Cheap Bulldozer Winch

[BrokenTrack]

I got a skidder, but as my wife will attest, I only smile when I am on my bulldozer.

One of the problems with my bulldozer is that it does not have a winch, and a factory one costs about $5,000 to install...used! Yet...when I am logging, I am often inefficient because with direct attached chokers I have to get really close to my felled trees. As the trees add up on back of the bulldozer, it gets harder to do this. Alternatively, if a choker pops loose, I cannot back up and retrieve the log making a less-than-full twitch out of the woods; again...inefficient logging.

So while a tractor farm winch is not ideal, it can at least sneak back into the woods 150 feet and bring trees to the bulldozer as it makes up its twitch. To that end I fabricated my own 3 point hitch and pto drive. Again 3 point hitches can be factory installed, but they are about as rare as finding a hens tooth while balancing upon a unicorn's horn. The PTO was just a matter of changing out the final drive cover with a winch drive cover with shaft ($150), and then adding a 1000 pto to 540 pto spline adapter ($21).

Again it is not as good as a factory installed hydraulic winch, but at least I can now gather wood up so that I can make a twitch of wood.

(Note: In this picture I was just finishing up with my reverser rebuild, transmission cooler add-on, and did not get the engine shroud and ROPS back on when I took the photo).

 

[Peter 315]

John deere 350 winch, complete and excellent condition (Johnson,Vermont) This guy has a few plus parts

 

[BrokenTrack]

Oh I know Mark really well, we are good friends. A "few plus parts" is an understatement!!

I got a house in New Hampshire, so when I am out that way I try to head over and see him. I just talked with him the day after Christmas. Great guy for sure. Spend 4 hours with him and it is the equivalent of a degree in John Deere Bulldozers.

 

[s219]

Looks like a great solution and can't beat the price. What year is the dozer? Need to see pictures of skidder next.

 

[Gordon Gould]

That's looks good ! I would love to have that rig - been thinking how to do it for a couple years on my Dresser TD7G. What speed does your pto turn at ? My pto would turn at the engine speed. And all the time, so I would need a reduction gear of some kind. I also can't find a winch adapter which includes the internal shaft/bearing but am still looking.

Again, very nice. I am jealous

gg

 

[Sawyer Rob]

I have a Braden 25,000 pound winch that I kept saying I was going to put on my 450, but once I got a skidding winch for my tractor, I quit thinking about that.

Looks like you got something that will really help you out in getting those logs out, a winch is a great asset!

SR

 

[JimP]

That 350 will be nice with the rebuilds and winch! I would like to have a winch on mine but as you and Gordon point out finding a used winch setup with all of the needed parts is near impossible. Jim

 

[BrokenTrack]

That's looks good ! I would love to have that rig - been thinking how to do it for a couple years on my Dresser TD7G. What speed does your pto turn at ? My pto would turn at the engine speed. And all the time, so I would need a reduction gear of some kind. I also can't find a winch adapter which includes the internal shaft/bearing but am still looking.

Again, very nice. I am jealous

gg

I would have ALL the problems you would have, but the Fransgard winch design allows it to be used. Basically the only time the winch reels in is when the clutch lever is pushed, so that is why it works. The reduction comes from the chain reduction on the winch too, so at idle it winches in fast enough for me, and with enough power.

BUT...these are all deficiencies I can live with, I can understand for other people it may not be worth it.

 

[BrokenTrack]

That 350 will be nice with the rebuilds and winch! I would like to have a winch on mine but as you and Gordon point out finding a used winch setup with all of the needed parts is near impossible. Jim

Thanks for the kind words...

My ultimate set-up is actually a trio, but sadly I have not had it configured this way yet to take a picture as I have just been logging with my skidder. Hopefully I can word it properly so you can understand what I want to do.

Basically it is my Bulldozer, with attached Fransgard Winch, with my Wallenstein Log Trailer hooked to the hitch on the winch. In this way, I can fell a tree, limb it, top it and then using my winch; drag the tree close enough so that I can pick it up with my grapple and load it on my log trailer. I have used this method on my Kubota tractor and it works well, it just would work much better with my bulldozer as it has more traction.

The Log Trailer works good because I can lift the log off the ground so I can cut the tree at waist height instead of on the ground where I might dull my saw. I can only get 5-6 trees on before my trailer is full, but they are very clean and cut to length. (I hope I have explained this well enough so you can picture what I want to do).

Here is my Log Trailer, BUT not with my winch attached to my dozer.

 

[BrokenTrack]

Looks like a great solution and can't beat the price. What year is the dozer? Need to see pictures of skidder next.

My dozer is a 1988 John Deere 350D, so it is of the last year they made them. It is in pretty decent shape, brand new undercarriage throughout, then some extras like an auxiliary reverser cooler. Everything is really tight except for the blade. I need to line-bore the pins and refurbish the blade control lever as it is sloppy. Some lights would be nice, along with a paint-job, but it is my baby good or bad. But what the heck...let us throw in some fuzzy dice on the list too I guess.

As for the skidder; it is a 1979 Clark 664C with a 453 Detroit instead of the 353. The saw my wife is holding is a 2017 Husqvarna 562, but I am not a huge fan of it. I miss my Stihl MS 461, but it went to cut the big Eastern Hemlock in the sky when said skidder mashed it into the ground.