Mini Dozer Rs1000

[Strebs]

What you guys think, would something like this work for your area? Seems like you could build one fairly cheap.

 

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[Bonaro]

I have an old Allis Chalmers mini tractor with a dozer blade, whole thing weighs about 700 pounds. It will push dirt, grade the driveway and pull small trees and roots. It is slow compared to typical mini construction equipment but it is BY FAR better than manual labor.

The Struck Magnatrac is a good machine and costs over 10k new. I would love to have one. Its biggest problem is lack of weight/traction but the small size means you can take it in many places you cannot get a bigger machine. They do not show up often on the used market

 

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[OreCart]

I have an old Allis Chalmers mini tractor with a dozer blade, whole thing weighs about 700 pounds. It will push dirt, grade the driveway and pull small trees and roots. It is slow compared to typical mini construction equipment but it is BY FAR better than manual labor.

The Struck Magnatrac is a good machine and costs over 10k new. I would love to have one. Its biggest problem is lack of weight/traction but the small size means you can take it in many places you cannot get a bigger machine. They do not show up often on the used market

I used to get their promotion brochures, and always was interested in them. I thought their price was always kind of high, only because a person can buy a bigger bulldozer used for the same price. For instance I bought my small John Deere 350 bulldozer for $10,200. But like you said, you cannot exactly pull that to a claim with a pick up truck.

But one thing mentioned in the initial post, but not replied about so far, was in the making of a homemade bulldozer. A great place to start is the magazine Farm Show, which you can get at Tractor Supply where people make all kinds of homemade tractors and implements. There is a book they came out with that had hundreds of garden tractor conversions, many with tracks on them, so it can be done.

A bulldozer I liked, but does not get favorable reviews, is the mini-bulldozer in Northern Hydraulics. It took a lot to convert my John Deere 350 so it had a PTO and 3 point hitch, but the Northern Hydraulic tractor already has that. Unfortunately there are few parts for it, and known for breakdowns. It would be better to get a tracked skid steer if a person could afford one; but are they ever pricey!

 

[Bonaro]

I used to get their promotion brochures, and always was interested in them. I thought their price was always kind of high, only because a person can buy a bigger bulldozer used for the same price. For instance I bought my small John Deere 350 bulldozer for $10,200. But like you said, you cannot exactly pull that to a claim with a pick up truck.

But one thing mentioned in the initial post, but not replied about so far, was in the making of a homemade bulldozer. A great place to start is the magazine Farm Show, which you can get at Tractor Supply where people make all kinds of homemade tractors and implements. There is a book they came out with that had hundreds of garden tractor conversions, many with tracks on them, so it can be done.

A bulldozer I liked, but does not get favorable reviews, is the mini-bulldozer in Northern Hydraulics. It took a lot to convert my John Deere 350 so it had a PTO and 3 point hitch, but the Northern Hydraulic tractor already has that. Unfortunately there are few parts for it, and known for breakdowns. It would be better to get a tracked skid steer if a person could afford one; but are they ever pricey!

You can buy the Struck in the pic at the top of this thread as a kit for about $4k

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

You can buy the Struck in the pic at the top of this thread as a kit for about $4k

Even that's expensive compared to the amount of work it can do.
I recently bought a 46 HP diesel loader tractor w/gannon box for 2K.

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

Orecart, what did your PTO conversion consist of?

 

[OreCart]

Orecart, what did your PTO conversion consist of?

Well....not much, because the John Deere 350 series of tractors already have a PTO inside the rear end. I just bought a winch shaft that consisted of a stub shaft that slips into the 21 spline rear end, and then a rear end cover that has the bearing in it.

That leaves you with a 21 spline PTO shaft which can be reduced down to 6 spline pto shaft with a $10 adapter.

Since the 350 series of tractors has a hydraulic reverser, the PTO is controlled by that.

The factory installed PTO has a PTO control that went down into the transmission that had forks that kicked your pto in and out of gear. This was better than what I had, because whenever I was moving, the PTO was in gear. Most of the time it does not matter, but sometimes it did, like when bushogging and you hit a rock. You cannot just shut off the pto and pull ahead, and then kick it back into gear. In that situation you have to get down, unhook the PTO shaft, pull ahead, and the reattach it, but that does not happen that often. To me it was better to do that once and awhile then dig down into the bowels of the transmission to install shifting forks on the main shaft of the transmission.

I think in total the conversion cost me $150 bucks and a half hour of time to do.

It was well worth it. I could throw on my 3 point hitch stuff, and yet with tracks could cross anything; mud, snow, places with nails, etc...the bulldozer did not care. One of the best uses was in spreading fertilizer on pasture land. I could go anywhere and fertilize the grass the sheep were eating.

The biggest downfall was, I could never match my implements to the bulldozers tractive effort. By that I mean, my implements are sized for a small wheeled tractor, yet with tracks, I could pull three times as much implement. Sometimes I could double hitch things like harrows so that I was getting twice as much harrowing in a single pass, but most times the traction and horsepower was overkill for what I was towing behind it.

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

The tractor I bought doesn't have PTO and adding a OEM pto consists of splitting the tractor and replacing the rear end.
I had considered trying to use the front bucket hydraulics to power a PTO motor mounted to a mower.
It has a larger dedicated pump for the loader.

Everyone says there will be cooling issues due to insufficient fluid capacity.

I may just have to get a gas powered 3 point mower if such a thing exists.

 

[OreCart]

The tractor I bought doesn't have PTO and adding a OEM pto consists of splitting the tractor and replacing the rear end.
I had considered trying to use the front bucket hydraulics to power a PTO motor mounted to a mower.
It has a larger dedicated pump for the loader.

Everyone says there will be cooling issues due to insufficient fluid capacity.

I may just have to get a gas powered 3 point mower if such a thing exists.

Mmmmmm….I am thinking about this, but might need to know more about your particular tractor.

There is merit in people's opinions, especially online, but often it is very easy to be negative, when that might not be the case. For instance I was told putting a PTO on my bulldozer would blow out the transmission as it would put thrust on the shaft, but that is downright stupid, a pto shaft slides in and out upon itself so there is no end thrust on the shaft at all.

Again, I do not know your tractor, but mine has a stub shaft coming off the front motor. If yours has that, you could get a PTO pump to mount to that, and route lines back...or even up front...to your mower. If you are worried about cooling, you could use hard lines in places instead of hydraulic hose in places flexibility was not needed, as the rubber coating keeps the hydraulic oil from cooling, or you could just just add an oil cooler. I had problems with my John Deere 350 hydraulic reverser heating up, and added a transmission cooler to it, and my temp dropped significantly, and it was only $80.

I do not think adding a separate engine to a mower would be difficult. I think you could buy a used bushog, then add a used engine to it fairly easily and not break the bank. Around here hobby farmers get kind of silly and go out and buy 100 hp tractors just so they can run a round baler. If it was me, rather than spend buckoo bucks on a tractor of that size for (2) jobs a year, I would just add an engine to the baler and just pull it with a smaller tractor. Of course I say that lightly because I hate hay, and would never buy haying equipment, but I have also have sheep, and was raised on a dairy farm, so I have an out of control silage fetish. (Sheep thrive on corn and grass silage).

Another option that might be better for you, and turn-key if you do not like fabrication, would be to check out Pioneer Equipment and buy what I call a "motivator". The Amish are strange in that that like horses, but like 3 point hitch and pto implements to tow behind them. Pioneer Equipment sells units that horses (or tractors) pull, but have a separate engine to run a PTO and lift 3 point hitch equipment. The Amish do that here, get a team of horses to pull a separate engine that powers a towed round baler. Why they just don't get a tractor is beyond me.

I let a great Amish kid borrow my tractor to clean out an old barn of manure, and because he used it, the kid was shunned for 3 months. I even went to the elders and told them that I let him use my tractor, and they still would not reduce his punishment. There are worse neighbors to have granted, but good golly, God would have struck me dead years ago if he hated tractors that bad.

The only reason I might go with a motivator is because then you could power any PTO piece of equipment, and not have an engine sitting on just your mower.

 

[RTR]

A lot a power in a small package ,cant beat a Bobcat
Rent one for $300.00 a day

 

[OreCart]

Another option would be to just fabricate a non-pto powered bushhog.

There is a guy on YouTube who took an axle with rear end, rotated it upwards, then attached pulleys and belts to it to drive bushog blades. You could do the same thing, probably cheaper than you could buy a used engine for a bushog. But the area you intend to mow would have to be relatively smooth so you could mow it fairly fast.

If that was the case, you might as well just fabricate a cheap disc mower, but instead of powering the discs by a driveshaft from the tractor (which you do not have), just buy cheap $100 6 HP engines from Harbor Freight to spin each disc. It would suck to have to listen to a few engines running, but it would be much cheaper to buy multiple engines and direct-drive them, then it would be to buy one engine and then have to buy all the gearing, belts and pulleys to power multiple spindles.

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

Another option would be to just fabricate a non-pto powered bushhog.

There is a guy on YouTube who took an axle with rear end, rotated it upwards, then attached pulleys and belts to it to drive bushog blades. You could do the same thing, probably cheaper than you could buy a used engine for a bushog. But the area you intend to mow would have to be relatively smooth so you could mow it fairly fast.

If that was the case, you might as well just fabricate a cheap disc mower, but instead of powering the discs by a driveshaft from the tractor (which you do not have), just buy cheap $100 6 HP engines from Harbor Freight to spin each disc. It would suck to have to listen to a few engines running, but it would be much cheaper to buy multiple engines and direct-drive them, then it would be to buy one engine and then have to buy all the gearing, belts and pulleys to power multiple spindles.

It's a ford 3500 loader only. (No hoe). So it does have a forward mounted shaft driven pump (for the loader).
I think it would be cheaper (not easier) to buy a different tractor with PTO and locker and mower and swap the rear end then sell the donor tractor. Just not sure how the PTO would mesh up with the auto reverser transmission (no clutch).

The trailer PTO would be a no go for me.

Most people tell me I'd be better off just selling what I've got and buying what I need.
I like the industrial front end, heavy duty loader and reverser transmission. I do quite a bit of brush removal with it.

 

[OreCart]

It's a ford 3500 loader only. (No hoe). So it does have a forward mounted shaft driven pump (for the loader).
I think it would be cheaper (not easier) to buy a different tractor with PTO and locker and mower and swap the rear end then sell the donor tractor. Just not sure how the PTO would mesh up with the auto reverser transmission (no clutch).

The trailer PTO would be a no go for me.

Most people tell me I'd be better off just selling what I've got and buying what I need.
I like the industrial front end, heavy duty loader and reverser transmission. I do quite a bit of brush removal with it.

I would not listen too much to what others say because if you want an industrial loader, you will be unhappy with anything else. I am in no way trying to get you swayed in one direction of another, I am just listening to a problem you have, and thinking of ways to get around the problem with the least amount of money. You can tell me to pound sand with any of my ideas and I will not be upset. :-)

I do not think the reverser will effect the PTO installation because it is pretty much just hydraulic clutch packs that hold one end or the other to get the shaft to spin clockwise or counterclockwise. It is all on the front of the transmission though so that you get forward and reverse without stopping in each gear. There is no need for a clutch because your clutch pedal just kicks out both ends of the reverser clutch packs so nothing is engaged. BUT that is with John Deere bulldozers, maybe Ford has a different arrangement...I really do not know?

I knew a guy who had a not-so-backhoe like yours, and to get his bushog to rise or fall, ran a cable from his front bucket to his bushog going right over the cab. To get the bushog to rise, he just lowered his front bucket, and to get his bushog to lower, he lifted his front bucket. It was all kind of crude, but it worked...but he had a pto I admit, and just lacked a 3 point hitch.