homemade mini dozer

Getting large diameter sprockets made for that conveyor chain would cost a lot less than 9000 but it wouldn't be low buck either.


Maybe you need cogged idlers and bogey wheels.

i was refering to the real mini dozers, one of the cheapest is 6-9 grand

i drew up a cogged idler if you scroll up you will see

Okay, that drawing looks like a good solution

this is what it would be. i just tried it without the bogie wheels and it worked good. i took a bogie wheel and used a bar as a handle/axle and with it going i pressed down om the inside bottom of the track and it stayed put. i dont think i need one on the fronts but we will see...

so it seems like another idea is to use a inner ribbed track. and find 2 sprockets that fit the hole pitch in the track then take a single or tripple wheel setup for the ends where i currently have rims. ive got 3 of these tracks with the ribbs inside just no sprockets. and a push mower wheel fits perfect inside the nubs where the metal clamps are for the sprocket teeth to ride on....

ok guys!!! im stoked!... -i did exactly what the previous guy said (raise front and rear wheels) and it made a HUGE difference. i also orderd 6 brand new sprockets, and placed them how i said i was going to... i just sat out in the dirt road pulling 1 lever back just chewing up the road!!! tracks ever came off! i need to do some adjusting still but so far so good! i will take better pics in day light

Looks great. Does it move?

yes of course it moves!

HAHA!!! That's cool. Seems to be working real good too. With the road wheels just touching the ground, does it rock forward and aft when starting to move, stopping, or turning? If so, you can move the front set and rear set of road wheels so center of gravity is in the middle of all the road wheels. You just don't want to lengthen the contact patch on the ground, in doing this because it will make more resistance in turning and cause the tracks to want to pop off again. This would be considered fine tuning. And ofcourse, if you shorten the contact patch, would make less resistance on turning or easier to turn without the tracks wanting to pop off on hard or loose surfaces.

OK, so now driving on soft surfaces with this setup, the vehicle has weight, which in turn when riding on soft surfaces will cause the tracks to sink into the ground a little and give you more traction because the contact patch will be getting bigger. The more you sink into the ground, the more traction you will get. Sound good?

OK, the bad thing of all of this is that the problem is still, kinda there. You just minimized it so much that it is almost gone, almost. So, to identify the problem means you can avoid it altogether. Which is when the tracks have a full contact patch on a grippy surface and you turn, then the tracks want to pop off. I would consider a grippy surface as being moist everyday dirt like your lawn, where the cleats get full bite (that's the problem of having such a big cleat) and you get a full contact patch by sinking in but cleats can't break free or skid in when you turn. Then there are surfaces where you get a full contact patch and full bite of the cleats but you CAN turn with no issues, which would be snow, mud, gravel, dry loose dirt and so on.

Another tuning aspect would be the cleats. By cutting the cleats in half or curving the ends of each cleat, would make it easier to turn on grippy surfaces like the dirt on your lawn that I mentioned earlier in this post. This would be a tuning aspect to do if you are still having problems turning on grippy dirt and will be turning on this kind of surface alot or need to turn on this surface.

You just going to have to field test this rig alot to see what you can and can't do. If you can't turn in a certain situation, then just back out of it or drive straight through it, to handle that situation. All tracked vehicles have this problem, just have to know how to deal with it. Plus, all that I mentioned here, when you look at other tracked vehicles, you will notice these tuning aspects on them. Even a huge Caterpillar dozer, if you look at the tracks, notice how big the cleats are on the tracks. Now you know why.

Look forward to future posts.

Oh, love this pic, by the way. Looks awesome!!

Camdg2010 wrote:

The latest design changes to the tracks look great.  I'm glad to hear it's performing well too.

Great work!

Well guys a little update on the dozer. I've been trying to find a way to manually lift the blade and have down pressure, after a bunch of building it didn't work out. So I looked into an actuator. I bought a 300lb actuator for 60 bucks shipped. It says it will push and pull 300 pound capacity. My blade with the new mount is only around 60 pounds or so. I got the actuator in the mail and it works perfectly! The way I mounted it, it goes all the way up from down in about 5 seconds. But it has down pressure!! . It will lift the front of the dozer off the ground.. I also ordered a 2 way (on/off/on) joystick. Hopefully it will work because I didn't read all the info and it's for ac 350v... Not 12vdc... But for 25 bucks I guess I'm gonna take a chance. I will try and post some pictures when I get home.

Awesome!  Post a video of it if you can.

Nice! Now that's a dozer blade.

That's a clever place to mount the actuator.  Nice job.

What's the tracks off of

Add some weight to it and this thing be a work horse

Really cool build! I can see you did a lot of thinking on this one and it seems to be coming along well.

That's awesome! I've always wanted to build one of these but cant find any zero turns around here to yank the rear ends out of....been looking for a couple years now.

This is such an awesome project, thanks for sharing and not giving up on it.