School me on small bulldozers
 

I have this friend who has some land (~85 acres) where we have been going camping and hunting for the last 40+ years. It was logged 10-15 years ago, and the loggers put trails in where the owners requested to drag out the logs. We use those trails to ride the 4 wheelers, access the hunting stands and just wander around. He recently acquired another 30 or so acres which is adjacent. this area was not logged, and as a result there are no trails through it. Also, the existing trails need some care from being rutted, washed out, overgrown, etc.

I've always been fascinated by tracked vehicles (I even tried to build my own tank years ago), and after discussing renting a 'dozer, I decided I'd like to try to buy one. The problem is, I know next to nothing about them. So, some basic questions come to mind.

1. I have no good way to haul the thing, other than renting some sort of trailer. Since I am limited in towing capacity, I've been looking at smaller machines. Is the adage to "go big or go home" applicable here?
2. Other than youtube vids, I don't really know how to judge a machine's condition. I've seen fairly new machines with 10k+ hours on them, and old (1950's and even earlier) machines that look shot with only 2500 hours.
3. How important/useful is it to have a 6 point blade vs. fixed? The plan is just to scrape out a 6 ft. wide path through the undergrowth, not push down old growth trees.
4. Anyone have something for sale?

@sixshooter See above ^^^

You need to get water off the road asap, otherwise it just runs down the road and creates drains which become canyons. That requires a cambered surface, and the creation of spoon drains at regular intervals, and probably pipes under the road to move runoff from the high side to the low side. You have probably seen this play out on the existing tracks. A tractor with a blade can do a lot of that. As soon as you cut into the surface, you change the water flow and redirect it along the track, you need to think ahead and plan for the aphorism 'water flows downhill'. Trite, but when you are building a road/track, it drives all your decisions.

It sounds to me that you are buying trouble, and it might be easier, cheaper and a better result if you just got a contractor in. The 30ac? Leave it alone, walk in through the scrub, see a lot more game, save a motza. Don't know how practical this is for you/your friend, but I'll leave it there.

I put over 2kms access road in to my place, about 30 years ago, good solid sub-base, gravel top surface, lots of pipes some of them a metre or so in diameter. Cost me a bomb, but only now are we (the two neighbors and I) planning on spending money on it. This is not your use-case, but the message is the same, do it properly (whatever that means for you), or watch your time/money/effort get washed down the hill.

Sounds like a great place, lots of great memories there I bet - I hope you both get to enjoy it for many years to come.

What's your budget?

As cheap as possible. $10k max, unless it's a spectacular deal, or something I can make money on later.

Yes, I realize refurbishing giant machines like that is probably beyond my capabilities and budget. I'm looking for a toy that can maybe do enough work to justify it to the wife.

Any dozer you buy in that price range used is going to be a money pit. It will quickly double that number.

The older ones will have a differential running the two sprockets in the back much like a tractor but they use brakes on one side or the other to steer it. The newer ones from most manufacturers made since around 98 or 2000 used a hydrostatic drive.

One without a 6-way blade would be useless doing the kind of work you are talking about.

I know what to look for when buying and how to run one and even still would just rent it from a national rental house. They will deliver it and you won't have to worry about transport. You can purchase the insurance through them and the machine will be in good working order. United Rentals, Sunbelt Rentals, HERC (Hertz Equipment Rental Company was spun off of the other company years ago) are all solid options. There may also be local or regional players that will rent to individuals but dealerships usually only do business with businesses.

If you plan exactly what you want to do you can cut or level a trail very quickly and be done in a day.

Here's a sample of the rates before transport, insurance, and taxes from United Rentals.

Like the Miata hasn't been? I realize that parts are expensive, and old stuff breaks down. I consider that the price of playing.

Why is it that if I buy some clapped out mid 90's gay car, I get no pushback from friends and family, but looking into completely serviceable heavy machinery gets me called crazy by nearly everyone? Hell, even trying to buy surplus military vehicles didn't get as many disapproving looks as this does. Not discounting your advice out of hand, but I have wanted a tracked vehicle since my mid 20's. I bought an RC Tiger tank, tried to build my own large-scale version, and never got very far. But I still want one. Somehow, some way it is going to happen.


Edit: I realize that comes off as more than a bit snippy. That is not my intent. I only want to convey how serious I am about buying something.

Yes, it was/is rude. You want to play with junk, be my guest.

Your question was not about playing, it was specifically about a machine to do work. Spend a grand or two on renting one, get the work done, spend the rest on your crawler fetish/junk. Tell the wife it will be ready when the track needs more maintenance (as they do). Win/win - you have done the work cheaply and quickly, and you have your new toy.

I assume you and/or your mate know how to operate these things, or is it going to be 'OTJ' learning?

I didn't think it was snippy at all. If you want a hobby dozer that's a whole different story than trying to get a particular job done expediently.

Is a Deere 450G in your budget? Or a 450H? I haven't looked at prices.

DO study on how to evaluate track wear before buying anything. A track job on anything could cost more than the entire budget you listed.

And you also don't need a trailer if you only change locations a few times a year. Shop around among the local heavy hauling and lowboy companies or even construction companies with a dump truck and a tag trailer. If you aren't in a hurry and can wait until they are not busy they may move it for a few hundred dollars and save you dealing with the DOT officers and state troopers that inevitably pull people over that move big machines. I can get a small dozer moved an hour away for about $400 including the loading and unloading time. Prices vary a lot by region.

You mentioned cables previously. Don't consider anything old enough to have a cable blade. Hydraulic blades only. Cable blades drop the blade by gravity and hydraulic ones can actually generate downforce on the blade.

25,000 lbs. bulldozer on 7,000 lbs. rated trailer.

Never even see one up close. Most I know is from watching vids.

If I get almost anything, it will probably involve hiring someone to haul it. Once it's down at camp, I pretty much expect it to stay there for as long as I own it.

Weight and balance? - Check.

Tow car? - hey, who's using the Golf, get it over here, I need it!

I looked at machinery trader's offerings for dozers under 12k and was scared to death by the choices, lol. It's impossible to find many important wear parts for a lot of them. Some brands are out of business.

I like the little Deere 350 dozers a lot and know someone who owns one still. He's got extra wide swamp (sometimes called pyramid) tracks on it. They are even wider than the LGP tracks, which are already pretty wide.

The Deere 350 is a small, light dozer that's going to be easier to transport and work on. Our service trucks have cranes on them because machine parts often can't be lifted by hand. Picking a very small dozer makes life easier in many ways. It'll be about half the size of the D3 on the car trailer above.

I'd love to find one. Country wide searches reveal a distinct lack of smaller machines.

I looked at mini dozers, such as those from Struck Corp. They're tiny, like the size of a garden tractor. Further vids reveal that they aren't much good except for pushing loose materials around. And when you get into the larger sizes, they tend to be as expensive as "real" machines, so there really isn't much point. I also watched a bunch of stuff on guys making their own mini dozers, usually using a garden tractor. Same issues with them as the purchased ones.

Doesn't look like it'll happen this year unless I find a deal in the fall. Going to keep looking...