I was looking at my 994F model the other day and wondered why no track loader was anywhere near as big? Just wondering. Thanks, D11RCD
The main reason you didn't see crawler loaders as big as the mining class wheel loaders was primarily due to the staggering cost of operation. A crawler dozer spends much of it's life working in straight lines (pushing), and while that will wear out an undercarriage over time, when you add in all of the load/turning/travelling a crawler loader does, the bottoms wear out even quicker. Put a large crawler undercarriage on a loader that theoretically would carry an 18-20 yard bucket, and the costs would be completely prohibitive. Crawler loader work was mostly relegated to smaller earthmoving and demolition jobs (for which they were great), however in a mining application, a large wheel loader with some form of tire protection can out produce a similarly sized crawler loader with a lot less wear and tear. The largest production crawler loader was the Komatsu D155S-3, which carried a 5.9 yard bucket as standard equipment. It was a pretty big machine in and of itself, and if it was running right (a big "if"), would outwork a Cat 983 any day of the week. Tony
They don't need to build them bigger, our company runs 973's like they are going out of style. Any larger and they wouldn't be productive and way too clumsy. Some of our 973's run 6yd buckets and they are a little hairy to control carrying dirt.
Thanks I now understand! Tony and Burnout: thank you both very, very much for answering my question so comprehensively. Many Thanks D11RCD