilling, flooding and freezing you could walk that girl anywhere she needed to go, provided you had a good ol' fashioned north of 60 winter on your side. I can certainly forsee environmental permitting being an issue; God forbid your horrible yellow machine disrupt irreplaceable aquatic icing grounds... oh, the horror! Perhaps forgiveness trumps permission?