Capt. Jack is right on the money about dozers.....got one, rebuilt it, and now it's like part of the family. When kept up, and used properly a dozer is a very powerful piece of equipment, more so that even a large ag tractor. When you have you foot all the way into that injection pump, and the earth is just rolling over that blade, and kicking to the side you are angled to, that's a great feeling. Real power, and carving the earth to your contours. To each his own, if you aren't up to owning one, stay away. Under carriage work ain't for sissies, as big Eddie Walker will tell you. Dozers will dead tow 90% of their own weight. I've skidded large logs, and they just skid through everything, other falled trees, big piles of dirt and brush, into and through large deep dirt berms. They are truely like owning a tank without the big gun. Even the smaller ones are almost unstoppable when kept in good repair. It's an awsome tow vehicle also. Once a feller brought his large boom truck to hang a light for me, he got stuck in some dep mud leaving, and was a bit upset about the whole thing then. I told him I had a "tractor" which could pull him out. He just smirked, and said, "let's see your tractor". I opened the shed door, and there was the dozer, and his remark was, "yea, that WILL pull me out". The dozer never knew it was pulling his truck out of the mud, it was a cake walk. Eddie's big Case 1150 must be something else to drive. I also worked in a past life for Naval research, and was at a very remote test site. After each full scale test, they would clear the area with a D9. I asked the person driving the dozer if I could run it after the next test, he ask "what do you know about running dozers?". I then went on to explain about my small Case 310F I had completely rebuilt, including under carriage. The Army Sargent said, "all dozers are the same, you can clean up after the next test" So I spent part of the afternoon running the D9. It was fantastic, plus it was almost brand new, and painted olive drab...........
That D9 had deep cleats, and was clacky-a-d-clacking over everything. Big pieces of twisted metal, concrete, whatever. Filled the blast hole in, graded, and ready for the next shot. Big boom-booms, and big dozers, what a day...
