Has anyone used a 455G for skidding logs? How has it worked?
We are wondering how they (should) work with hills.
Ours is having problems climbing hills. This could just be the way they are or ours could be junk.
It has a torque converter hydraulic drive, not a direct drive like our 450TC. Any input would be nice.
A guy near me rents a 455G for logging, it works well from what I have been told by guys who have used it. It is set up with an arch on the winch. I am sure that makes a big difference when dragging a load. I have used a 350B with a winch (JD3315), and it did ok, though it was slow. (I am spoiled with rubber tire machines). The 350 did not have an arch, and I would take maybe at most 2 40' doug fir logs at a time, to not over stress it. The average dia. logs were say 18".
Quote from: woodtroll on February 03, 2011, 02:00:52 PM
not a direct drive like our 450TC.
Doesn't the TC in that name stand for Torque Converter? :) I thought they were either TC (torque converter) or DD (direct drive).
Anyway, in my very limited experience with the 450 straight I bought this year, they're not too good at pulling a hitch up much of a hill (especially when the ground is frozen). I just spin on frozen ground or run out of power when I do manage to bite with both tracks at the same time (mine was < 60HP back before it was worn out). On the other hand, the winch works great for it. On a big hill, I sometimes have to run the winch in and out 3 times to get what I'm pulling to the top :) My neighbor's old Timberjack would just walk right up the same hill with a bigger load. I'm not gonna win any races, but it's still a lot faster than carrying firewood up the hill by hand :D
The 450 TC stands for (we were told, Timber Cat) It is a timber model. It is a direct drive, runs great up and down hills loaded.
It is not as fast as a rubber tire but has a 6 way blade.
Our 455 G is a torque converter, it just can't climb the hills. This is empty, we are only skidding down hill with it.
It has a loader front end, and loads our trucks great. But we want to know if its wore out, or is doing what it was built to do.
Maybe it just never was made to go up hills.
I have spent many days on 450 G dozers and they were quite strong in the tracks. It did not really matter what you had ahold of, they would either go with it or spin.In my opinion if it is not spinning the tracks while in gear and reving up, something is wrong.We have had the trany out of them before because people took the higher gears out by pushing in too high a gear. I would check pressures . sounds like pump or torque problems , but your trany may have issues too. Do you have a service manual that might help ??Good luck!!
loader has different shoes wont get much traction 450.b.c.d.e. were all direct drive 2 sp power shift plus 4 manual gears . if it has a converter it is a g han j are hystat all are about 70hp. any converter machine will go into converter stall in to high a load or gear
The tracks seem to be grabbing enough. Good grousers. But it may be driven at to high a gear.
We do have the manuals, our mechanics just finished replacing some pumps and running some tests, but they were not sure if it would work. It has been back in the woods for two weeks, it lifts good now, but the crews say it can't climb the hills.
Now I am wondering if they are just in to much of a hurry and are in to high a gear.
frozen ground?snow? snow packs in the grousers then its like rubbing 2 ice cubes together. remember a tracked machine on ice snow on step ground will go sideways very quickly
Thanks for all the input.
After talking with the mechanic and the operator, it sounds like more problems, likely tranny.
But it lifts good (at least while it is cold).
There does seem to be pressure building up in the tranny, when the fill cap is removed it is under a lot of pressure. Even after little use.