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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? (:Quote:
Originally Posted by tessiers
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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by tessiers
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.
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.
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.
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..!!
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.
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..
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!Quote:
Originally Posted by tessiers