Mini Dozer Idea Factory (potential build)
 

Moving the extant discussion from the mini motor grader thread. The last couple discussions were how to arrange two cub axles to drive them from a single engine when the engine is between the two axles.

I have some ideas for building a mini dozer as a follow on to my motor grader. I have no clue how the few that have been done were built, so I'm ideating from scratch.

(I learned that word, "ideating" from a management training course some years ago. Never had a use for it until now, LOL.)

I'll post some drawings in a few days of what I'm thinking. Would welcome any feedback or suggestions. Actual build won't be until next Winter probably. Boating season is about to start!

Cool, can't wait to see that. :popcorn:
Off the top of my head,
no real "think it out"
but some sort of transfer case (homemade chain/gear, carrier bearing set-up),
or from an old (dare I say it) Suzuki 4X4. Some of the very early
ones were 2-strokes and then they went to 3 cylinders IIRC. :bigthink:

The easiest may be to set it up just like your grader, just with the axles farther apart. Set the engine PTO clutch over top the front axle input and belt drive down. Easy starting. Reverse and forward speeds would remain the same with no mods to the swash plates. I would consider a HP rated centrifugal clutch to replace the original for simplicity and options on belt sizes and dual pulleys.

Would you idle the opposite axles (front left, rear right say) and lock the crown/carrier gear to one axle per end?

Some of your best ideas will pop into your head while fishing. Carry a pencil and pad!

Maybe start at the other end of the system, and work backward:

https://www.gccpd.com/product.asp?it...IaAkEFEALw_wcB

Begin with the snowthrower or implement tracks. Find the proper rear drive hub, and idler hub, and tension arm hub. Then one only needs to drive the rear hub with the takeup tensioner arm hub on top of the track. No need to drive both axles on a tracked drive setup(although some do, it's not really needed).

If the front hubs can be on spindles, they don't even need to be on a through axle. Will allow the front driveshaft to mate to the PTO with a UJ.

Sure would be nice to use an old drive system from a zero turn mower. Just mount it all in a Cub Cadet frame of your choosing. Each track will have its own wheel motor. Build your track system and done!

Yes, I would idle diagonally opposite axles.

To retain the look of a cub with tracks, I need to keep the engine down low, with crank in line with the hydro inputs, each side of the motor driving one hydro, perhaps with a Cub clutch to disengage one of them for starting. On the other hand, that might put the front axle out too far forward, so the engine above the axles may look better. I'll have to mock it up and make a call.

I've got two spare hydro axles, and a complete 1210 (with a third, albeit aluminum) axle. Plus many body parts from the 129 that was the second donor for the grader, so I'd be going for a WF look, using the frame from the 1210, the two cast iron axles, and the hood/grill from the 129 and other WF parts. The 1210's hydro is ported, so I'll probably swap that to one of the cast iron axles. I need the ports for the blade hydraulics--angle and height.

It's funny, my tandem dump Cub starts easily with two hydros and a hydraulic pump all attached. all in line, just like the grader. I wonder why the difference? Here's the tandem dump:

Thought about that. But I have all the Cub parts lying around...just itching to be repurposed. Plus, I like the idea of the extra mass and ruggedness of the cast iron stuff...

I thought both tracks had to be driven independently to steer?

I'm considering buying tracks vs fabbing them from steel. Looking at maybe buying a CNC plasma cutter. Langmuir makes some pretty reasonable.

Steel tracks lend authenticity for that scale appearance.

For my job I am quite often at rental stores.

I have always thought that finding a used beat up cement buggy would be a great start for a dozer build

You might just as well make two undercarriages while you're at it.

You know you need an excavator too. And the ring gear is no problem now after the grader build.

I would just find the dead chassis of a tracked snow thrower. Unbolt the side plates, and all the guts that drive the tracks. Bolt the side plates to whatever frame is chosen, and then build the drive with a diff, and short chains to each side. Maybe put a disk pinch brake on each side of the hubs to steer.

No sense re-inventing the wheel as there are already tracked machines out there to steal from.

https://www.partstree.com/models/269...rack-drive-22/

Side-plates, hubs, drive asm, tracks, track-drive all the guts needed. Just find one with a thrashed engine, and have at.

Ambush, you're a trouble maker. LOL.

Then next is the wheel loader right

Understood. I thought you would say that! I'm with you.

Hmmm, a Cub Cadet Vibratory roller....... :bigthink:

As I was mowing my lawn today I was thinking about the dozer project. I'm wondering if you might need to put a gear reduction in somewhere. In order to actually use the dozer it will probably require a lot of pressure which in the case of the hydros means more speed. Just thinking out loud here. It might be too fast without a gear reduction.

The drive sprockets are much smaller than the 23 inch tires, so that provides some reduction. I'm guessing they might be 8 or 10 inch dia, providing a 2.5:1 or 3:1 reduction. That would give a top speed of 3-4 mph? Of course, the hydros are infinitely variable speed.

School me on this a bit please. Do you figure the diameter of the drive sprocket or the outside diameter of the track at the sprocket? Back in the early 70’s when GM owned Terex I worked at the Hudson plant in Ohio as a welder. We actually built our own drive cases and had gear hobs to make our own gears. We had a horizontal broach that was 12 ft long that we broached the inside splines on the spindles. The floor would shake when it pressed the broach tool. Anyway I digress. My point was I was around some pretty neat machines back then but unfortunately I don’t have any experience with the track system of the crawlers.

Dan Hoefler built this one probably 20 years ago. I expect some of you may have actually seen it at the shows.

I've seen that one. There's another WF version on Youtube.

I wonder if the control levers are just brakes? If you brake one side, doesn't the other side start driving? So could you just build this with one rear end and use brakes to steer? He's got the front sprockets with tensioners, so it appears that's what he's done.

Ground speed is a function of the rotational speed of the axle (RPMs) and the radius of the wheel or track circle.

Cut the radius in half (use a 10 inch sprocket with a 12 inch track diameter, which is about half of the 23 inch diameter tractor tires, should reduce max ground speed from 8 mph to 4 mph. What matters is the effective radius of the surface in contact with the ground if that makes sense.

I don't remember how he did the brakes. I followed this build years ago when he did it but I don't have the details anymore. I know at the time he had a machine shop and made a lot of specialized parts for it.

As for the steering you can definitely steer it with brakes and one rear end. Effectively you would be doing the same as independent brakes on a farm tractor. As long as your differential is not locked it will work. I remember plowing with our Super M as a kid and at the end of the field I would tramp the brake because the front end was dancing a bit. The tractor would turn 90 degrees as I lifted the plows. You can stop one track at a time with good brakes.

My Ford 2000 has independent brakes and yes, you can spin the tractor around easily.

Here's where my mind is at this point. Some rough sketches:

I'm confused why you're turning the engine around. If you welded the rear of one frame to the front of the other frame, with the motor in between, everything would line up and turn the correct way. But for a more Cat like look, I'd mount the motor high and forward. Right over the "front" axle.

I don't think a single axle and "brake" steering would work without a brake up grade and even then probably wouldn't last long if actually working it. Good enough for shows probably.

This project would be a good time to install a hydraulic caliper. The steering levers could be hooked to a pair of master cylinders from a motorcycle. This is a pretty cool configuration too. I don't think anyone has done one like this yet with the high mounted drive wheel

Yeah, the single axle won't give me the weight and hydro controls that I think will function better.

I want the front of the dozer to present the rear cover plate of an axle rather than a more fragile hydro (and oil filter) sticking out there. Otherwise I'd have to build an enclosure and skid plate out front to cover it up and protect it.

Motor over the drives may well look better, so that's still an option and may actually be required to tuck the axles under the hood so to speak. Either way, I still need to turn the engine around if I want the front face to be a rear axle cover. Since I'm now quite familiar with double drive belt arrangements, it might be the way I go. Direct drive presents the challenge of starting the engine with two hydros hooked up.

That's the look I am going for, though the high point would be tensioner, not drive.

I think the dual hydros give the best and most controllable positive drive method.

My mistake. I had front and rear reversed on your sketch, now I get it.

With that arrangement you can still pulley down to the front most shaft, than a drive line between the two hydro's.

The larger bearing is at that end too, for sideloading.

Thank you. I think I get it. It makes sense to me now I think. So effectively it basically means it doesn’t matter if the drive wheel is inside a track or running directly on the ground. Speed is a function of the diameter of the drive wheel regardless.

^^^ Sort of. Ground speed will be figured with the track on the drive. Measure from the ground to the top of the track pad and that's the diameter.

Coincidence, but in the early '70's I worked at the GM Diesel Division in London Ontario. We built locomotives and huge Terex dump trucks for mines. Our sister plant built buses and those eclectic GM dual axle diesel pusher motor homes.

Interesting indeed. Because of the anti-trust suit against GM back in the late 60's they were forbidden to build certain items in the US for a period of time. So, they build many of the pieces (which was legal) in the US and shipped them to Canada for assembly.
I worked in the area for many years that built the rear ends for the TS-14 and TS-24 Scrapers. The Terex Titan was always a favorite discussion topic with it's 4,800 hp locomotive engine powering a generator driving traction motors on each wheel. Terex Engineering was in the building behind the Hudson, Ohio plant where I worked. They always had some neat stuff going on out there. Sometimes during our lunch we would slip back there to see what new thing they were working on. There was also a test track out there. The 33-09 and 33-11 Trucks were built at the "West Side" which was in Cleveland, Ohio but we built the rears for them in Hudson. One night I got to drive one on the test track. V-16 Detroit Diesel with an Allison automatic transmission. 85 Ton payload. Big truck but nothing like the 350 ton Titan. They were legendary. They never sold the Titans, they only leased them. Some out west in copper mines but most went to British Columbia

Track diameter needs to take into account ground clearance. May need to push the bogie wheels down an inch or two below the drive/idler wheels to maintain ground clearance and keep drive and idler wheels smaller.

Contemplating two rows of ANSI 100H chain welded to the inside of the track and using a pair of matching sprockets (approx 12 in dia) spaced about 3-4 inches apart. Idlers and bogies run between the chains. Track plates would need guides to keep the track on the sprockets. I need to pick a particular dozer to use as a model so I can start scaling the components.

I just realized today that the 1210 I bought a couple weeks ago has a manual lift, so the hydro may not be ported. Not sure what I was thinking. Might be ported and plugged, but I haven't put eyes on it yet.

Almost got it running today--well it runs on starter fluid anyway. Had to fix the starter Bendix. It's probably been sitting for at least 8 or 9 years. Battery in it was dated 2006. It does have an electric PTO with a 5/8 belt. The electric PTO would allow easy uncoupling from the hydros for starting.

Once I get the fuel system working, I'll know the condition of the engine. It shows 1142 hours on the clock.

I have 4 spare Cub engines, but they are all mechanical PTO engines. 2-10's a 12 and a 14.









At least I have all the parts necessary for running a hydraulic pump off the back side of a hydro. LOL. As Ambush said, "you'll find a use for them on a future project."

An idea to throw in, although I have no idea how to do it, but....

Take two hydro transaxles, remove the axle and tube from the left side of one, remove the axle and tube from the right side of the other. Make cover plates for the axle tubes that were removed. Mount the two transaxles side by side, butted together at the new cover plates.

Using a triangular track system, each hydro would be your drive sprocket for that side. Your right and left control sticks would control only it's own hydro, thus having one track going forward while the orther is going back would be no problem.

Engine could be mounted forward with a shaft going back, then a pulley/belt off that shaft to drive each individual hydro input.

^^^^ Now that is an interesting concept!

Joining the diffs would be easy and well within your skill/equipment levels.

You can easily swap the control plate to the opposite side on the right side hydro. You could raise the axle combo up then run the tracks over the idlers at each end for a genuine Hi-Drive. That leaves you free to use a conventional track tension system as well.

With the axle mounted higher than the drive shaft from the engine, you can have three pulleys in an inverted triangle with the hydro inputs on top.

Sawdustdad, I don't think you can maneuverer your way out of building something now. You dangled the trailers in front of us, now we want the movie!

An intriguing concept, for sure. It would increase the track width by a foot or so.

I'm planning to build something.

This idea has been going thru my head for awhile now. only way to do it without being real wide is to machine a new case and some custom parts to run twin ring gears in a single case as close as possible.
If only I had time!

Instead of machining the case, what about the axles and tubes.
Whenever a custom shop wants to add wider tires to the rear of a car/truck,
in order for the tires to fit under the fenders they narrow the rear end by cutting
the needed amount out of each side of the rear end housing between the carrier
and the outer axle bearings. And the same amount is cut from the axles.

The ends of the Cub axle tubes could be machined off and moved in,
and the axles shortened. Beyond my abilities, but certainly doable.

8280 Terex two complete engines, transmissions, and rears hooked together from the factory. 2 V-671 Detroits.

I'm guessing that shortening a car axle is easier--it's steel, not cast iron. Welding the cub axle, being case iron, is problematic.