Sunday Fun

Messages
806
Location
New Springfield OH
I'm always looking for a challenge. My buddy Neil is getting a french drain put in around the barn, this shed was in the way and he wanted it torn down.

Well being the cheap skate I am I decided to move it. The ground hogs had worked their magic and the back wall of the foundation was pretty much gone. They dug so much dirt out from under it the slab had sunk.

I couldn't tear down, its got tongue and groove siding inside and out. The roof needs to be redone but it is really well built.

Wade helped me, we slid 2 i beams under it, Picked it up with bull dozer and blocked it up, knocked out the rest of the block, set it back down and drug it up the hill a ways.

After I get the garden and my corn in I'll build a deck for it and set it on it, Then trailer it home.

I drug the whole slab out back to the rock pile, and busted it up with the dozer then shoved it up in the rock pile.

I love my dozer :thumb: :thumb:
 

Attachments

  • Farm shed move 5.jpg
    Farm shed move 5.jpg
    44.6 KB · Views: 58
  • Farm shed move 1.jpg
    Farm shed move 1.jpg
    54.4 KB · Views: 64
  • Farm shed move 6.jpg
    Farm shed move 6.jpg
    53.3 KB · Views: 67
  • Farm shed move 8.jpg
    Farm shed move 8.jpg
    79.9 KB · Views: 83
That dozer is sort of a lawn tractor on steroids, huh? I've only played with a small dozer like that a few times, but they sure are neat machines.
 
Well you got one up on me, I never moved a building before Robert...nice use of a machine. You make it sound like it was easy, I am thinking it was a lot of work.
 
Last edited:
Well you got one up on me, I never moved a building before Robert...nice use of a machine. You make itsound like it was easy,I am thinking it was a lot of work.



Norm, this is a D-4.

Bulldozer_Log2.JPG

Yeah, but that one looks a LOT NEWER than the ones I remembered:DI .......been a Lot of Years since I've seen one though. I always wanted a Dozer to use on our little farm, for clearing mesquites and reworking stock tanks, and did actually buy an early D-6 at an equipment auction at the end of a Dam Construction project, but a fellow that arrived late to the sale looked me up and offered me $3500 more than I paid for it, so I let him have it. I sure made more on that than I made Flying that Equipment Broker to the sale that day, but I've always regretted selling that thing, 'cause they just kept going up in price for anything that was in good shape and I never found another one that I thought was a good enough deal for my minimal useage after that.
 
Robert, looks like you got a nice dozer,if I am seeing things right it looks like you have a six way blade on that thing? Growing up we had a John Deere 1010 bulldozer. It was a gas job so it liked its fuel, but we hauled out a lot of wood with that thing.

I have cut wood with a lot of machines, but a bulldozer is THE BEST machine to use. Skidders, tractors, atv's...they all suck compared to a bulldozer. Even after 50 years the nice smooth roads those machines leave behind is a dream. I recently reused a logging road my Great Uncle used 50 odd years ago, and after cutting some saplins that grew up, there was the road, nice and smooth.

Our JD 1010 though, had a two way blade...up and down and that was it. You could angle the blade by manually prepositioning pins, but that was a pain. And tilt was not even an option. Still it pulled out a lot of wood and holds a lot of good memories as far as machinery goes. (Besides what Farmboy does not think fondly of the first tractor he drove).

By the way, don't let anyone pick on you dozer size wise. Its unbelievable where that thing can go,and how easily it can get around in the woods. Anything bigger gets kind of gaumy in my opinion. And its not like you need more traction or power as your pictures show...you can do a lot with tracks.
 
My heavy machinery operating experince is limited to 5 days playing in the dirt during a "class" new hires had to take when I worked for Cat. Basically the first four days of "class" they showed us a safety video then drove us out to the back of the proving grounds where the piled the dredgings from the various ponds. We just dug holes, filled them in, pushed around piles of dirt, graded a road around the pile, etc. Best week of work I've ever had. The 5th day we went to the demo facility and ran a bunch of brand new equipment. I got to play on a D-4 kind of like the one pictured on that day. Earlier in the week we'd gotten to play on D-5s and a D-7. I agree with Travis that dozers are a lot easier to make a level surface with than something like a tractor with a blade or something with a bucket like a tractor or wheel loader. I've had my tractor for 4-1/2 years now and I still have trouble getting my driveway smooth. After just a day on the dozers I was making reasonably smooth surfaces.

BTW, one of my coworkers went to the same class during the wet season. They learned how to unstick a stuck D-7 using an excavator, and also what happens when an excavator rips a hydraulic line off the ripper on D-7. (The ripper sinks into the mud until said hydraulic line is replaced.)
 
Travis, your right it has a 6 way hydraulic blade. 3 speed with a shuttle shift. I love being able to get in the woods with whenever I need to, if you do make a mess it is easy to fix it back up. Oh though I have had it stuck when the mud is up over the tracks things aren't good :D

Now what I would really like to have is a crawler loader :thumb:

Matt, you want real excitement, start digging out a stuck drag line :rolleyes: Trust me they don't go so well when the ground gets soft DAMHIKT :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
 
Now what I would really like to have is a crawler loader :thumb:

Robert, you think like I do. Just the other day I was down looking at my gravel pit area. Its only a few acres in size and has been dug over a bit making the whole thing uneven and stuff. Its also grown over too, but the biggest thing is, there is gravel...good gravel...just underneath the existing pit floor. The problem is the water table is right there.

My little tractor does okay, but a crawler loader would be a lot better. It could level things out, then dig down below the surface and get the good gravel out. With the tracks it would not get stuck and would be able to load trucks easier.

My long term plan...okay VERY long term plan...is to cut the wood out of this area, extract the gravel below the water table and eventually make it into a pond. I have a pasture nearby so the cows could come down and drink it, and being spring fed the darn thing would be good clean drinking water. At the same time, with gravel banks the cattle would not tear up the riparian areas of the pond like they do on small streams and stuff.

I had a John Deere 350 Crawler Loader back in 1995 or so. It worked great but at the time it was not what I needed. I was logging and really needed a bulldozer. This worked, but the grouser pads are so flat, and with so many grousers bars (3 short ones instead on one tall one) that it did not get much traction. In the mud they tended to load up and could not pull very well. In fact as a rule a track loader cannot pull as well as it can push, unlike a dozer that can do both equally. They look so similar that you would not think that is the case, but they are definately two different animals.
 
Yeah, but that one looks a LOT NEWER than the ones I remembered:DI .......been a Lot of Years since I've seen one though. I always wanted a Dozer to use on our little farm, for clearing mesquites and reworking stock tanks, and did actually buy an early D-6 at an equipment auction at the end of a Dam Construction project, but a fellow that arrived late to the sale looked me up and offered me $3500 more than I paid for it, so I let him have it. I sure made more on that than I made Flying that Equipment Broker to the sale that day, but I've always regretted selling that thing, 'cause they just kept going up in price for anything that was in good shape and I never found another one that I thought was a good enough deal for my minimal useage after that.

That bulldozer is my Grandfather's and it truly is a love-hate relationship. I have come to the point now that I told my Grandfather not to bring it over to my house. When he does it starts out with a full tank of fuel, and when he picks it up the fuel is gone. I just cannot get off the thing. Night-Day...it does not matter I use the thing until the fuel is gone, putting on hours but getting a whole lot of stuff done.

Back in 1994 when I was building my house, I had cut a lot of wood using a skidder. I used this skidder in the places that were hard to get to and uneven. So that summer I used this bulldozer and bulldozed roads all through my woodlot. Not every trail I used the skidder on, but the major trails. What that did was give me smooth flat roads in which I can get my little tractor around. Now a lot of those places that were too hard to get to are really easy for my tractor. It was one of the smartest things I ever did as far as my property goes and from a forestry point of view.
 
"gaumy" ? :huh:

Let's see, I either really, really misspelled a word or I used one of those Maine words and phrases again, kind of like Kitty Corner, Wicked Good, or Catty Whompous. Don't worry if you don't know what I am talking about, most people outside of Maine don't either. :rofl:

Gaumy=awkward, clumsy, bumbling, unwieldy, hulking
 
Travis, it's an easy fix to cure a loaders traction problem. Get one that doesn't have street pads on it. Or weld a a piece of bar stock across them. I've seen many farmers do that.

I know where theres a a nice Allis Chalmers crawler loader. with single bar pads on it and a 4 way bucket.
 
Gosh darn you Robert, you suck, now you got me thinking about all the things I could do with a tracked loader like pull that gravel out, load logs, twitch wood and build logging roads. :rofl::rofl:Its kind of dumb of me, but I never thought about redoing the grousers...I guess I just figured they needed street pads for all that turning in the gravel pit.

Yeah one would sure be practical around here. I like my Kubota, don't get me wrong but tracks have their advantages. About the only disadvantage is the maintenance side of things. That can get expensive, but you can also do more with traction.

If I get one I think I would just leave it in the gravel pit and put the word out that if the earthwork contractors need gravel they can come over and get it. If you don't have a way for them to load the gravel, they will never take it. Its one of those things, they don't want to tie up their loaders being in a pit. That's one good thing about living here, the honor system is phenomenal. If they use your loader and pay you for say 1000 cubic yards of gravel, you can rest assured they took 1000 yards out and not 1200. Everyone is pretty fair.
 
Hehe, Oh I'm always one to help my friends spend their money!!

If you get one with street pads the trick is to find bar stock that fits between the short cleats snug, then weld it on both sides. That way the your not putting all the stress on the weld ;) don't get them stick out out to far either, you can and will bend them if the crawler gets a god bite and can't move what your pushing.

Anythingelse you would like me to help you buy :rofl: :rofl:
 
Anything else you would like me to help you buy :rofl: :rofl:

Well now that you mention it, I could use a new wife. Always looking to upgrade you know :)

All kidding aside, I have always liked bulldozers and since this thread started I have seen 3 crawler loaders for sale in my area. All were older machines but that is kind of to be expected really.

Now you mentioned a 4 way blade which I bet is ideal on a crawler-loader. I was thinking about fabbing one up for my Kubota. Having a blade, bucket and jaw on my tractor would really be handy, especially for moving the snow that we get here. I was not sure how I would add the hydraulics though, there would be another circuit and I was not sure where that would tie in.
 
Last edited:
Top