Please help me pick a dozer or talk me out of it

[Darren Ford]

Hi all,

I'm hoping the vast knowledge here can help educate me on bulldozers. I'm looking into small dozers/track loaders to clear property and build a pond and other fun stuff. I'm completely ignorant in this area, except for some general information I have managed to read.

Anything I buy will be checked out by a mechanic before I bring it home. Can anyone offer any advice, like stay away from X, make sure Y is in good working condition, etc?

Anything in my price range is going to be old. I have just begun my search, and I have run across a Dresser TD15C with a new undercarriage. Any comments on Dressers ?

I know all of these are loaded questions ...

[george newbury]

I went thru a similar research project and ended up with a Kubota B7610 w/ backhoe.

Although SMC is a great forum, and mods delete this if it's against the rules, Tractorbynet.com has excellent subforums on construction equipment and another on land clearing.

Generally unless you envision a LOT of usage or just have a love and wallet for big toys it's far less expensive to hire someone to do it, or rent the equipment for dozer type projects. Maintenance of the finished project usually requires different tools.

I started out wanting to get a small dozer or skid steer to clear trails thru my forested lands, build small ponds etc.
Thru long discussions there I came to realize that I really needed a tractor with a backhoe for my purposes.

If you go to tractorbynet be prepared to answer a lot of questions, they really try to help (unless it gets political).

[David G Baker]

I agree with George. Hire the job out. Make sure you spend the time to get someone that is a pro with a rock solid reputation.

[Ron Jones near Indy]

David is spot on with his reply.

[Jerome Stanek]

I ran heavy equipment when I was younger and for clearing stumps a backhoe is a better choice as you can dig around the stump roots and move them out of the way faster. Also if it has a quick change hoe on it you can use it for mowing and other stuff.

[Kevin Bourque]

Owning a dozer, roller, grader, backhoe etc. sounds like a great idea until theres a problem and you have to pay some guy $100 just to drive out and look at the problem, then pay him $100 to put it on a trailer and take it to his shop, then pay him $100 to bring it back. That doesn't include the big money you will pay him to fix the problem. It's always easier to find someone to do the work for you.

[Van Huskey]

Caterpiller D9H and be done with it.

[Jerome Stanek]

If you want a dozer look at the case 450 it is a workhorse for it's size. It is a lot cheaper than the cats but it will work all day and pay for itself with cheaper upkeep.

[Fred Perreault]

Darren, It all sounds romantic, but there is more to it than "getting the right one". I have owned and operated literally dozens of dozers, track loaders, track excavators, trailers, trucks, tools, and garages to repair and service them. It is an industry unto itself. If you have money to burn and a desire to match, think of one machine as entertainment or pleasure.... like a boat, or a backyard tennis court, or a sport motorcycle. For dubbing on your property, and if you are gonna wanna make holes on the ground (farm pond, dig out stumps) then a strong backhoe could be fun. Until it blows a hydraulic line, or the transmission heats up, or the hydraulic pump makes noises and won't lift properly. Or until it othewise breaks down. Then you have to get fuel to it, and store gallons and gallons of oil and filters and..... well, you must be getting it by now. A novice who buys heavy equipment intending to save money on his own work should take a deep breath and, as you are doing, research the heck out of it. In the end hiring a qualified person to get the job done and letting him carry the burden of extensive overhead is a better arrangement. It has taken most of us experienced owner/operators decades of experience (good and bad) and anguish to be able to suggest this. However, if you want to enter into the heavy construction business, go out and find $200,000-$300,000 to buy some used iron, and set aside 10-20 years of your life to catch on.

[Scott T Smith]

Darren, I have done what you are considering, and there are pro's and cons to purchasing and using your own equipment.

My heavy equipment roster includes the following:

Cat D8 Dozer (95,000 lbs with ripper)
John Deere 550 dozer (about 18,000 lbs)
Cat 420Dit backhoe (about 18,000 lbs
John Deere 270 skid steer (about 12,000 lbs)
Dresser 412B elevating scraper (about 35K lbs)
Fiat Allis 100B motor grader (about 30K lbs)
JLG 60HA 60' manlift (about 20K lbs)
Sheepsfoot roller

I also own several farm tractors from 22 hp up to 110 hp, have a well stocked equipment repair shop, assorted welders, hydraulic hose repair equipment, etc., and I have access to a 25 ton crane. I also own two dump trucks.

When you buy older equipment, be prepared to spend some serious $ in unscheduled maintenance. Depending upon the equipment, new parts may or may not be available (such as for your proposed Dresser dozer). Older equipment also burns more fuel - my Cat D8 burns through 125 gallons of diesel a day. That didn't hurt too much when off-road diesel was .79 per gallon; it hurts a LOT when it's at $3.50 per gallon.

Simple things like an oil change can get expensive too when your equipment requires 20 gallons of oil. Every time you blow a hydraulic hose expect to drop a few hundred dollars in hydraulic fluid too.

If you're going to buy the equipment and do the work yourself, the best advice that I can give you is to buy the newest, lowest hour equipment that you can afford. At 6000 hours, most equipment is fairly worn, and you can expect a greater amount of unscheduled maintenance. If you want to buy something that will probably not require unscheduled maintenance, try to get something with less than 3000 hours, preferably with less than 2K hours. Many folks will argue that equipment is good past 6K hours, and they are correct. But that's the same as saying that a car is good for more than 150K miles. Yes it is, but your maintenance costs will be much higher.

For tracked equipment, plan on replacing the undercarriage every 1000 - 1500 hours. To give you an idea of what this costs, I spent 9K replacing the undercarriage on the "little dozer" and that didn't even include track shoes (but did include some final drive repair). The last time that I checked, the undercarriage for the D8 is over 20K to replace.

Need a new tire for your scraper? Four years ago when I bought a set a retread started at $2,500 - a new tire was over 5K. They are probably a lot more expensive today, what with the increased cost of oil.

Unless you can do the bulk of the repair and maintenance yourself, it will be a roll of the dice if it's cheaper to buy and use your own equipment versus paying someone to do the work. Fred's advice above is right on target; I probably have over 7K invested just in lubricants and spare filters for my equipment.

If you're clearing land, probably the best piece of equipment to use is an excavator with a hydraulic thumb. Get one big enough to do the job - probably a Cat 320 or 330. Last time I priced these new, they were 200K.

After the land is cleared, you will want to use a medium sized dozer with a root rake in order to get all of the smaller stumps and roots out. Get at least a D5 sized machine. You will also need to use the dozer to fill in all of the craters from where you removed the trees.

For a pond you have several choices. The best way to cut, transport, and place fill dirt by yourself is with an elevating scraper. Second best option is a very large dual wheel tractor with pull type scrapers.

Other options include track hoes and dump trucks, or large dozers. Large dozers are only cost effective when pushing dirt about 100'. Much beyond that, and a track hoe / dump truck is a more cost effective combination.

If you have more time than $, I would suggest that you buy the newest backhoe that you can find, along with a good sized dump truck. A 4 in 1 bucket is pretty much a must for the backhoe, and with this equipment - given enough time - you can clear the land and dig the pond. You will need a small dozer (D4 or D5 size) to spread the fill, and either a sheepsfoot roller to compact the fill dirt in the dam or a self rolling vibratory tamper.

Komatsu equipment is generally a bargain, and it is good equipment. Try to stick with equipment that you can get parts (and service) for. You will pay a premium for Cat equipment, but the parts are available and the quality is very high. Just about everything that John Deere makes on their construction side is pretty good equipment, and Liebherr is top of the line but costly. Dresser and International have been out of the equipment biz for a while, but parts are still available for some of the machines. Case makes good equipment, but it is limited in size.

For general work on the farm, a good sized tractor (over 50 hp) with a 3 point hitch and implements offers a lot of versatility. It won't do the heavy work that the tracked equipment will, but it is great for a lot of ancillary tasks. If you want a loader on it, go with a 4WD as the front axle is much better suited to handle the weights from the loader. Also try to get a loader that accepts skid steer implements (cheaper and more readily available).

A skid steer is also a handy tool, as there are a plethora of implements available for them. It would not be my equipment of choice for building a pond or clearing land though - it's just not heavy enough nor designed for this type of work.

It is nice to have the option (and ability) to do the work with your own equipment, but it's not necessarily the best choice financially.

Hope this helps...

Scott

[Scott T Smith]

Caterpiller D9H and be done with it.

Van, that ain't a D9"H".... more likely a D9N or an R. The H's were a low track.

[Van Huskey]

OOPS, I was thinking the first elevated drive sproket was the H... but my practical knowledge stops with the D7, probably was just thinking H and High though I do know they have nothing to do with each other. When I was a Platoon Leader in the Combat Engineers my platoon was the support platoon so we had all the heavy equipment but we were Airborne so nothing heavier than a D7. A D7 could be LEAPS in (literally drug out of the back of a VERY low flying C-130 or C-141 by a parachute(s)), we had one LEAPS go awry and lost a D7 as it tumbled probably 20 times because the pilot was maybe 10 feet too high, the load master should have known better...

Pic below, I couldn't find a dozer but this is a LAPES.

BTW with your equipement Scott a D9 isn't that much of a stretch!

[David Weaver]

You might buy vintage stuff that is priced a couple times scrap value. You might need to buy two or three, but in the end, you should be ahead..if you can get it to start and move.

..but that leads to another issue. I don't know what kind of property you're clearing, but if it's not something you do every day, clearing heavy brush is more dangerous than it would seem.

Be prepared for broken windows (which suggests something about sitting in the cab) and punctured radiators.

All that said, if you're going to buy, of the farmers I know, if they only need a small dozer, they will often run with a vintage caterpillar or something similar. If they need something newer and heavier, case and deere seem to be well regarded - maybe that's just because the dealer networks are pretty well developed and accessible when you need service, and maybe because it's cheaper service than cat if you don't abuse them.

Someone on another forum mentioned the other day that they took a stick through a cab window while clearing brush, and the glass was around $500 (i think on a deere 650)...just for a piece of glass.

[Matt Meiser]

D9? That's a baby. Take a look at the D11. One or two passes and you can take out your whole property, assuming you live in the country. In the city, many neighbors' too.

I worked for Cat first job out of college. Mandatory training back in the mid-90's for new hires included a week playing on equipment at the proving grounds. Literally play--they showed us safety videos in the morning, stuck us out on a hill with a bunch of equipment, took us back for lunch, and took us back out for afternoon play for a full week. Biggest I got to play on was a D6. But there was a D11 at the proving grounds I got to see. I worked in the wheel loader division--biggest of those I got to drive was a 992. I spent a lot of time on the 983F and the prototype 950G machine developing the software for the optional traction control system.

[Scott T Smith]

OOPS, I was thinking the first elevated drive sproket was the H... but my practical knowledge stops with the D7, probably was just thinking H and High though I do know they have nothing to do with each other. When I was a Platoon Leader in the Combat Engineers my platoon was the support platoon so we had all the heavy equipment but we were Airborne so nothing heavier than a D7. A D7 could be LEAPS in (literally drug out of the back of a VERY low flying C-130 or C-141 by a parachute(s)), we had one LEAPS go awry and lost a D7 as it tumbled probably 20 times because the pilot was maybe 10 feet too high, the load master should have known better...

Pic below, I couldn't find a dozer but this is a LAPES.

BTW with your equipement Scott a D9 isn't that much of a stretch!

Very cool Van! I can't imagine dropping a D7 out of an airplane! I'm glad that I didn't buy any mil surplus D7's - might have some "unusual" track maintenance issues....