Don't kill the messenger people! Just what the man on the video says! 🙂 My dad was in the forest industry here in BC back in the 80s and 90s and the other day I dug up this old VHS at my momma's house. Some people would refer to it as propaganda. My dad was a Deere man and had no place for clutches and brakes on his crawlers. One thing is I haven't seen a B series or original 750 or 850 for at least 10 years around here but did see a D7F on a logging operation a few weeks ago. The old Caterpillars were built to last and could take a fair amount of abuse and neglect in comparison to the competition. Has anyone else watched these videos? The whole thing is about 45min long and is pretty funny sometimes. Not sure how I would post the whole thing or perhaps a couple men in a black car would whisk me away if I did 😁

Lighter tractor, smaller engine, smaller blade but more productive? I wonder what the payoff was?

I wonder how many are still around? Having those numbers might change a mind if he gets more years out of a cat.

the 750b and 850b units are pretty scarce in my neck of the woods, the hydrostatic drive pumps and motors are vrtually obsolete as they were applied in those units, hard to get parts for 15 years ago, and financially restrictive, we had an 850 b coe to the shop that was mistracking, we pulled the pumps and drive motors, they were still functioning but completely worn out, the unit had 26000 hrs on it or so. price to restore drive units to factory specification was going to be about 40000 dollars, unit was woth about 15000 dollars. we advised customer, he didn't want it fixed, we reasembled it and put 15w40 oil in it. customer used it infrequently in a gravel pit for spreading reclaimed overburden and it worked fine for a few more years, lost track of it when moved away for a new job.

I wonder how many sets of undercarriage it wore out in 26,000hrs?

its been a lot of years but let me know if this sounds about rigth. the country where that unit was running we averaged about 3500 hrs on the lgp undercarriage, and about 7000 hrs on the narrower bulldozer undercarriage,

we used to cut the 30 inch grouser bars on the excavators down to 24 or even 20 inch grousers for one of the main city excavation companies, there units walked off a lowbed, dug a basement, walked on a lowbed, their units were seeing original undercarriage lasting upwards of 16 000 hrs, then they would bring them in for chains and sprockets and send them back out with the original rollers and idlers.

depending on the diligence of the operator, the excavators used to be able to go about 7000 hrs before complete undrcarriage replacement.

we used to put rock guards on all the hoes, and all the crawlers were completey rock guarded as well, which sometimes helped to mask undercarriage issues.

This doesn't mean a lot since U/C life is so variable in different underfoot conditions and applications, I was wondering how long the JD dozer U/C might have lasted in relation to a D6H doing the same amount of work.

Hi, Folks,
I operated the FIRST JD 850 hydrostatic dozer into DowNunda at a demo field day in Sydney in, I think, 1981. It was a 'nippy' machine, plenty of power, handled well and very manouverable but, like a lot of small dozers at that time including a couple of Cat models, it was a little light on the front. I would have chosen a D6C or D over it.

My next encounter with an 850 was in 1996, for about 1/4 of an hour as part of a job interview - I didn't get the job 'cos their contract fell through and I still would have chosen a D6C or D.

I have operated several D6Hs and Rs and I would DEFINITELY choose one of them over an 850 - - -anytime.

We see VERY few JD dozers or track loaders around here. I suspect there may be a reason for that.

Just my 0.02.

I worked for a local construction company back in the mid 80's, they had two 850B's. They were probably both about a year old when I first saw them. Very good machines for what they were using them for, quick, nimble, powerful, and could be moved in and out of a site in short order. BUT to be fair, the only CAT dozer they owned at the time was a D8K, and the others were a new Case 450, and a Fat Alice, either a 6 or an 8, can't remember. The 850's got a lot of use but one developed a power problem. Dealer swore that it was the turbo, and blamed it on our driver not covering the exhaust when he transported it, even though he was one of the best drivers I ever knew and I know he always covered every exhaust. When they go it back same problem, no power, and then one day I got a truck loaded with gravel stuck in about 2 feet of muck, the 850 would not push or pull me out, even after dumping the load. the operator went and got the case and had me out in about 2 minutes. The owner called the dealer and said that is it, fix it or take it back. Luckily they had a dealer training workshop scheduled for that weekend, at another shop, 150 miles away. Get the dozer there and they would fix it. We picked it up Monday morning and it was running like brand new. Turned out to be a problem in the transmission. Shortly after that, they started buying Cats, and that is all they own now, probably 20 of them. The Deere's are probably long gone, but I know an cat from 30 years ago is still working on the job.

George

catsilver,

i think you understand the variables for undercarriage wear as good as any of the rest of us, soil conditions, speed, load, direction of travel, track tension, side loading, all impact undercarriage life. In my experience at the dealership, our customers ran all breeds of equipment, cat, komatsu, deere, case, fiat allis etc. our shop was extremely aggressive in undercarriage pricing and we ended up doing a lot of undercarriage work on all breeds, there wasn't one brand that had better or worse undercarriage performance, they all seemed to wear at about the same rate under the same conditions.

a lot of our undercarriage parts were sourced from berco, we had a run of bad excavator chains from the factory, (brand new chains would break within a few hours of use) but berco replaced them all as they failed.

the customers did not say or complain that they got less undercarriage life by using the berco products over the factory OEM equipment.