Dozer Blade for in the Woods

[Gordon Gould]

Put an extension on the top of my dozer blade for working in the woods. I guess you could call it a brush/tree guard. It also braces up my spindly looking root rake hanger brackets.

I just had time to get it tacked in place this morning before it started to rain.








gg

 

[ovrszd]

Can't open your pics.

 

[Gordon Gould]

Try it now. Fat finger trouble.

 

[ovrszd]

Much better.

That's an excellent addition!! Nice work!!!!

 

[stuckmotor]

I like the handle on your tombstone.

 

[Gordon Gould]

I like the handle on your tombstone.

HaHa - You guys don't miss a trick. An old vacuum cleaner handle. Works great.

gg

 

[stuckmotor]

I thought it looked like a vacuum cleaner handle. You gave it a good use in it's second life.

 

[arrow]

I'm envious Gordon. Only dozer I've used in the wood was an older design D-6. My boss rented it for a month to see how it would help with his logging business. I only skidded logs with it and because it was so slow, he only kept it 2 weeks. We used it right after a small 6" snow fall and then an ice storm hit. This thing became so squirrely that its "pucker factor" became more than we would tolerate.
At any rate, I never attempted to clear pathways with it but I cannot tell you how many times when logging my land with a tractor that I wished for a small dozer. We have a "glacier dump" of rocks down here as I think you may also have. A dozer would have come in so handy to buck rocks out to make at least an assemblance of smooth passage.
I always wondered what dozer would be large enough to do this without going D6 size. Your Dresser looks like it would handle that job.

 

[EddieWalker]

You are onto the right track, but you need to make it stick out a lot farther. When pushing brush piles and logs, they like to roll up over the blade and your guard will help with that, but they will still get over it. When taking out trees, you want to cut the roots with the corners of your blade, then build up a ramp and push it over. The farther out your guard sticks, the faster you will push over big trees.

 

[Gordon Gould]

I'm envious Gordon. Only dozer I've used in the wood was an older design D-6. My boss rented it for a month to see how it would help with his logging business. I only skidded logs with it and because it was so slow, he only kept it 2 weeks. We used it right after a small 6" snow fall and then an ice storm hit. This thing became so squirrely that its "pucker factor" became more than we would tolerate.
At any rate, I never attempted to clear pathways with it but I cannot tell you how many times when logging my land with a tractor that I wished for a small dozer. We have a "glacier dump" of rocks down here as I think you may also have. A dozer would have come in so handy to buck rocks out to make at least an assemblance of smooth passage.
I always wondered what dozer would be large enough to do this without going D6 size. Your Dresser looks like it would handle that job.

It is a TD7G, 70 hp and about 14,500 lbs so it is a small dozer. A little bigger than a D3. About like a JD450. It does what I need pretty well but like any machine something bigger would be better sometimes. I have a good network of old skid trails from previous logging over the years but before I can use any of them for a tractor road they need to be cleaned up and or reshaped. Most are grown up with small trees and as you from your logging experience they are full of ruts, big rocks, and stumps, The TD7 is great for fixing them up.
Here is a rock I took out of a good trail except for the big rock and a little reshaping. Having a 6-way blade out in front of you makes it so much more doable than trying to use a tractor.





gg

 

[ovrszd]

I don't "want" a small Dozer, I "need" one. At least that's what I tell the wife....

What would a guy expect to pay for a similar Dozer?

 

[Gordon Gould]

I don't "want" a small Dozer, I "need" one. At least that's what I tell the wife....

What would a guy expect to pay for a similar Dozer?

That's what I told my wife too !! But now all I hear is "well, why not ? You bought a dozer"
:laughing:
Anyway I'm glad I did. That one is a 1991 vintage with 3200 hrs on the meter what ever that means. It was in good shape except the track chains were shot. I bought it for $10,500. Here it is for sale - note the loose tracks.

Edit: It has a good old cummins 4 cylinder 239 motor air aspirated.



Cost $300 to get it home (50 miles) and $250 for manuals.
I did the work myself in the door yard. It cost me $4000 for under carriage parts. New track chains, sprockets, track adjuster rebuild kits, two bottom rollers, and new pad bolts/nuts (used the old pads).



The old track chains



Then about $750 more on fluids, filters, and misc small stuff.

So I got about 16K in it but it is not a clunker. I like to think I could get my money back or at least most of it but you never know tell the time comes. There are a lot out there cheaper than that. It depends what you want.

gg

 

[dfkrug]

Cost $300 to get it home (50 miles) and $250 for manuals.
I did the work myself in the door yard. It cost me $4000 for under carriage parts. New track chains,
sprockets, track adjuster rebuild kits, two bottom rollers, and new pad bolts/nuts (used the old pads).

I would love to read the write-up of that refurbishment, GG.

I gather you needed the Kubota to move around and install/remove those tracks?

Looks like a fun project.

 

[ovrszd]

I'd prefer buying one with issues and cheaper cost. Then when you make the necessary repairs you know what you have.

Thanks for the info. I appreciate your detailed honesty.

I think I could "sell" a 15K purchase. But I'd pay more than that in the end with all the "you bought a dozer" purchases just as you did....

I'd also be interested in the rebuild story. Thanks GG.

 

[Gordon Gould]

Well my story isn't to exciting but I am glad to tell you what I did and show some pics. It was a lot of work. Some fun. Some not so fun. Took me a little more than 2 months working when I could the summer of 2011. I used my tractor quite a bit. It was the only equipment I had that could move heavy stuff.

On June 4th I picked up the under carriage parts. These track chains are over 1000 lbs each. I couldn't pick them with the chain over the front of the bucket.



The tracks were really stretched from wear. After I collapsed the track adjuster cylinders by removing the grease fittings and check valves and then pulling the front idlers back with my logging winch there was enough track slack to remove them w/o breaking them. I jacked the dozer up with the blade and a jack in the rear just enough to get the track out from under it. I put some very short lengths of pipe in the sprocket groves to hold the track up out of the sprocket teeth



Then eased the track off with a 5' bar and my logging winch.







To be continued

gg

 

[Gordon Gould]

I wanted to reuse the track pads so I had to remove them from the old tracks. The pad bolt heads were all worn and rounded. There was no way I could get a wrench or socket to hold so I had to cut them off with the torch. 33 pads to a side, 4 bolts per pad, 264 bolts/nuts to cut.



I first tried cutting off the nuts and pulling (pounding actually, with a 3 lb hammer) the pads up. But the bolts were so locked into the track chain holes from years of mud and dirt it was very hard to impossible to pull the bolts up thru the track chain. Plus the bolts tended to get welded to the chain during the cutting which didn't help. I finely got brave enough to cut the bolt heads off on top of the pads. This went better than I thought but was very tedious. I had to really concentrate and be careful. I did gouge a couple pads up with the torch.
I can only cut for 15 minutes or so out of each hour with my torch set because my acetylene tank is only a 65 cubic foot tank. So the pad removal job took quite a while to finish.

TBC

gg

 

[Gordon Gould]

Here t is setting on the rock guards



Next job was jack it up so I could work under it. I jacked it 1 6X6 tier at a time using the front blade and a 20 ton jack in the back. I made a sling to hold the front idler and used the tractor bucket to slide it and the track adjuster out of the front of the frame. Removed the track adjuster cylinders and rebuilt them in the garage as a rainy day job. They are similar to a hydraulic cylinder but much cruder and run on grease rather than oil. Took off the sprockets which are torqued to 350 foot-lbs. The 3' breaker came in handy on those. Then came removing the rock guards so I could get to the rollers. By far removing the rock guards was the absolute hardest part of the job. Laying on my back underneath with a 3' breaker trying to loosen 3/4" bolts frozen up into the track frame for years. A scary place to use a torch too!!! I think I used a whole case of PB-Blaster. There are a lot of bolts on them things. I did break off two bolts but was very lucky that both were on the outside frame where I could work on them w/o laying on my back underneath. So another job after I got everything off was removing the bolts I broke off plus another one on a roller that someone in the past broke and left. I was able to weld nuts on the stub ends and get the bolts out.

Here it is jacked up while removing stuff.





TBC

gg

 

[Gordon Gould]

Putting it back together was much more fun than stripping it down - easier too.
New sprockets, a couple new rollers, track adjusters rebuilt, front idlers back on, and rock guards back on. The burn marks on the forward part of the track frame are from removing the two bolts I broke.



I used the winch to put on the new track chain. Laid the chain out, threaded the winch cable under the rollers, up around the idler, and back over the sprocket then pulled the chain around the loop.











Finally set it back down on the ground. Another burn mark on this side from the broken roller bolt.



Almost done

gg

 

[Gordon Gould]

The last thing was remount the 66 track pads. Set up a bench grinder with a wire brush and cleaned all the underside mounting surfaces of the pads. You need flat on flat and clean or the bolts will loosen. Then I mounted several pads at a time working my way around the chain. First I would sand the paint off the mounting surface on a few links of the track chain with a right angle grinder, then set a pad, dip the 4 bolt threads in oil before inserting thru the pads and chain, start the nuts, snug tighten with the impact wrench, and then torque to 175 foot lbs with a torque wrench. All the way around, both sides.



And on August 11, 2 months later, I was done.



If you read all the way thru that you are probably as tired as I was.

gg

 

[ovrszd]

That's a well told story GG. Thanks for taking time to post it. Some very good information that someone will definitely need/use.

My problem would be knowing what I'm buying in a used machine. I don't know what to look for in regards to undercarriage condition.