Purchase Advice

clancybear

New User
Hi guys, I have been reading through these posts trying to gather information on what type of machine might be best for me. I have 11 acres that has a bunch of bad Pine Beetle damage to the trees, and I need to clean the mess up. The terrain is pretty steep and there are trees fallen everywhere with plenty of smaller branches. Only one small trail through the property.

I was thinking a JD 350/450 or Case 450 loader would be a good choice for clearing this timber. I also would like to have a PTO on the machine that could run a wood chipper for cleanup. I would primarily be skidding logs and pushing piles of branches up to burn and chipping with the PTO. Actual dirt work would be minimal other than cutting in some more trails here and there.

I have run heavy equipment, but not a dozer. I have also worked on a lot of equipment but not a dozer. What are you guys thoughts?
 

Brand is often personal choice. All of those are good machines if they have been taken care of and the undercarriages are not worn out. Which one is best to me is based on the machine's condition and dealer support (parts availability).

I don't know what you are calling "steep", but you will have more track issues if the undercarriage is worn when operating on slopes, and you will end up working across at least some slopes, as it is pretty hard to always go straight up or down.

I would say PTOs are not common on crawlers, at least around here. There are some around, so if you want a PTO that may govern the one you purchase. If you are thinking of a mounted (3 point hitch) chipper; 3 point is less common than the PTO option, in my thoughts. Even if you see what looks like a PTO shaft out the back of a crawler, you need to check closely. It may be a winch drive shaft (not the same shaft as a PTO) and there may not be a control to disengage a winch shaft, as many are live all the time.

A winch might be of more value if you plan on skidding logs, than a PTO. You could rent an engine driven chipper for a day or two when you get some piles together. Personal opinion, you will hate life if you plan to chip brush piles you have pushed up with a dozer. To me you chip it where you cut it. Burn it if it is pushed up.

You say you run heavy equipment. You must know some dozer operators, what do they suggest for you, and they might know of something in your area.

One thing to remember: As a wise man has said "There is no such thing as a cheap crawler." Just my thoughts, I'm sure others will have different thoughts.
 


Sounds like you need a small tractor and a winch. Knock the dead stuff down with a saw, cut the stump low as you can, winch it to your tractor. You can get synthetic winch line that's super easy to handle and light. I've winched 16-20" hard wood up hill with mine. It's an option you might have considered and it's a LOT cheaper than a crawler.

Crawlers can be money pits.
 
I do quite a bit of tree clearing on my mountain property I find that my track loader with a 4 in 1 bucket with teeth works really well to push trees over and then push/roll all the branches into burn piles--a brush rake would be better to clean up the branches. for grading the trails my dozer with a 6 way blade is much better
 
my land is steep enough and has so much deadfall driving a
wheeled tractor doesnt seem possible, to high of a center of
gravity and without tracks you would have to move even the
smallest deadfall to not fix a tire puncture every day, my four
wheeler tires are bad enough to keep up with. keep the
thoughts coming
 
you bring up some good points, if i buy a crawler i will get a
good condition undercarriage because its not feasible to only
work up and down the hill as you point out

i have been looking for pto and 3 point machines they are far
less common for sure-that will making shopping much harder
or expensive for shipping. i have rented a wood chipper,
tough going. its so steep i had my one ton dodge 4wd and my
12,000 lb winch to get the chipper to some of the more
accessible spots, and the rental wasnt one of those huge
ones with a V8, it had a small engine 25hp so it wasn?t all that
heavy. 3 point i can live without, i could haul the pto chipper in
the bucket to the location, then back up to it and hook up the
pto.

the reason i need the chipper option is the timber is 80-90 loss
very little good trees still standing . so there is no place to
work, in the beginning of this project im going to need to chip
to just make enough room to start building burn piles. the
surrounding 200 acres are just as bad so i also need to chip
clear areas around me, to even think about burning anything
or i will burn the whole 211 acres down at once!
 
I have never seen a to big dozer for anything yet. I know they cost more, though I would look for an older D-6 so much more you can do with it than those little putter ones. Now If you chip it, could you hire a tree guy with the big chippers? They could put the whole tree through or at least the rest minus the trunk. Would save time and accomplish your goal without burning. Just if the surrounding timber is just as bad and you start burning if it got away from you the fines could easily cost several times more than the cost of the guy chipping for you. Just a thought.
 
(quoted from post at 18:17:11 01/12/20) my land is steep enough and has so much deadfall driving a
wheeled tractor doesnt seem possible, to high of a center of
gravity and without tracks you would have to move even the
smallest deadfall to not fix a tire puncture every day, my four
wheeler tires are bad enough to keep up with. keep the
thoughts coming


What do you define as "steep"? A crawler, or anything, pushing up and down what I think of as a steep hill is going to create channels for erosion. If it's that steep you might be better off just knocking the dead stuff over and letting it rot.
 
I do my brush pile burning from January to april--the ground has snow on it or is very wet so much better to prevent fire spread
 
I would have to wait until next year to get some more funds to buy a D6, but something to think about. Our forest is pine and spruce here and I would guess average tree diameter to only be 16 inches. So even when we rented the 6" chipper, you make great strides in mess cleanup without burning, but it was hard to tow to the areas I needed to. That's how I got on the thought of a tracked vehicle with a chipper on the back. Whole tree chipper are huge, if I was to hire someone for what I couldn't chip with a 8" pto chipper, I would still have to make a chipping deck area with a tracked loader/dozer to setup the whole tree chipper and skid the logs to the larger chipper, but again this idea is something to consider.
 
Yes that's required here just to get a burn permit, you need something like at least 4" inches of snow and less than a 10 mile/hour wind. I only got the burn permit once can't remember the exact requirements off hand. I burnt a small tepee of pine beetle wood (approx. 5 ft in diameter at the bottom of the tepee) and that scared the *hit out of me how aggressively it burnt. The bugs burrow little tracks through the wood and it must make little air inducing ports to feed the fire, good in a wood stove not so good for open burning. I see plenty of people around here deal with these bad chunks of beetle kill by making hundreds of these size tepees, but very few ever go back to burn them. Mostly because due to the volume of deadfall the tepees end up being 3ft-5ft apart and it would be impossible to not light the surrounding tepees on fire while burning one single. So, most end up decaying like that for years and years, looks a little better stacked in the tepees and humans and game animals can at least walk through but a very long term plan to be fully cleaned up.
 
Fiat 605 & 555 & IH TD5/500 are the crawlers that come to mind ,which are fitted with PTOs.
These are small crawlers,the Fiat being special AG crawlers ,& slightly bigger than the TD5s.
I've seen PTO fitted to other crawlers...IH TD6/TD9,Mitsubishi BD2,Komatsu,etc.
 
Thanks for that info., i really need the pto in combo with a crawler. Any of those models stick out to you as a good machine given the same track condition? My biggest concern is parts availability and the price of them.
 
you got me to thinking, if you could have only one machine, for tree and brush clearing could you get by with just the dozer without a bucket? reason i ask, i would have a better chance finding a machine with pto if i included the dozers as well as the bucket machines?
 

If your heart is set on a crawler with a ag type PTO, then you are likely going to be looking for an agricultural crawler, and a lot of them didn't have a blade at all. I think if you really want to run PTO equipment you might be better off finding an affordable rubber tired tractor and pulling the stuff to the chipper with the crawler.
 


Of course you can do the same thing with a winch, like I mentioned before by using some addition quality winch rope and avoid the cost/headaches of a crawler alogether, but it is quite a bit slower. Well, at least it slower until you throw on the downhill side of your crawler........... :shock:
 
A 420 430 John Deere crawler has a pto.
And a 3 point hitch was available. They
should also have a angle dozier. My Son
has a 8000 or so hydraulic winch. Runs off
the power steering pump. Will winch
forever. That said. The State hy-way dept.
Mows pretty steep banks with little 4x4
tractors with their wheels set out wide. I
would look for a 50 hp hydro JD- or Kubota
tractor with industrial tires and loader
with a quick change bucket and pallet
forks. Plus a hyd winch on the 3 point.
May need tire chains also.
 
Just curious. You said you have run heavy equipment. What equipment did you run and how much, if I may ask.

Any loader and "steep" hills are not a good combination, especially if you are not straight up or down the hill. You must realize the center of gravity rises quickly as you raise the loader, even more with anything for a load in the bucket. If you decide to go with a loader you should find a machine equipped with an OEM certified ROPS and seatbelt. JMHO
 
Well I grew up on a farm, not the high dollar type of farm, just a small operation. Our biggest tractor was a International 1586, between the tractors and our grain trucks that was our heavy equipment. I worked for a Ethanol plant for a year where we drove trucks with main and a pup into the yard and then loaded them over the side with "wet cake", using a front end loader. We would load 4-6 trucks a night. Then for 10 years I worked at a coal fired power plant, we hauled coal with a good side loader to our conveyor system and built large stock piles for times when trucks couldn't get to us in the winter with coal. When building stock pile we had a large packer we towed behind the loader filled with water/antifreeze, you had to pack it tight or the pile would start on fire. Towing the packer was interesting, it was heavy enough if you got near the edge of the stock pile and it slid off, it was heavy enough to pull the loader down with it. Never happen to me but I seen one coworker do this and it tipped the loader half way on its side. Had to rig our dump truck to it while waiting for a wrecker towing outfit. Anyway, sometimes you would spend your entire 12 hour shift in the loader seat, some nights just a couple hours. I have had two different skid steers myself. Actually bought the Melrose 500 with a blown Kohler and re-powered it with a V-twin modern Kohler with the use of my own motor mounts and coupling.
 
Dealing with the log(trunk) portion of the deadfall is only 25% of the work in this deadfall bug wood. Most of the work and time is the branches and limbs, say 5inches and down in diameter.-Dealing with those requires a wood chipper(other replies on here deal with chipping vs burning). You can't winch all the small stuff to the chipper, so the chipper has to move to all the small stuff. I think a crawler with the pto chipper would be the most mobile on steep ground to keep moving to the deadfall.
 
(quoted from post at 10:43:33 01/18/20) Dealing with the log(trunk) portion of the deadfall is only 25% of the work in this deadfall bug wood. Most of the work and time is the branches and limbs, say 5inches and down in diameter.-Dealing with those requires a wood chipper(other replies on here deal with chipping vs burning). You can't winch all the small stuff to the chipper, so the chipper has to move to all the small stuff. I think a crawler with the pto chipper would be the most mobile on steep ground to keep moving to the deadfall.

Let me ask you, why do you want to get rid of all the small stuff? That all breaks down and helps hold the soil together on those hill sides you referenced. What are you trying to get to grow there?

FWIW, if you do get a crawler and this stuff is dead, just running it over will usually break it up and squash it down into the ground. Unless you are trying to create a park type landscape, I'd reconsider trying to chip every little limb.

How steep is this land and where abouts is it?
 

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