Posted: 23 - March - 2009 at 16:25 | IP Logged

  We had a small dozer on the farm (old gas IH).  I do not remember much about it, but I do know that it had a large leaf spring across the front.  Do the small dozers ever have provision for the tracks to articulate?  Or are they kept simple, like on a skid steer?

  I have always wanted to build a ~D2 sized track layer, so I am interested in this build.  I have always envisioned using a (narrowed?) full floater truck rear end as the drive (with an airlocker of course!).  I would then use the just the outer hub assemblies on the front corners.  Track rollers would be based on trailer hubs.  Sprockets could be CNC flame cut.  Track Chain make/buy??? Use D2 parts?    mark

Posted: 21 - April - 2010 at 23:04 | IP Logged

Finally getting some work done on this.  I am going to order the rest of the steel tomorrow.

Posted: 27 - May - 2010 at 23:37 | IP Logged

It’s always easier to see problems when the engineering is already completed! With that said I think you are going to have problem tearing your track up with the only contact point at the center welded to your drive chain. Were it contacts the boogies it may hold together fairly well but your front and rear sprockets will leave the pad open for damage if the ends are loaded by say a rock or debris only contacting one side. Adding a hinge points in between the pad towards the outside edge would be a great help on distributing the load across large sections of the track. My 2 cents…………. Keep the pictures coming you will end up with a great crawler I am sure!!

Posted: 03 - June - 2010 at 20:01 | IP Logged

Thanks for the feedback! 

I thaught about the twisting issue for a long time and its hard to see in the pictures but there is a .5" x 3" x 5" plate welded to the track main beam and each one is double bolted to the cross tubes.  I think this will holdup to the twisting forces of this small machine but I wll see if I can get a gusset on underneath them to bulk it up even more. 

Cad Crafter - Can you explain a little more about your suggestion??  I understand the issue with the front and rear idler sprockets but I dont understand your "Adding a hinge points in between the pad towards the outside edge" comment? 

I am also thinking about epoxying some rubber pads inside the cleats to reduce the ware on the pads??  Still tossing arround this idea but the more I think about it the more I like it.

THANKS!!

Posted: 03 - June - 2010 at 23:14 | IP Logged

Ok.  I see what you mean. 

When I initially designed this I wanted to make it with as little machineing/special cut parts as possible.  The 80 double pitch conveyor chain is off the shelf and the trackpads are just C channel cut to length then welded on.  So worstcase if I ruin a track it is $150 of material and a couple days labor to make another one. (now that I have the fixture setup)

Thanks for the input!!!