asking opinions on 350 and 450 dozers

[milkie62]

I usually just get on hear every once in awhile when I get the itch for a dozer.In the guru's opinions what is the ideal dozer to get that is the easiest of the two in regards to repair.Seeing is I would be buying an older machine how is parts availability ? A 6 way would be necessary for ditching my wood roads.Can a winch be fabricated to fit on the back ? Are most of them setup for the hydraulic winch.Thanks guys for listening.One of these days.......

[Jack-the-Ripper]

I have a 450C with rippers and a 450B with a winch. I had 60 acres of lumber trees, and never used, or felt the need for, the winch, instead using one of my binder chains for pulling logs. The winch is used for production logging where you can hitch 3 or 4 logs that are spread out together with one pull. I have found the rippers quite helpful on occasion.

I've found parts for the 450s reasonably available, both new and used. It seemed much easier in Idaho than it now does in northern California. The 450 is a very common unit. I suspect the 350 is also quite common with parts availability as well. With Lavoy available, what more do you need?!

So, what are you waiting for? Once you get a tractor you will wonder how you ever existed without one. And its amazing how your perspective on the problems you can tackle will change.

[milkie62]

How old is your 450B ? Does a B model have a 6 way blade ? The reason I would like a winch is I have some big trees that are leaning the wrong way and it would be easier to keep the machine stationary and use a winch

[jtrichard]

yes 450B had hyd. 6 way option

[Paul Buhler]

I have some big trees that are leaning the wrong way and it would be easier to keep the machine stationary and use a winch

As a former logger I'd recommend being careful winching trees over - they can spin on their stump and go any where.

When we used a winch to assist in dropping a tree, we would choke it as high as possible, run it through a slider choked to the base of a tree near where we wanted the the tree to fall, and parked the dozer or skidder off at a tangential distance. Then we put tension on the cable and let the chopper do his work.
The goal is to get the tree leaning in the direction of fall and let gravity do the work - actively winching often interfered with the process and caused problems so we did it as little as possible. We did push trees using the angled blade cylinder or the skidder's arch more frequently since we were on the backside of the direction of fall and found this more predictable.

Good luck and stay safe.

[milkie62]

Hey Paul I am only about 1.5 hrs from you.If you seen what I wanted to do you would say not a problem.Sounds worse than it is written.Just wanting them to fall into the woods and not into the swamp.And no place to run a tractor to keep pulling without pulley blocks.I hate wasting good firewood

[Paul Buhler]

Hey Paul I am only about 1.5 hrs from you.If you seen what I wanted to do you would say not a problem.Sounds worse than it is written.Just wanting them to fall into the woods and not into the swamp.And no place to run a tractor to keep pulling without pulley blocks.I hate wasting good firewood

Hey neighbor! Glad to know that you know what you're doing. Having watched a few YouTube videos, there are a few people, through lack of experience, that don't realize and anticipate the widow maker situations (been in a few too!). Snatch blocks definitely make for a safer situation.

I'm glad my comments were received in the manner intended - good luck with your firewood fetching. Paul

[milkie62]

Actually last year I took the national forest course up at Mt Tabor so that I can cut with my snowmobile club in Manchester.