Hi, Folks. Here are some photos of a recent ride, a Cat D9H dozer. Enjoy. That's an order. LOL.
Hi Deas, thanks for the pics....you have real dirt too...and a shiny blade Is that in the Hintertlands? There is something about a D9...how do they get you old guys up in the cab anyway...some sort of gantry?? ( wait for it:stirthepot
Wheelchair ramps Hi, Squizzy. Does the subject line give you the answer to your question? Or will you settle for me being one of the more lively fossils you've never met? Perhaps you need to remember that you still have to survive long enough to get to be as old as I currently am. Think you'll make it???????????? And it's actually closer to the coast than the hinterlands. Finnegan Way, Coomera, to be precise, if you want to look it up on Google Earth.
Nice pictures Deas!:thumbsup
There was a school of thought (and some betting) that reckoned I wouldn't make it to 21....but here I am Know the area well....Got some procreated rela....I mean in-laws in the area. I made the mistake of Buying a house at Helensvale once..:Banghead Cheers
Deas: I wanna operate dat Cat. Nice pics. I'm still looking for a dozer!! Where's OzDozer? Hope he OK.
55, you'll find Ozdozer here http://www.antiquecaterpillar.org/ Deas, nice D9. Watcha doin' wid' it? Take care, alan627b
Watchya doin wid it? Hi, Alan. Would you believe I was stripping and stockpiling topsoil on a new sub-division. They were fooling around with excavators stripping the topsoil while this beast was sitting there doing very little 'cos nobody wanted to operate it - and I suspect that nobody understood it enough to be able to strip topsoil with it. Dang young whippersnappers that only grew up with hi-sprockets. Once they found I could run it, they got me doing other things too but that's where it started. I thought it ran pretty well too. I've been on a D8R with GPS (first time with GPS) for a week since then and another 1 1/2 weeks on a D6R with bull blade and backscratchers cutting to +/- 2" after the excavators and before the graders. One excavator has GPS and doesn't need any cleaning up after him. The others don't - and do. Most of the hauling is being done with Volvo ADT's A25's and A30's - but they also have a Bell 4206 tractor with 2 Miskin scrapers. I personally think they have the wrong tires on the Bell - more flotation instead of traction - but what would I know? Still, it moves dirt. I have attached a Google earth photo of the site which will be about 2 years old. I have circled the two houses that used to be on the property and the stables that used to be between them. The 2 clear rectangular areas were riding arenas for dressage and show jumping practice. The Bell tractor and Miskin scrapers, the D8R and the GPS-equipped excavator all work on another site about 600 yards up the road being done by the same company. They swap plant and operators between the 2 sites. Handy. (You can look this site up on Google Earth by typing Finnegan Way, Coomera, into the search bar on Google Earth. The second site is due North of this one.)
more cat, photos to save, loving it. Deas Thanks, This is a good place. You all have a nice day:usa
Welcome. Hi, Garyhh44. You're welcome and welcome to the site.
How's the visibility out of that thing??
How's the visibility???????????????? Hi, Crazycajun. Welcome to our little corner of cyberspace, kindly put together by Steve Frazier. Thank you, Steve. How is the visibility out of that thing. Well, I guess that satellite photo says it all, clear, detailed, recognizable objects, can see the individual trees. How's the vision from that satellite? Pretty good, I'd say. Oh!!!!!!!!!!! You mean the visibility out of the dozer????????? Quite good, actually, all things considered. Only a huge radiator with an up-sloping hood, a lot of panel-work, a fair-sized blade and a rear-mounted ripper to get in your way. Yeah, not bad considering. Mind you, I have heard one or two whinge a bit about that very topic. Can't helping thinking they'd whinge if their butts were on fire in a snowstorm. (Now what would I know about snowstorms, coming as I do from DownUnder?) There are some blind spots in there Crazycajun, but you get used to it - - - or you adjourn to the 'rubber ranch'. I have a bit of an advantage there in that I spent quite a few very enjoyable hours on open D9G's and H's before I ever got in an air-con-ed one. I sorta got to know them a bit.
thats a nice old machine... would love to get a few min. on that!!
The 9G and the H are the best looking dozers ever made as far as I am concerned. I agree, that rising hood did create quite a blind spot, depending on the work you were doing.
Sloping hoods and good-looking dozers. Hi, LDK. Welcome to Heavy Equipment Nut's Heaven. I agree with you about the D9G and H being good looking machines but I've always liked the look of the later Allis Chalmers models with the sloping hood too. Not that they were anywhere near the dozers that the equivalent Cats of the time were but I always liked the look of them. I only ever got to run one A-C, an HD16 stick-shift with a Buda engine, an angle blade and a LeTourneau cable control and I liked it. However, I did get to see a few A-C's with various parts of their 'anatomy' in disarray, most commonly, final drives or transmissions. In this respect, I think they were a bit better than the IH dozers of the time but still not in the same ball park as the equivalent Cats. Biggixxerjim, just to turn you a little greener with envy, I got to run it for over a week and loved every minute of it.. Sadistic type aren't I? And I do have some salt that you can use to rub in the wound, if you want. LOL.
I ran some Allis Chalmers too, HD14's which I liked, HD7's that I thought were better than anything else of that size that I had run at that time, that is speaking purely from an operating point of view, beacuse one I ran for about 18 months broke up at an alarming rate, I was working in a heavy sand and gravel material though.They had great power to wieght ratio and were very well balanced. I also ran a 20 or was it a 21 for a while (showing my age here, I can't remember for the life of me) it left no lasting impression on me! Never ran a cable blade Allis but spent a lot of time on cable blade D8 22A and 68A's. I also spent a little time on the only 8K I came across with the same set up. The good reviews that the K gets on this forum has been a bit of surprise to me, I was never a fan of them but I loved the 68A's and the 22A's were great when hooked up to a towed scraper. I suppose the work you are doing and the condition and power output of the machine you are using direct your point of view. I will say that I do know quite a few operators with the same opinion, age could be a big factor here too? I have to ask, what is the buda engine?
Buda Engines. Hi, LDK. If my memory serves me right, the HD14 that you ran would have had a 'Screeeamin' Jimmy' in it, and there may have been one of them in the HD7 as well. Eventually, it dawned on Allis Chalmers that they could do a whole lot better in the way of engines for their tractors that those screaming, oil dripping, 2-strokes. After looking around a bit, they decided that a company named Buda made engines that suited their needs pretty well and they stitched up a deal with Buda to supply engines for A-C crawlers. Time moved on and, as has happpened many times before and since, the company BUYING the engines decided that it would be a good idea if they OWNED the company that was MAKING the engines and so A-C bought Buda out and the Buda factory started turning out A-C engines. Does this story sound a little familiar?
I think the early HD7's would have had a 371 detroit and the later HD7G would have had the Buda engine in it.
Hi Deas, Those are great pictures-thanks for sharing. I bought a 9G five weeks ago out of England and should have it home at the end of this month-I had a choice of it or a 9H but there was little difference in condition between them with the G being quite a bit cheaper. I noticed on another thread a reference to ireland-well in southern Ireland I can verify when someone rings up looking to hire a dozer they ask for a D65. Here in the north its not just as clear cut as that ,interestingly the Komatsu is regarded as being the better machine for boggy ground while the D6R is regarded as a production dozer tho with an LPG undercarriage I cant quite figure that one out!!!! Best Regards Neil
Hi, NeilD. You realise, of course, that you have now officially put your foot in your mouth, that you will now have to come up with 'foters' of the beast when it arrives. I would reckon that Nick Drew would like to see'em too. It is interesting that you say the D65 is regarded as the better wet area dozer. Right from the earliest times that I had anything to do with LGP/swamp dozers, it was pretty generally thought that the 'Kummagutsas' were better that the equivalent Cats. Most people seemed to find that the Cats would go in further than the 'Kummagutsas' but wouldn't come back out again. This seemed to apply to both LGP track shoes and the pyramid- or triangle-shaped 'swamp' track shoes. Having said that, I have vivid memories of one operator on a D5B 'swampy' leaving eveything in his wake for dead working in a swamp area sub-division near Newcastle, New South Wales, about 20 years ago. I still think that particular dozer had 'Jesus boots' fitted to it. Best of luck with your new toy.
Hi Deas, Putting classics like D9G and D5B aside for a moment. I have heard from the Alberta oilsand tailings applications (the guys with the rads on the roof that we see submerged a lot) that when in heavy going that the Komatsu can back up out of trouble a whole lot better than the high drive.
Not Surprised Hi, Wulf. Thanks for that little bit of information. With my past experience and observations of Cat Hi-sprocket dozers, I'm not surprised. I have noticed that of all the hi-sprocket models that I have been on so far, only the D8L, D9L, the 84W D10's and the D11N and R seem to be anything like capable of really putting their grunt on the ground in the same way that the D8H and K and the D9G and H - and the D5B - would. This has got to be due to poor front/rear balance, at least in part. I ran a D10R for several hours about 15 months ago and I was truly impressed with its ability to put its grunt on the ground - just not favourably impressed, if you get my drift. I told the regular operator at the time that the old D5B would 'dump' all over the D10R in that respect. He couldn't see it at the time, even after I had explained to him exactly what I was talking about. He came back to me a week later and said that he could now see what I meant. Then, a couple of months later, he got to run the D5B for 4 days. THAT gave him a whole new understanding of the situation. It's all very well having big mobs of horsepower and weight but it's almost as much use as an udder on a chook if you can't get that power on the ground, translated into traction. And that applies to backing up as much as pushing forward. I was really impressed with the way the D9L would back up steep slopes as well as the way it pushed but it's one of a small number of the hi-sprockets that have impressed me in that regard.
Hello Deas I ran a 5B LGP for 6 months in the mid to late 70's (memory?) and it was a nice tractor, one problem that it and others that I ran across had was that the fenders over the tracks used to come loose a lot or break. I think that was the first LGP I ever ran, they were not as common then as they are now. I would love to hear from anyone that had the chance to run a D8R LGP, I never have but the standard 8R has allways impressed me in bad ground.
D5b. Hi, LDK. I have never run a D5B LGP, only the wide guage, standard track shoe machine that I currently operate, although this one would take LGP shoes. I have had no problem with fenders deciding to stay behind anywhere while the machine goes on without them. However, this machine - series 44X - does have the ROPS brackets under the fenders too and that might be the difference. The machine was originally a Saudi Arabian oilfield dozer with no canopy of any sort and no ripper, just a 'bobtail' dozer with drawbar. It probably spent most of its life over there chasing sand dunes across the landscape. It was fitted with a ripper and a 'sortuva' ROPS at the request of the current owner, for whom I work, and has done a little more than round up sand dunes in the past 4 years. I have done quite a few jobs that gave it a bit of a work-out, including spreading shale fill from 10 - 13 semi-trailer tip trucks and/or truck and dog trailer tipper combinations doing 7 - 8 loads a day for 3 months. Average, 20 - 24 cubic metres per load. It loved it. I ran a Kummagutsa D65P 'swampy' with a logging winch on the rear for a while in late 1996. It went well but had a bit of a problem one day when I WASN'T operating it. The operator at the time was barreling backwards in 3rd gear whilst 'perving' on a couple of good-looking sorts walking down the road about 20 metres away. He was so engrossed in his perving that he didn't notice the left track 'unzip' when the master link bolts let go until he had left it behind by about 5 metres and was running on the bare track rollers. That raised some caustic comments from the boss, who wasn't known at the best of times for his complimentary attitude.
Brackets Hey Deas, We were not lucky enough then to have the rops cabs but you are on the money as far as the brackets go because on the 5 that I was on and the others I saw around at that time, had extra brackets welded in as a remedy. The tin sheds that we used to get as cabs back then would also suffer when them fenders started to flap. I liked the 65P but the difference between that and the 65PX, is like night and day. I might be sticking my neck out here but I reckon that the 65PX model is the best or most enjoyable dozer I have been on in recent years.
Hi Deas Yea,I am finally gonna have to figure out this computer lark as to how to stick up photos. Your comment that Komatsu were always known for being better in the swamps is interesting, I have to say that I do not have the experience on dozers you guys have but I always thought the oval track lgp Cats were pretty close. After all the nearest Komatsu's were that bit more powerfull which of course made all the difference,I have seen oval track Cats working in conditions I have never seen high drives in. The high drives suffer from the same problem as Fiat-Allis FD175's,ours had too heavy a blade and was useless in soft conditions until I put a counterweight on the back. The other problem I hear high drive operators complaining about are problems with the masterlinks tearing apart. Having driven a 65EX I agree with LDK from an operators point of view but to buy a secondhand one is entirely a different matter,after 12000 hours they start to give serious trouble with the transmissions etc Neil
Neil, I am either lucky or spoiled depending your point of view, it is rare that I am on a dozer that has done more than 3 or 4000 hrs. I have never owned a dozer but it looks like that is going to change soon, looks like we will be getting a JD 700J and 750J. I would have gone for Komatsu but like CAT over here, you tell them what model you want and then they try and sell you something that suits them. If I was in the market for a D6R/T size machine, my first choice would be the D65EX/PX. I can't realy comment on the JD850 because it's 25 years since I ran one. Surely anything that has 12000 or more hours racked up, is liable to give some trouble. Not being cocky, an honest question?
Sticking your neck out. Hi, LDK. One of the beauties of forums like this is that you can stick your neck out as far as you like and there is almost guaranteed to be nobody with an axe with a long enough handle to chop it off. They might try to do it in print by rubbishing your views or ideas but you are as entitled as anybody else to have your own views and ideas. To be quite honest, the only 'Kummagutsas' that I have not enjoyed operating have been the couple of D85 dozers that I have run. To me, they always seemed to be top heavy and light in the rear. For mine, a D7E, F or G would leave them for dead side cutting batters or playing in steep country. Re machines with high hours giving trouble, yes, you can start to expect some troubles when machine hours get up around the 10,000-12,000 mark, especially if they have worked hard - - - - or, dare I say it, been ABUSED. However, from my own observations and from anecdotal evidence, it would appear that while you might expect some troubles with a Cat machine, you can pretty much bet on trouble with a 'Kummagutsa' when they get to those sorts of figures. This is not to say that there are no exceptions to this generalisation. Most of us have been around or heard of 'dud' Cat machines and seen or heard of some really good runs out of other brands, including 'Kummagutsa'. I doubt there is a manufacturuer of heavy equipment anywhere who has not occasionally made either a 'lemon' machine or a 'lemon' model, Cat included.
Hi Deas, I have never been a fan of the D7s hi drive or otherwise and have the same feelings about the 85.
Not a fan??????????????????????????????????? Hi, LDK. To be totally honest, I've never been a great fan of the D7's either. Give me an 8 or a 9 anytime. It's just that I found the D7E, F and G to be pretty good for side-cutting batters, especially the F, even though it was light on the front.
Deas, yeh, when I am on one, I allways seem to be wishing they were either bigger or smaller. The last one that I ran, a H LGP was in your part of the world, just outside of Melbourne in the Yara valley, in 98-99. I haven't had the pleasure since?
I agree about the D7's, they just can't do it very good. Blind spots on a D9? There are no blind spots on a dozer if your an operator. It maybe difficult at times seeing those grade stakes, pickups that park on the job site, motorcycles, chainsaws that loggers leave on the ground etc. But really there are no blind spots, cause there is always a way to see there. Now blade visability is another thing on some dozers, older oval D8's and D9's are the best for that as is a D375 Komatsu.
That would probably be true if you could get the blade to lift higher. As it stands, the Komatsus are quite nose heavy and as soon as you go to back up the nose drops. When the nose drops, the blade acts like a big anchor and it is actually harder to get them out. Brian
Blind spots and thought I was an operator? Hi 575 Oh for sure you find ways to work around those areas where your sight line is broken (took me a while to work out what to put there, obviously "blind spot" is not acceptable ) I do know one guy that was reversing on a 9G and paying attenion to where he was going, he stopped because their was no scraper to push. He decided that in this lull, to use the spare time to do some dozer work in the cut. Unbeknown to him a Land Rover had pulled up in front of him as he had been coming back, the first he knew of it was when he saw it rolling over in his bladefull of dirt. That LR was bright yellow and I know that had he seen it he would have gone around it. Luckily the guy that had been driving the vehicle had allready got out of it. That happened in 67/68, by the way I wasn't on that 9 but I loved the 9G and the H.
Seems a little contradictive don't ya think. :cool2 Every piece of equipment I can possibly think of has blind spots. Name one piece of equipment where you can see every inch of the perimeter of the machine from inside the cab. No matter how good an operator, if you can't see a particular spot at any place in the vicinity of the machine, this is a blind spot. Blade visibilty is another issue. An operator doesn't need to see the front or corners of the blade to accomplish a job. You can't see the front bumper on your truck but does that keep you from being able to park close to something without hitting it. You know where your bumper is even though you can't see it. A dozer blade is meant to come into contact with stuff so why must you have to see it to accomplish a job?
I agree that any piece of equipment has blind spots, and I agree that you don't need to see the front of the blade(can't anyway) to accomplish a job. Now, I have very little experience on a dozer, but don't you have to see the corners in order to set and maintain/control your blade? I know with a grader that is what you are watching most of the time. Am I wrong in thinking this? As said I am far from being an experienced dozer operator. :beatsme
The only time I watch the corners of my blade is when I start a new pass when I'm fine grading. After I get started I look ahead or watch the level in the front window. I always tend to tilt the blade one way or the other if I watch the corners, maybe it's just me. I can feel if I'm going up or down and can also hear and feel the machine pulling harder if I'm cutting too much. I think most dozer operators run mostly by feel. Same way in a grader, If I watch the corners I overcompensate and get a washboard grade. Just set it and forget it.
Well on a grader, your almost always doing fine grading, cleaning up roads and stuff where your working to get the closest to something as possible, so more work doesn't need to be done, correct? The dozers job is mainly for moving large amounts of dirt, maybe with a little fine grading thrown in as necessary. I can't see the corners of a bucket on a 980G but if you told me to put that corner exactly 2 1/2 inches from a wall, I would have no problem doing it. My point is that you don't have to necessarily see it to be able to use it. Yes, visibility is nice but not necessary.
Like I said CB I have very little experience on a dozer and please don't think that I am trying to prove you wrong, as this is not my intent. With a grader you are doing a lot of different things, from making heavy cuts, light cuts, leveling gravel, asphalt, ditching, fine grading, plowing snow, cutting ice, etc. With all of these applications you watch the corners of your blade. Of course common sense comes into play when you are taking to much of a cut as you "feel" it. With a loader you have a bucket leveler (if not equipped, it doesn't take long to realize when your bucket is setting level) and when it is level on the ground your not cutting, but when to tip it ahead you start cutting, and the further ahead the more you cut, and you can judge pretty good by the "feel' of it, as you can't see the corners of the bucket. I am just curious as to how the dozer operators control the blade..mostly by watching the corners...mostly by "feel"...or both? Is visibility necessary? Just curious
Naw man, that ain't how your coming across. I see where your coming from, I just picture how a job will look when finished. I then picture how to complete the job. Then I work toward the finished project. As you can see, I do alot of visualizing before I even start something, so visualizing what I can't see isn't a big deal for me.
Blind Spots. Hi, Folks. Now how did we get to 'blind spots' from Sum Foters?????????? O.K., so we're here at 'blind spots'. I have been operating for a LONG time on a LOT of different machine and I have yet to operate a machine that was made completely of clear glass. CountryBoy, you got it dead right the first time - if you can't see there, it's a blind spot. O.K., how do we operate these travelling blind spots without wiping out everything within shooting distance of us? Well, memory and observation are the keys. Observe where the obstacles are, memorise those locations and work around them. The better your powers of observation and your memory, the better you are likely to be at missing the obstacles. Quote: "Now blade visability is another thing on some dozers, older oval D8's and D9's are the best for that as is a D375 Komatsu." (Dozer 575.) On the D8H's and K's, you could see the bottom of the back of the blade above the tracks over the front idler. GOOD blade visibility!!!!!!! I loved it. On the D9G's and H's, the closest part of the back of the blade to the ground that you could see over the front of the tracks was about 10" - 250mm - ABOVE the ground. GOOD blade visibility?????????????????????????????? But I still managed to grade haul roads with them. Not to a grader finish, but certainly good enough to run dumpers and scrapers reasonably quickly on. I have never run a D375 'Kummagutsa', so I'm not qualified to comment on them but I have run a couple of D155's and an older D355. I liked the blade visibility on the 155's and I was cutting road boxes with the 355 to around 1"-2" above finished so the blade visibility can't have been too bad there either. I ran a D455A with a U-blade for a few hours too and didn't have any trouble cleaning up with that either. Personally, I DO watch the corners of my blade, especially when doing fine work - and that includes cutting to +/- 1/2" with laser monitoring on a Cat D5B, which I do a bit of again these days. When bulk pushing, I tend to watch the movement of the dirt above the top of the blade to see how much I am cutting, if any. At the same time, I am also aware of where the cutting edge is and what it is doing. When I am shaping a job, I tend to largely ignore what the actual tractor is doing and concentrate on keeping the cutting edge where I want it to achieve the desired result. This may seem a little contradictory (Have I read something about contradictions in the thread before?) but when you have blade tilt, you can get your tractor in some awkward positions and still keep your cutting edge where you want it, so long as you know the limitations of your machine. LDK, 'blind spot' is perfectly acceptable if that is what you want to call it, especially if you believe that it IS a blind spot. Dozer 575, unless an operator is 20 feet tall and made of rubber and there is NO cab to stop him getting his eyes into the appropriate positions to see EVERYWHERE around his machine, or unless he/she has X/ray vision, there ARE blind spots with EVERY machine. The trick is to learn to work around the blindness of those spots so that you don't do any damage and only cut where cut is needed or fill where fill is needed. Happy debating, gentlemen.
'Kummagutsas' backing up. Hi, Alco. I was 'speaking' specifically about LGP's and swamp dozers there. Believe it or not but I have never had a normal Kummagutsa in wet going except for the D355A that I ran for a while. Now it was a strange beast. A 'real' yellow submarine - it would sink down until it hit firm bottom and just keep plowing until it came out the other side. I did one job with it, digging out a largish wet spot, where it was sinking 3 feet into the mud - around halfway up the tracks, pushing around 2/3 of a bladeful, and never looked like getting stuck. The owners told me it behaved that way before I went to that job but I didn't really believe it until I actually had the machine doing it. It backed up through the same ground pretty well too.
Turn on the light!! I am on the same page as you entirely, as to where I am looking when dozing. If I can see the the corner shoes that is where I will be looking. Out side of that I will be looking at the part of the blade that is closest to the ground and still visable. On the pre high track 4,5 and 6 LGP's that point was a long way of the ground. Sometimes you are lucky enough to have a seam of weld that lines up with the top of the track and your eye when you are level and I will use that. Never liked being in the dark!
Deas, Yeh funny when you get a layer of wet like that on a firm base a standard track dozer will often perform better than an LGP, unless of course you are having to push that material into a heap that you have travel over.
Hi Deas, I should have specified there myself. I was speaking of our D155 Komatsu Tailings Dozers. They have a few issues for sure, but the biggest seems to be how the blade won't lift high enough to clear the slop in front of the dozer when they nosedive as you back up in really soft stuff. If there was a firm bottom, this probably wouldn't be an issue, but the hard bottom is typically about 50 to 150 feet below you, so it may be a bit too deep to get to easily....lol. Since you can't find a hard bottom to work from, you have to float along. And since you can't get the blade up high enough to clear the slop, it acts like a giant anchor. You would think with all the modifications they have done to the machines, they would have been able to remount the cylinders or mount different cylinders to overcome this shortfall. Brian
Interesting Observation. Hi, Alco. That is an interesting observation that you make, that with all the alterations already done, the lift rams could also have been re-configured to better cope with the conditions. It would be interesting to know if this problem was brought to the management's attention at the time - or since - and whether or not it was passed on to those responsible for the alterations.
You are right guys, with the amount of local modifications done to the machines the cylinders could have been reconfigured or cylinder stroke lengthened. I think the blades are made by IMAC in Alberta (?) so the push arm and cylinder mounting points or geometry could also be very easily modified to provide necessary depth of cut and also allow the blade to be raised when you need the clearance.
Modifications??????????? Hi, Wulf. Are you saying that somebody stuffed up here? Now how can that be? We all 'know' that management/admin is up there because they are so much smarter than us lowly operators. LOL.