Mini bulldozer with mini backhoe: Broken bits and backyard recovery

[dremu]

Any project requires a right and proper name. I'm fond of obscure pop culture references, as indicated by my truck being named Tank Girl, so this one is entitled "Heavy Metal." (For those who recognize it, "Metal Hurlant" is equally appropriate, as the diesel is loud enough to qualify as screaming.) Had a piece of plate plasma cut for the hood:

and so assembled, as she sits today:

Yes, the hood logo is a bit askew, which I may or may not fix. I could tell people that it's intentional, part of the letters falling down due to their weight, and ignore the fact that I often just suck at measuring.

3D printed a keychain thingie for it, like the one I did for the JD. This way we just grab keys by color. (We do the same for the cars and trucks, since the dongles all look alike any more.)

 

[dremu]

As a reminder, when I bought the house, the shop had two 6x8 offices scabbed into one side, bloody useless, takes up a third of the shop floor and only gives me one parking place:

Which were duly removed using the Blazer (now, of course, I'd have used the dozer.)

leaving a much larger work and parking area, yay!

 

[dremu]

It also left us with a pile of wood, which was an ideal play place for the dozer:

Regulatory mall crawler shot. It doesn't look like much, but when the nose goes to the sky like that, you pucker down to that vinyl seat something fierce. And when you go down the other side, the blade wants to dig into the ground, even when fully up.

I categorically deny making repeated trips over the pile and digging furrows with the blade on the down side.

We discovered that pushing the pile of 2x4's was easy, but moving the OSB sheets, now waterlogged, is like herding cats or teenagers.

No matter, with enough lighter fluid, it all burned. (The wood, not the teenagers, thankfully.)

The driveway looks like the Ardenne after the Wehrmacht blitzkrieged through, but a few rains and maybe new gravel and it'll be as good as new.

-- A

 

[ZooMad75]

That is a badass project. Really cool seeing it start to finish. Thanks for posting it up.

 

[dremu]

That is a badass project. Really cool seeing it start to finish. Thanks for posting it up.

Thanks! A problem with long-term projects (i.e. a whole truck) is you are tempted to start a build thread, and then you get married or divorced or whatever and the truck goes on the back burner or gets sold, and readers are left bummed out.

Also, I was entirely unsure if the damn thing would even move when assembled, so I wanted to make sure I'd have something vaguely functional before I posted.

-- A

 

[Rat_Crispy]

I've gotta be the dude that says it
"Lmfao! This dude built a mini bulldozer!"
And it looks incredible too man! Excellent excellent excellent!

 

[Greg Ducato]

Incredible job, really enjoyed following the build

 

[tomford]

Thats bad ass!

 

[Bent77]

This is awesome

 

[max 02]

Cool!

 

[78K30]

Very nice work! So after the intense amount of fab how did the young'un like the metal work?

 

[dremu]

Very nice work! So after the intense amount of fab how did the young'un like the metal work?

Heh, well, he still helps me when I need an extra pair of hands. But he has decided that he won't be welding for a living Think he's more of a woodworker, prefers the finer precision and slower pace. Which is odd as he can't operate a tape measure to save his life. Not that I should talk... I can operate the tape, but still can't cut for shit

I think the most important thing did get through though, which is that you say "I want to do something", then break it down into pieces, and each of those pieces break down into steps, and you figure out what tools and parts and skills you need to do each step and in what order you gotta do them. And sometimes you get it wildly wrong, and rather than throwing your hands up and saying "I can't do this", you sort through it.

Lessons like that apply to everything in life, so if I got that into his head, I figger I did well.

-- A

 

[PWagon]

That's a freaking awesome build!!

 

[82355]

Great, as are all of your threads,

Martin

 

[dremu]

I've started on the backhoe attachment. Got a set of plans, looks pretty straightforward, and I'm pretty sure I can complete this one. I'm gonna take the risk, then, and start the build thread before the thing is completed First, a general idea of the end result:

Mounts to a cat 1 hitch and uses the tractor (dozer) hydraulics. Removable for when you don't need it, though I expect it to take some gymnastics with the bucket to park the thing.

I planned ahead when I built the 'dozer, so the existing seat turns 360* and slides forward and back to be used for both driving and the backhoe. Besides omitting the seat, I'll be doing some other customizations, because when you build it yourself, you can do that sort of thing. Most noticeable will be hydraulic stabilizers instead of those manually adjusted things you see above.

The seat omission works out well as the hitch on the dozer isn't quite standard. To save space, the top link isn't adjustable, it's just a tab hard-mounted to the frame like the bottom ones. On the backhoe, all three of the mounts then look like this

Uppers are of course 3/4" and the lowers 7/8". McMaster is a godsend, I tell you. I got tired of drilling pins for the dozer, and they have clevis pins in a bazillion sizes. Phew. The mounting to the dozer then ends up as a T, like so

Pull the three pins and it comes off neatly. Once the 'hoe is actually built, of course, I imagine it'll take careful balancing of the stabilizers and the bucket to slide it off.

You can also see a pair of hydraulic quick discos on the left with their rubber caps. They're ridiculously oversized for the application, but were the smallest I could find. There's a valve to switch to the discos, or bypass for normal operation, complete with custom 3D-printed knob:

 

[dremu]

After making my head hurt with angles and trigonometry and graph paper, I decided I'd just mock up the hydro stabs and be done with it. Broke out the CAD templates and the Sharpie:

until I found mounting points which gave the desired range of movement up and down.

The legs are splayed out at an angle, so the brackets are different inner from outer:

So the brackets aren't at 90* from the main beams. Thankfully the bandsaw does nice angle cuts, unlike the chopsaw, so then it's just a matter of aligning the pins and tack welding.

Then we cycle-test: leg up...

and down. It's like yoga for hydraulics.

I got sidetracked doing a couple park benches for my dad -- believe it or not, I do woodworking too. Not at all well, in fact pretty badly, but I do it. And when I delivered them, somehow I got roped into helping install an exterior door. The things people think I know how to do!

That's about it for progress, then. I spent the afternoon in the shop, but don't have anything to show for it, just cutting pieces and discovering I need to make another McMaster order.

-- A

 

[Bent77]

Blue sharpie FTW!

 

[tRustyK5]

Awesome build as usual!! Really looking forward to seeing the rest come together.

I worked for a small company about 10 years ago where the one partner had a side project. It was a scratch built mini excavator...the slick part being the tracks were hydraulically able to increase or decrease in overall width. Sucked in tight the whole thing was 32" wide so it would pass through pretty much any side gate. During use the tracks got pushed out to 48" for better stability. He called it the "Alley Cat", but I don't think he ever got to the point of being able to build a commercially viable version of it. I got to do some work on it when things were slow...

 

[dremu]

When Scott (4x4HIGH) was out, he mentioned that they rent mini tracked whatsits, and I swear we talked about some that do adjustable width, so yeah, I think it's a thing.

Totally beyond my ability to engineer, at least yet Certainly beyond my needs. But cool. Dammit, now you got me thinkin'...

-- A

 

[campfire]

It's like yoga for hydraulics.