RG's Dozers

[@lowercherty]

At the mine my dad worked at they put one of those 4 tired skid steers up against a D8, blade to blade. On solid ground it would push the Cat backwards. On soft ground, not so much. Holding grade with them was not as easy as a tracked Cat. RG certainly thought outside the box with his equipment. He had weak points though, like refusing to use hydraulics. Most of the designs didn't survive, replaced by more conventional equipment. Some, like articulation, revolutionized the industry.

[@kevingilbert9695]

These machines are so cool. I hope some are still running around.

[@johnkauppi7078]

Australia here. I used to work for a guy that ran rubber tyred dozers in his little earth moving business. 2 big Michigans and a Letourneu Westinghouse 12. They were easier to drive than crawlers and smooth with none of the vibration crawlers have. And they didnt have to be floated everywhere, we just drove them on the road to the jobs. Sometimes hundreds of kilometres. New tryres with their deep tread were a hassle as they were very prone to stick punchures during land clearing. Older bald tryres never got stick punchures.

[@wailnshred]

There used to be a company called Fenwick that had a rubber tired dozer like that. They used it for snow plowing up until the mid 90s.

[@tomasneel1980]

Notice their mufflers make no noise.

[@lewiemcneely9143]

They'd make good pushers but with that rack and pinion blade being so slow it'd be tough to run a smooth blade and make time at it.

[@skadill]

Great watching here again.The last push tractor looks to be a whole design generation ahead of the traditional style,what year would it have been developed?

[@brettletourneau1417]

The cab is so far away from the blade. I had a hard time getting used to the Cat high tracks...I wonder how the power compares to track dozers?

[@Grumpy_old_Boot]

@caterpillar941b Depends on the surface, on asphalt, probably yes. On hard ground, it would probably be a toss up. On soft ground, the tracks would have the advantage. And lets not forget that tires do not wear out as fast as tracks, nor do they make as much noise or steal as much power and they have better top speed than most track designs. It wasn't really until the modern kevlar reinforced tracks came out that they could match speed with wheeled tractors/dozers.

[@tdshaker]

When diesel fuel was cheap, all these ideas were great. But now, fuel is expensive and the crawler tractor,(or the new fast rubber track crawlers), is still the best idea, until we come up with a anti gravity idea. Gravity rules!

[@brucelancaster7405]

Great old machines 👍👍

[@applesucks2633]

Are any of these giant skid steer’s preserved and operational? Does anybody know?

[@tournadude]

No, sadly there is not. There may be a static showroom one for people to look at, but nothing operational.

[@JonesDieselPerforman]

@gangesexcavating Ya I thought so as well,RG was one hell of an inventor/engineer!

[@jaymarvin8752]

I don't see how or what was used to raise and lower the blade up and down could someone please explain it to me. I hate to be a nuisance but I find it very interesting and at this very moment I don't see how he has accomplished it.

[@tournadude]

Jay Marvin RG used electric motors that powered gearboxes. The blade has a steel shaft with gear teeth and the electric motor would pull the blade up or down. He didn’t like early hydraulics.

[@brucelancaster7405]

Great old machines 😊

[@airbats801]

Probably one place where he really didn't shine. They seem like pretty useless monster machines other than for doing pusher work. Did rg ever do diesel electric tracked? I know porsche did it in the earlly 40s with the tiger prototype tank.

[@edmcelhone4501]

good for pushing scrapers only

[@tdshaker]

Slow down, youre moving way too fast, was a Beatles tune. Moving dirt too fast today results in lost jobs.

[@gangesexcavating]

neat stuff!

[@edmcelhone4501]

they had theier spot to work

[@sequoyah59]

wheel slip and difficult to carry a grade because each time a wheel dips you have to move the blade. You can't react fast enough. Electric wheel motors were a wonderful invention though. He was ahead of his time with electric instead of hydraulic systems.

[@reatonable]

Have you ever operated a compactor??