It's been dry around here so I thought it would be a good time to dig the pond I have wanted to get done. It's just a low bog area with a hard bottom down about 4 to 5 feet.

Things started out well. Made a shallow ramp and started digging. I can not believe how little I can do with this machine. With any load in the bucket it just stands on it's nose when backing out. My dozer has 13" grousers on it not triple bars. It gets stuck really EZ. Didn't they use these to dig basements? Must have been a really slow process. It'll spin both tracks for a bit, power doesn't seem to be the problem. Maybe I'm just asking to much out of the oldgirl. I now the engine is a little tired but certainly thought it could handle this job.

How impressive were HD6G's when they new?

 

 

 

 

 My HD5G is the same and I have dug basements, dug holes for septic tanks, tore out concrete slabs, dug footings. and many other jobs. I have dug basements under houses where house was jacked up on cribbing , friends 951 was to high to get under so i used the 5 to push dirt out to him to carry and load . Back down into area then dig to ramp , push dirt forward and up ramp and then to side. 

 I tore down house next door after a fire , First I dug a hole that was 20 ft wide and 40 ft long and about 10 ft deep.I pushed the first 4 ft of dirt up on one side , then the next 6 ft of dept was piled at one end, so pile was about 20 ft high. Last part was even hard to climb as it amounted to climbing a 30 ft hill with high angle.

 It takes a while to learn all the tricks of using a machine , the first year or so you run one it is one mistake after another . One guy said he was a expert and was going to show me how to dig sand out of hole , dug down spun machine in hole and ran up ramp, on his 3 rd time the machine sunk into sand from turning and ended up hung up on belly with the tracks spinning - all of a sudden he remembered he had to meet someone somewhere .. So getting it out of hole became my problem.  

 Push don't carry as you can adjust load to just below track slippage and move a lot of material , you can only carry a 1 1/2 yard bucket out but push 3 yards or so. 

  I did another job for a guy that had a low spot in between to hills , it had a runoff area and he said he wanted a little pond there , so built berm across one end and extended it to hills and dug a lower area for the fill , ended up going down about 10 ft and widening the full area for pond out to 50 ft or more , berm was 25 ft high above the native soil area and 150ft long . also hauled out about 150 yards of black dirt that i loaded into my truck. 

 Day we finished I told my helper to make sure HD5 was on top of hill. Rained that night and heavy downpour , full excavation filled with water to point it was running over berm. 

You want my address and come help?

I'll have to do some messing around again and try your advice. Scooping and backing started out so well.

I'll see if I can't post some pictures.

 

Thanks

 I bought a old Pettybone 4WD 2yd straight frame loader for a guy and part of the deal was I move a couple piles of dirt for him . He had been working on them for a while and was having problem he said as they were hard solid lumps. 

 I took the machine up to his place and in a hour or so had the piles gone and spread. He had went straight into piles trying to scoop into hard dirt. I just cut edge of pile while pushing forward. Shave a little off on each pass, all the while keeping machine moving. When he came back to job site I was just finishing pile out in front as had already move larger pile in rear of house. He was amazed I had almost finished the front and told me of the other one , when I told him it was gone he did not believe me at first, until he looked . 

 It's all in doing and trying different ways to accomplish the job. Same with dozer blade you can move a small amount at a time faster than large bite at once. With the HD5G bucket I could move more material faster than I could with a HD5B dozer. 

 Now with the FD5 dozer it is different all the way around as with 6 way blade and 22 more HP it just moves material easily. 

 With the AC 715B TLB and loading it is faster than the HD4 or the HD5 and in fact when I bought it i sold both the Pettibone and the HD4. The 715B would push more material than the HD4 would and almost as much as the HD5

The tracks are off a dozer (shorter) and a few triple bars splised in.

What do you expect for a $1,000

I'll try some different approaches and see what happens.

Need to get some more fuel!

Do the 6's burn 4 to 5 gallons a hour?

 

Some pictures of the old girl.

First picture: Found her in a gravel pit south of Hibbing Minn. 1 1/2 years later, doing some work done by the river thaks to this forum and alot of good advise.

I'll try to get action shot tomorow and let you now how the pond is going

Remember if working by lake or stream not to touch the water . Also watch no one looks to close the stupid thing of silt fence around area to prevent runoff is another big pain. 

 Are single grouser - dozer track so be careful on the sharp turns or spinning a 180 .

Takes either to start it. I was wondering if I was just low on power. I don't know how much lug the 344 is supossed to have?

 Where a paper or pleated material (like modern air filters) increases filtration as it collects enough material to plug , the Oil Bath is a full efficiency as soon as engine is running. It is self cleaning as long as proper oil level is maintained  and cup is cleaned regularly  to remove dirt. With a pre-cleaner element to remove large particles it's efficiency is even higher. 

 Keeping up o nthe adjustments helps but also watching the load on the tracks, to try not to get into position where you do walk out of it or catch it so you can sometimes revers and get it back on .