I own a couple pieces of land that are about 3/4 miles apart. I have a straight shot down an old logging road that has a good foundation. It was an old county road years ago but has been closed for over 20 years. Is it Ok to drive dozer that distance or should I trailer it? Now trailering want be easy but I can get it done if It’s hard on the dozer. Thanks for the replies.
Generally, yes. What make and model. Some dozers don't get lube to the finals when traveling in reverse, but that doesn't sound like a problem you will have. Old roads are often undermined by squirrel holes, holes surrounding culverts, etc. Don't assume all will be well. Pay attention the first few trips to avoid surprises.
A hard road is going to beat you and the machine.
It won't be any problem. I wouldn't do it in third gear, unless it is with a reduced throttle. Consider how many miles they travel in a 12 hr work day.
Tinkerer, I thought that exact thing about one going forward and reverse all day. I only run mine in 2nd with half throttle. I’m in no hurry and have read where some folks weld a bar over third gear. Thanks for the replies.
It would depend, are you going to make multiple trips to and from? or just rare occasional moves? If it would be multiple moves often why not spend a little extra time on the first trip and shape the road up as you go for easier trailering of the machine for future moves? The thing about dozers is when ever they are moving they cost you money...I like saving money when possible, it doesn't happen often with a dozer.
This is about 3 times a year. It’s a 1997 cat D5m.
The distance is no problem. Wear on the machine is slight because it isn't pushing a load or pulling something heavy. The biggest consideration is the wear and tear on the road as stated above. Will you have to clear vegetation out of the road bed on your first trip?
Can someone tell me what type of pin I need that goes on the back of the dozers hitch? I may need to use dozer to pull dump truck and I need to use cable’s with loops in them. on road I use it for tractor and dump truck so it’s a decent road
Anything that will fit the hole. A lot of people use a big shackle that the loop in the cable with fit on.
It's not uncommon for me to need to track into a work area for distances of 1-2+ miles at times. I've never even considered it as being a problem. Does not matter if it's a forestry road or hard packed county gravel. One of my machines has a "transit mode" that opens the flow rates of the pumps to 100%, reduces the throttle to 1850 rpm and runs the tracks in a fast mode. Gets me there a bit quicker. I did a state contract many years ago with the excavator and sometimes they would have me track 5-10 miles at a time in the breakdown lane of the interstate rather than call in a lowboy. Never had any problems with that machine either.
Lots of Tylenol after you track the machine both ways. Don't ask how I know......
We farm with steel tracks and will often travel 40 -50 miles in a day going round and round. 3/4 mile a few times a year would be nothing. Go for it.
I was thinking about saying, wait until you have to track all day to get to the job, fuel up if you can find it, then work all night, but I figured I wouldn't go there. Whether you travel in one direction, or both, it adds up. She'll just start to warm up by the time you get where you're going.
Can someone tell me what type of pin I need that goes on the back of the dozers hitch? You should be able to find a CAT 3 hitch pin at your local farm supply store.
Probably not too big a deal then, but if it was going to be a once a week thing or something like that the time and wear would add up.
I ran and watched Caterpillar Cats and pans go round and round from cuts, to fill areas quite a ways away, months ata time. If the tracks are kept properly adjusted they will go for a very long time before they start showing wear.
As long as you travel with the blade out the front it's all good. I've seen operators travelling in reverse on dozers without cabs so they can stay out of the dust but it murders the track gear. According to a Caterpillar track specialist tracks wear 2/3 faster in reverse that going forward.
Just sit down and look at the specs for that dozer. How fast does it travel in miles per hour? Then you just figure in a normal 8 hour day how far would it go? It is much easier on the whole machine to travel unloaded and not in the normal dozer regime, of forward and back wards all day long. Yes some torque converter machines are somewhat fussy, and is why some farm crawlers are direct drive types, but still. I've tracked old D8's for many miles on old logging, and access roads. And even a few miles in reverse on one job, I had no choice, we had a very heavy object lifted between two dozers, I was the unlucky rear one.
1300 yards is not a long way to drive anything. Well if you were driving an ant it might be a long way.
Just to clear the road where I live at after a blizzard is 5 miles round trip, to fix the road is another 5 miles, I have tracked up to 10 miles took me little over a hour to get there and it ain't flat here. Same shoes here as you with owning few properties almost a mile apart and I don't hesitate to track them that far. With gravel roads you are going to lose grouser bolts so watch out.
Looks like I'm out voted on this thread...lol, I still say the dozer will accumulate less wear moving on a trailer than it will tracking the distance.