Cheap Bulldozer Winch

[BrokenTrack]

I got a skidder, but as my wife will attest, I only smile when I am on my bulldozer.

One of the problems with my bulldozer is that it does not have a winch, and a factory one costs about $5,000 to install...used! Yet...when I am logging, I am often inefficient because with direct attached chokers I have to get really close to my felled trees. As the trees add up on back of the bulldozer, it gets harder to do this. Alternatively, if a choker pops loose, I cannot back up and retrieve the log making a less-than-full twitch out of the woods; again...inefficient logging.

So while a tractor farm winch is not ideal, it can at least sneak back into the woods 150 feet and bring trees to the bulldozer as it makes up its twitch. To that end I fabricated my own 3 point hitch and pto drive. Again 3 point hitches can be factory installed, but they are about as rare as finding a hens tooth while balancing upon a unicorn's horn. The PTO was just a matter of changing out the final drive cover with a winch drive cover with shaft ($150), and then adding a 1000 pto to 540 pto spline adapter ($21).

Again it is not as good as a factory installed hydraulic winch, but at least I can now gather wood up so that I can make a twitch of wood.

(Note: In this picture I was just finishing up with my reverser rebuild, transmission cooler add-on, and did not get the engine shroud and ROPS back on when I took the photo).

 

[Peter 315]

John deere 350 winch, complete and excellent condition (Johnson,Vermont) This guy has a few plus parts

 

[BrokenTrack]

Oh I know Mark really well, we are good friends. A "few plus parts" is an understatement!!

I got a house in New Hampshire, so when I am out that way I try to head over and see him. I just talked with him the day after Christmas. Great guy for sure. Spend 4 hours with him and it is the equivalent of a degree in John Deere Bulldozers.

 

[s219]

Looks like a great solution and can't beat the price. What year is the dozer? Need to see pictures of skidder next.

 

[Gordon Gould]

That's looks good ! I would love to have that rig - been thinking how to do it for a couple years on my Dresser TD7G. What speed does your pto turn at ? My pto would turn at the engine speed. And all the time, so I would need a reduction gear of some kind. I also can't find a winch adapter which includes the internal shaft/bearing but am still looking.

Again, very nice. I am jealous

gg

 

[Sawyer Rob]

I have a Braden 25,000 pound winch that I kept saying I was going to put on my 450, but once I got a skidding winch for my tractor, I quit thinking about that.

Looks like you got something that will really help you out in getting those logs out, a winch is a great asset!

SR

 

[JimP]

That 350 will be nice with the rebuilds and winch! I would like to have a winch on mine but as you and Gordon point out finding a used winch setup with all of the needed parts is near impossible. Jim

 

[BrokenTrack]

That's looks good ! I would love to have that rig - been thinking how to do it for a couple years on my Dresser TD7G. What speed does your pto turn at ? My pto would turn at the engine speed. And all the time, so I would need a reduction gear of some kind. I also can't find a winch adapter which includes the internal shaft/bearing but am still looking.

Again, very nice. I am jealous

gg

I would have ALL the problems you would have, but the Fransgard winch design allows it to be used. Basically the only time the winch reels in is when the clutch lever is pushed, so that is why it works. The reduction comes from the chain reduction on the winch too, so at idle it winches in fast enough for me, and with enough power.

BUT...these are all deficiencies I can live with, I can understand for other people it may not be worth it.

 

[BrokenTrack]

That 350 will be nice with the rebuilds and winch! I would like to have a winch on mine but as you and Gordon point out finding a used winch setup with all of the needed parts is near impossible. Jim

Thanks for the kind words...

My ultimate set-up is actually a trio, but sadly I have not had it configured this way yet to take a picture as I have just been logging with my skidder. Hopefully I can word it properly so you can understand what I want to do.

Basically it is my Bulldozer, with attached Fransgard Winch, with my Wallenstein Log Trailer hooked to the hitch on the winch. In this way, I can fell a tree, limb it, top it and then using my winch; drag the tree close enough so that I can pick it up with my grapple and load it on my log trailer. I have used this method on my Kubota tractor and it works well, it just would work much better with my bulldozer as it has more traction.

The Log Trailer works good because I can lift the log off the ground so I can cut the tree at waist height instead of on the ground where I might dull my saw. I can only get 5-6 trees on before my trailer is full, but they are very clean and cut to length. (I hope I have explained this well enough so you can picture what I want to do).

Here is my Log Trailer, BUT not with my winch attached to my dozer.

 

[BrokenTrack]

Looks like a great solution and can't beat the price. What year is the dozer? Need to see pictures of skidder next.

My dozer is a 1988 John Deere 350D, so it is of the last year they made them. It is in pretty decent shape, brand new undercarriage throughout, then some extras like an auxiliary reverser cooler. Everything is really tight except for the blade. I need to line-bore the pins and refurbish the blade control lever as it is sloppy. Some lights would be nice, along with a paint-job, but it is my baby good or bad. But what the heck...let us throw in some fuzzy dice on the list too I guess.

As for the skidder; it is a 1979 Clark 664C with a 453 Detroit instead of the 353. The saw my wife is holding is a 2017 Husqvarna 562, but I am not a huge fan of it. I miss my Stihl MS 461, but it went to cut the big Eastern Hemlock in the sky when said skidder mashed it into the ground.

 

[s219]

My dozer is a 1988 John Deere 350D, so it is of the last year they made them. It is in pretty decent shape, brand new undercarriage throughout, then some extras like an auxiliary reverser cooler. Everything is really tight except for the blade. I need to line-bore the pins and refurbish the blade control lever as it is sloppy. Some lights would be nice, along with a paint-job, but it is my baby good or bad. But what the heck...let us throw in some fuzzy dice on the list too I guess.

As for the skidder; it is a 1979 Clark 664C with a 453 Detroit instead of the 353. The saw my wife is holding is a 2017 Husqvarna 562, but I am not a huge fan of it. I miss my Stihl MS 461, but it went to cut the big Eastern Hemlock in the sky when said skidder mashed it into the ground.

That 350D and the Clark are both nice rigs to have.

I have both a 562XP and a 461. I have been fairly impressed with the 562, as it is a strong 60cc saw, but am not in love with it. It has been finicky in cold weather (so much for auto tune) and the **** thing can't sit still without flopping over sideways (trait other Husky saws share due to the narrow case and outboard clutch). The 461, on the other hand, is one of my all time favorite saws. I sure would be heartbroken if it got run over.

 

[BrokenTrack]

I have a knack for driving over chainsaws for some reason. I have gotten 3 in about as many years; bulldozers and skidders doing about the same amount of damage too them. So far it has been (2) Husky's and (1) Stihl.

I have been really doing better at only having a chainsaw in my hands, or on the skidder/bulldozer so I don't mash them into the ground now.

 

[BrokenTrack]

That 350D and the Clark are both nice rigs to have.

I grew up bulldozer logging so I think that is why I smile on a dozer instead of a skidder, but the skidder is easier for sure.

The sad part is, I recently got cancer so now that I got all this equipment to log well, I just lack the strength to physically do it. We are going to have a logging contractor come in this Spring and cut our woodlot hard as we really need the money. Not so much in terms of debt as I buy this stuff with cash instead of credit, but it takes money to live. I got some retirement money, but figured on just logging/farming to get by to the end of my days. I never counted on getting cancer at age 43.

I don't get crazy on logging, maybe a few loads a month.

 

[s219]

Sorry to hear that -- age 43 is way to young to be dealing with that, but I know people of all ages are faced with it. What's the prognosis, if you don't mind me asking?

 

[Gordon Gould]

I would have ALL the problems you would have, but the Fransgard winch design allows it to be used. Basically the only time the winch reels in is when the clutch lever is pushed, so that is why it works. The reduction comes from the chain reduction on the winch too, so at idle it winches in fast enough for me, and with enough power.

BUT...these are all deficiencies I can live with, I can understand for other people it may not be worth it.

I didn't explain very good. I understand how winch clutches work. I have two Farmi's. The minimum RPM on my dozer pto shaft would be about 900 RPM as it runs off the transmission input shaft. It is a powershift transmission so there is no clutch. I would not want to run my 540 RPM max winch at 900 RPM - I generally run it at about 300 RPM tractor pto speed. ( Thus the gear reduction I would need ) I was asking what RPM your dozer pto ran at because I am not familiar with the 350 pto setup and wondered how it compared to mine and what speed you ran the winch at. Thanks

gg

 

[BrokenTrack]

I didn't explain very good. I understand how winch clutches work. I have two Farmi's. The minimum RPM on my dozer pto shaft would be about 900 RPM as it runs off the transmission input shaft. It is a powershift transmission so there is no clutch. I would not want to run my 540 RPM max winch at 900 RPM - I generally run it at about 300 RPM tractor pto speed. ( Thus the gear reduction I would need ) I was asking what RPM your dozer pto ran at because I am not familiar with the 350 pto setup and wondered how it compared to mine and what speed you ran the winch at. Thanks

gg

No need to apologize Gordon, I am pretty sure I was the one that did not explain things well enough, or missed what you were saying. I also did not mean to offend you on your knowledge of tractor winches either, it is just on the internet you never know where people's knowledge base is at. Again I am sorry if you felt slighted; I am not that way at all.

My bulldozer has a clutch...sort of. It just kicks the reverser out of both forward and neutral so it is not a normal clutch to say the least, so it is a lot like yours. The PTO runs off the transmission input shaft as well, but my dozer idles around 600 rpm and not 900 though. It is 300 rpm under what you would have, but is 300 over what you would like. However I tried it and the line speed is fine for me. It was a concern though as I hooked this winch up.

...

I wondered myself, but did not need to try it...was...what would happen if a person used a Prince PTO pump on the back of their dozers PTO, then coupled it into another Prince pump on the winch input shaft? A flow control valve would then slow down the rpm of the farm winch, but the whole system would require a relief valve and hydraulic reservoir too. I am not positive about the exact variation that would be needed, but you probably get the idea. A bit more elaborate than what I have, but well under what a new factory type of winch would cost too.

Thoughts???

 

[BrokenTrack]

One thing to keep in mind to ANYONE who tries this. The pto shaft MUST slide between the winch and bulldozer. The bulldozer PTO has no room for thrust forces so it would damage the rear end if it was straight-coupled to a winch. There has to be give between the winch and the bulldozer.

 

[Gordon Gould]

Thanks for the good explanation of your setup. It is more similar to mine than I thought it would be except for the idle RPM's. Must be pretty lively pulling in a hitch. Way better than nothing like what I have.

I have thought about the pto pump/motor route. Also just a hydraulic motor, with a pto shaft adapter run off a diverter and motor control valve from the dozer hydraulics, driving the winch input shaft. Seems that would be simplest and cheapest way to go. Would be very slow though with 13.5 gal/min at WOT hydraulic flow. Kind of a back burner thing to think about.

gg

 

[BrokenTrack]

Way better than nothing like what I have.

I understand having nothing at all. I logged that way for a year and it was pretty slow, but also frustrating. I would sometimes be a foot within choker distance of a tree and just could not get there. Or...lose a tree of my twitch and have no way to back up and get it.

The log loader had the same issue. It works great if I could drive right up to the tree, but sometimes I couldn't. The winch allows me to pull a tree up to the trailer so I can load it.

 

[Oldpath05]

I cant imagine liking a Stihl chainsaw over a Husqvarna XP, I have the 550xp I think it's faster than my son's Stihl 291 and why does Stihl still put two same side teeth in a row on their 18" bar.

Now if the winch on that dozer was hooked to a loader trailer that had power drive wheels, that would be a reel great set up for soft ground logging. Me I'm still using an old single axle trailer for getting logs out, trailers do work better for that, the main thing is it keep the logs cleaner for milling.