John Deere 764 High speed dozer

[245dlc]

Well my first day on the job at the new place I had to haul some shale for a couple approach's off of a new road built by the oil company. I just loaded and hauled by myself and spread the shale with one of the oddest pieces of equipment I've ever operated the John Deere 764 High Speed Dozer. It's a four tracked, rubber tracked, articulated dozer with the cab place on the front module like an old International or Dresser Payloader. It's got a six way dozer blade and you can choose between a steering wheel or a joystick for steering. Only thing is with the cab on the front part you really have to watch where your wagging your tail it is however smooth to operate since it's on rubber tracks. But it has a problem in the winter with mud and ice freezing to the inverted track sprockets causing the track to ride high on the mud and ice and the all important lugs being torn off rendering the track useless. So far the company is looking at getting rid of it as it's cost them a fair chunk of change in repairs to the undercarriage and replacing a $100,000 hydraulic pump. When I got in it, it was quite filthy as they had had some rainy weather and some of the other employees can't be bothered to scrape the mud off their boots when getting in the cab but I was able to spread the shale fairly well with it as well grade the road a little bit. They also have a 13 yard scraper they can pull behind it and it apparently does it quite well.

[Muz]

Cool .. and wierd .. I can see why they made the drives like that as it gives increased track frame length which makes for smoother running and better floatation with the wider sprocket wheel, but yes in certain climates that clearly isnt going to work ... not only that but any debris in there is gonna cause it to ride out as the sprocket wont crush it like normal. I'm guessing that leads to other problems, such as overly tight track tensions, leading to premature bearing failures in the main idler (2 of 'em) per quad section ... looks a like an expensive machine to run right enough .... due to articulation and pivot, i'd imagine its quite a tool to work giving a much wider arc of performance, but that could work both ways ... did you find it easy to learn ?

Course .. the concept isnt new as to the likes of quad track tractors... but those guys must get really easily bogged due to very minimal curve on the leading edge of the drive ... a shallow amount of muck and it gets buried and cant debog its self .. not like an agri tyre with massivly greater diameter

[245dlc]

Yeah I guess it wasn't overly difficult to learn it certainly handled differently but I do think that they should of went with a rigid frame design like Cat did with their DEUCE dozer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3K9-Mwhd6M

And I guess the cheaper option if you need something that move a little dirt, pull a scraper, plow snow and have low ground pressure and be somewhat road mobile just buy a tracked ag tractor like a Cat Challenger or a Case Quad trac. There are a number of implement companies here in Canada and the U.S. that make hydraulic angle blades for mounting on 'ag tractors like these guys.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6d9lBmHM3I

And these guys

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVioN526Dqs

I should add that the HSD also handled poorly at speed I couldn't keep it straight on the road when I was doing 15-20km/hr and also at lower speeds I don't know why as I don't have the same working knowledge of tracked undercarriages but it was like I was drunk!.....and I wasn't honest.

[Muz]

I couldn't keep it straight on the road when I was doing 15-20km/hr and also at lower speeds I don't know why as I don't have the same working knowledge of tracked undercarriages but it was like I was drunk!.....and I wasn't honest.

Well TBH I was surprised to hear you say you could handle it at all ! (no insult intended) as I always thought a dozer was hard enough but coupled with articulation and pivot as well would either make it dead easy or a bit of a night mare to get anything level. Did you see the link you posted about the quad track ... that it couldnt doze worth a shit I think its blade was too wide for it though but it had fek all grip.

The balance and blade distance for a steel track dozer is completely different .. so I wonder how that quad track set up really compares .. my guess is that it doesent and light grading is all its good for ... which is a bit of a surprise given the size and power of the machine

[245dlc]

Well TBH I was surprised to hear you say you could handle it at all ! (no insult intended) as I always thought a dozer was hard enough but coupled with articulation and pivot as well would either make it dead easy or a bit of a night mare to get anything level. Did you see the link you posted about the quad track ... that it couldnt doze worth a shit I think its blade was too wide for it though but it had fek all grip.

The balance and blade distance for a steel track dozer is completely different .. so I wonder how that quad track set up really compares .. my guess is that it doesent and light grading is all its good for ... which is a bit of a surprise given the size and power of the machine

Yeah it wasn't dozing very well but I thought maybe that was just hard ground? And yeah I thought the blade was a bit too big or wide for it. I never got to try any hard dozing with the John Deere thing but I was able to knock down a ridge in the middle of the gravel road from truck traffic without gouging but to try and keep the blade centered on the ridge was damn near impossible.