Crawler

[tessiers]

Anyone use small crawlers? I just got ahold of an old 3 roll JD 2 cylinder MC. Think it will be pretty good for draging wood. I plan to mount my forestry winch and see how it works out. Bottom end is in fair shape, working condition. Bought it right so I can't get hurt too bad even if I end up selling or trading it off. Just wondering if anyone actually uses them or if they are just eye candy so to speak.

 

[PapaPerk]

Anyone use small crawlers? I just got ahold of an old 3 roll JD 2 cylinder MC. Think it will be pretty good for draging wood. I plan to mount my forestry winch and see how it works out. Bottom end is in fair shape, working condition. Bought it right so I can't get hurt too bad even if I end up selling or trading it off. Just wondering if anyone actually uses them or if they are just eye candy so to speak.

Sounds cool! Where's the pics?

 

[MIKE R]

I see a few people using them around the farms, most are lawn adornments though. The final drives are to expensive to repair and most people don't know what to do when they throw a track.

 

[fxrupr]

Anyone use small crawlers? I just got ahold of an old 3 roll JD 2 cylinder MC. Think it will be pretty good for draging wood. I plan to mount my forestry winch and see how it works out. Bottom end is in fair shape, working condition. Bought it right so I can't get hurt too bad even if I end up selling or trading it off. Just wondering if anyone actually uses them or if they are just eye candy so to speak.

I believe my brother Dave and I had one like yours but it was a 40 C I think. We had rescued it after it had been buried in a silage pile for 2 years. As he was on better terms with the neighbor who owned it it was nominally his because he talked the neighbor into letting us salvage it.
Once we rebuilt the clutches we dug out tree stumps and pushed rocks around and I managed to crack the final drive casting which was actually still available thru Deere for a pretty penny. The busted casting occurred while backing out of a hole and having a track link ride up on the drive sprocket somehow. That was in the early 70's. Our machine would have been at least 30 years old then. We had time and no where else to spend it. So fixing stuff was our outlet.
So if you plan on using that machine in the woods bare in mind that it is a 70 year old antique and will be very hard to to get parts for.
But dozers are a blast for a while till something breaks and it always will eventually.
Heres a link to specs TractorData.com John Deere MC tractor information
We were living in northern Ct on the Mass. line and all we saw were rocks and stumps.

 

[Dozernut]

JDcrawlers Messageboard :: Index

Prepare to waste hours on this site, It's only about antique JD crawlers, they rebuild them and post lots of pictures.

 

[Gordon Gould]

I would love to have a 550 rpm pto on my dozer. I would do just what you are thinking, put a logging winch on it. I would use it just like I use my tractor in the woods - carefully. I would not turn the dozer into a stump jumper, but I would use it on some steep terrain where the tractor can't go. They can pull alot of wood. Back in the day there were alot of dozers in the woods. Just be kind to it and keep in mind that it is just a little guy. Have fun.

 

[DJ54]

Dad and I ran a 430 w/Gearmatic winch back in the ealry 70's for a neighbor. I was 14-15 at the time. On tree winching jobs, seems I was always in the seat, and got my ears boxed more than several times.

If the dozer wasn't heavy enough to overcome what you were pulling, it would literally pull itself backwards. And..., you could push dirt hard all day on 10 gallons of gas..!!

 

[tessiers]

We run a little farm. Been mostly logging with farm tractors, most of which are old iron themselves. We don't do too much maybe 20 cord firewood and few thousand feet of saw logs, nothing commercial. Gonna try it out. I am well accustomed to breakdowns, just lost the front final drives in a 05' JD. I can buy a a whole nother crawler for what that cost me, so expensive is relative I guess.

 

[arrow]

One day the owner of the logging outfit I worked for decided that he was going to try a dozer. He bought this used D6 and put it to work. As I was his long time employee, i got to try it first for skidding. Personally I loved the thing but we had a couple of issues with it. First, it was slow but boy could it pull a hitch of wood. The second thing was because N.E. woods are so rock strewn, rollers got kind of beat up. What was nice about it as well was that it could pull out any skidder that was stuck. He kept it 2 weeks but I loved using it. Not as productive as a skidder and perhaps a bit ungainly in these tight woods but none the less, I was sorry to see it go and if I had the finances, would love to have a small dozer myself..

 

[Jerry/MT]

Anyone use small crawlers? I just got ahold of an old 3 roll JD 2 cylinder MC. Think it will be pretty good for draging wood. I plan to mount my forestry winch and see how it works out. Bottom end is in fair shape, working condition. Bought it right so I can't get hurt too bad even if I end up selling or trading it off. Just wondering if anyone actually uses them or if they are just eye candy so to speak.

My personal opinion is that using a crawler in the woods is the safest method of doing what you intend to do. I would never want to use a rubber tired ag tractor to work in the woods. If it doesn't have a cage around the operator's station consider getting one. It helps with the widow makers!

 

[tessiers]

Hopeing to fab up a cage this weekend, gonna be too cold to work outside anyway. I actually have a cage from an old forklift I saved for this project. I want to add 2 pipes down to the brush guard to deflect branches better. Tractors aren't dangerous in the woods the operators are, but I agree the crawler is more suited to it.

 

[Jerry/MT]

Hopeing to fab up a cage this weekend, gonna be too cold to work outside anyway. I actually have a cage from an old forklift I saved for this project. I want to add 2 pipes down to the brush guard to deflect branches better. Tractors aren't dangerous in the woods the operators are, but I agree the crawler is more suited to it.

Crawlers give you more margin for error and while I agree with your statement about operators, fatigue causes even the most safety conscious of us to take make some bad judgements. BTDT.

 

[tessiers]

Been there, done that. Good thing we don't have to pay for every corner we cut, but I agree sooner or later someone has to pay the fiddler. I cut off a finger with a porta band a couple years ago. My one liner now is "I done it 100 times, 99 it worked."

 

[arrow]

My personal opinion is that using a crawler in the woods is the safest method of doing what you intend to do. I would never want to use a rubber tired ag tractor to work in the woods. If it doesn't have a cage around the operator's station consider getting one. It helps with the widow makers!

I think you are referring to the rops and cage protection a dozer can provide and I cannot say I disagree with you in the least on this point. However there is part of your statement that I believe needs quantifying in that you think that this dozer is the "safest" method for what this individual is doing (logging). Dozers can give one a feeling of invincibility and this can lend into a false sense of security. On uneven terrain and an unexperienced operator, they can be one of the deadliest pieces of equipment in a woods setting. Dozers are not all that stable on uneven or ground obstructed land as nothing articulates on a dozer. Once a dozer obtains a certain threshold, it can go over very easily. A small dozers track is not that wide and a dozer tends to commit fully on whatever one side happens to step on so to speak as it entire track is one continuous line. If one is bringing a dozer into the woods, one has to be extremely aware of ground formation to a higher degree than bringing a tractor into the woods. Part of the reason my boss got rid of the one he had was because it got into some pretty dicey situations that if there were going to be driven by several operators, he did not care to take a chance with. Tread carefully with a dozer in the woods.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Hey that is a cute machine. In its day when teams of mules were still somewhat common in some parts that was a lot of dozer. A 1600 cc engine only making 18 HP must have a lot of torque.

 

[Gordon Gould]

I think you are referring to the rops and cage protection a dozer can provide and I cannot say I disagree with you in the least on this point. However there is part of your statement that I believe needs quantifying in that you think that this dozer is the "safest" method for what this individual is doing (logging). Dozers can give one a feeling of invincibility and this can lend into a false sense of security. On uneven terrain and an unexperienced operator, they can be one of the deadliest pieces of equipment in a woods setting. Dozers are not all that stable on uneven or ground obstructed land as nothing articulates on a dozer. Once a dozer obtains a certain threshold, it can go over very easily. A small dozers track is not that wide and a dozer tends to commit fully on whatever one side happens to step on so to speak as it entire track is one continuous line. If one is bringing a dozer into the woods, one has to be extremely aware of ground formation to a higher degree than bringing a tractor into the woods. Part of the reason my boss got rid of the one he had was because it got into some pretty dicey situations that if there were going to be driven by several operators, he did not care to take a chance with. Tread carefully with a dozer in the woods.

And he didn't mention what happens when you get on just a little bit of ice that has the slightest slope to it unless you got caulks.

 

[arrow]

^ Exactly. It is astounding on what can "upset" a dozer considering its seemingly unstoppability otherwise. For a real pucker factor, high center one on a stump next to an embankment.

 

[Jerry/MT]

^ Exactly. It is astounding on what can "upset" a dozer considering its seemingly unstoppability otherwise. For a real pucker factor, high center one on a stump next to an embankment.

And none of these things happen with the typically higher center of gravity rubber tired ag tractor?

 

[tessiers]

I have run equipment all my adult life, been on most types and anything with that much weight that low to the ground is pretty stable. Every machine has its tipping point, thats where a brain comes in handy. I mow hay with an old farmall narrow front, they say they are tippy, but I never rolled that over. If they still made narrow fronts I would buy one. I did roll a 4x4 tractor hauling wood around a bend in a twitch trail, slight incline, trees fetched up and over we went fast as you can think about it. I don't believe a crawler would have rolled over in that instance. I took a ride on a crawler once down a camp road, got it turned sideways and away we went on 36 ice skates, didn't roll but I bout **** my drawers. Point is I understand the machines and work accordingly. I was more interested in the mechanics of the machine.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

That is a nice looking dozer that is older than me. Have you been out push snow or just playing?