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West Central IN | I have decided I could use one of these machines for a variety of farm jobs. Mostly clearing brush/fence rows as well as some miscellaneous dirt work. I’ve found a cat D7E dozer and a cat 963B track loader for sale in similar shape in similar condition. The 963 has a cab which I like as I do most of my work in the winter. It also has a 4 in 1 bucket. The D7 is an open rops. I’ve also though about mounting a tile plow behind one but I’m not sure if you can do that to a track loader. The track loader would be nice for small jobs and use one machine instead of hauling my excavator in as well. What’s the better machine here? |
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McCanna, ND | Might be a horse apiece. I just got done renting a 28k lb trackhoe to clean some trees up. Dad has a 450 long track dozer. Both machines working together had VERY good efficiency. I spent all my time knocking down/clearing trees and would make small piles without moving the hoe. Dad would use his dozer to push the small piles to the main pile and he can clean up way better with a dozer then I could with the hoe. |
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| Pulling trees/brush out with a hoe, and cleaning up with a track loader equipped with a grapple bucket is really slick, but pulling a tile plow would require a dozer. Probably would lean towards dozer with a cab. |
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| Started my brush clearing career on an old Allis HD 16 dozer then graduated to a JD 755 track loader with a 4 and 1 bucket. That 755 would run circles around the HD 16 doing most work until it came time to move a big pile of dirt or a big tree. Now that I have some excavators with thumbs don't hardly ever take a dozer to the job unless a lot of dirt to level up. That being said if I was just going to own one machine it would be the track loader with the 4 and 1 bucket. |
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Northern, IL | Track loader with a 4 in 1 bucket hands down. Will do everything except maybe the tile plow. |
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SW Ohio | If you're trying to do it with one machine then loader hands-down. Those 963B were some good loaders, with lots of power, believe they got a 6 cylinder engine over the original 963 only having a 4 cylinder.
However, since you already own the excavator, I would lean towards the dozer. Much better machine for grading once the trees are out of the way, and you can push piles away from the excavator easily |
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Nw Iowa | I would really check out undercarriage on the loader, a lot more turning wears them out faster. |
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| For an all around machine the crawler loader is the only way short of an excavator. I've got a Fiat Allis FL9 and a little bigger wouldn't hurt but it's certainly adequate. It's a 10 ton 90hp machine. That said I'd love a trim dozer for finish work but once you get on to the crawler loader you can do a very nice job with it too. |
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sw corner ia. | for clearing, if the loader has a strong hydro, get it. you don't need a hoe to pile if you have a good track loader, and a 963b is a very good one.
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SeMN | I have and old Allis track loader , it does most things well . But if I had an excavator, I may prefer having a dozer , if the blade could be angled or tilted side to side. To level a site with my loader, I generally need to make at least 3 angled passes to take out the bucket divots . That being said , it’s paid for itself 10 times over since I got it 15 years ago . |
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Dozer vs track loader
