Looking at crawler dozers and I see they now have what they call pyramid tracks. OK what is the idea behind them I see them on both standard and LGP tracks, anyone know the advantages or disadvantages of them. Thanks Tom
Pyramid ? Are you talking about the hi tracked Cat's that have the drive up high?
I would guess not, and Scott is on the right "track" :D
Pyramid tracks (also called apex tracks) is for working in mud and soft stuff. They don't stir up the mud as much as it slides between the triangle shapes instead of riding up on the pad.
They don't have as much traction on hard ground though. I'd get one of the regular pad version unless I was working on mud most of the time.
A friend that owens a junkyard bought a dozer that had them. Stopped and asked if he wanted to sale his other little dozer but he said no :-[ :-[ but looked at the trackes when i was there looked good to me. If i rember right ::) he said that they were very good in mud. thats all i rember. When neighbor get home i will ask him about them he works on heavy equipment.
mr mom
Thanks for the information. I am selling some timber this winter and may be able to get a small cat always wanted one (had a TD6 wide pad). I live in the land of 10000 lakes and a million swamps but when you do find high ground it is clay and rock which is hard on wide pads. My dream machine is a JD 350 lgp but if I had the guts I would go for a D6 the old ones are cheap but one can break things he cannot afford to fix and over half my land would not hold one up and who do you call to pull a D6 out. May end up with a bobcat on tracks used one and was impressed with the tracks totally different machine with tracks on it. Ground is froze hard here from mid November to mid April.
might need a hovercraft. :D :D :D
One of the main reasons for having the high tracks is that the drives are way up and less wear on them ... And it also eliminated the final drive breaks . Since they put the drives up there is no need for final drives . But now use planetery finals ... much stronger .
I know very little about dozers, but I think there was a thread here about that a couple of years ago. Someone said it was to keep tension on the ground contact portion of the track, no matter which direction you're going. Throwing a track while reversing on a hillside is less likely that way.
I have not seen this track, but it could be to stop side slip when working on side slopes. When working in snow the side slip can be really trouble with just slight side slopes. I have steel tracks on the bogey wheels on my harvester and a couple of times have had to get out the chain saw because I slid sideways and got hung up with a tree between the front and rear wheels.
Side slip is a serious problem with any straight steel track.
If anything, I'd think apex pads would be more prone to sliding, but I don't know this for a fact. Here's a couple machines with apex/pyramid/"swamp" pads.
Ebay (http://cgi.ebay.com/1989-CAT-D3C-DOZER-SIX-WAY-BLADE_W0QQitemZ7569280937QQcategoryZ97121QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem)
Ebay again (http://cgi.ebay.com/HITACHI-CRAWLER-DOZER-W-6-WAY-BLADE-MODEL-CD5PB-LOOK_W0QQitemZ7569589346QQcategoryZ97121QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem)
When they first came out, a cat mechanic told me it was for ease of maintenance in the field. I guess it all depends on your perspective. They are able to keep all the insides of the dozer above ground level this way and the mechanic doesn't have to dig a hole to get to them.
I just think they look neat and was considering a D5 back then. I still wish I had it but the rubber tired back-hoe has turned out to have been a better investment.