Dozer verses Loader

Wanting to do some clearing on some land. Small trees and scrub. Also need to clean some fence rows. I have a Ford 3400 industrial with a 730 loader and have been looking at a John Deere 2010 dozer. Would the dozer benefit me any or would the loader do the same job. Horsepower wise I think they're pretty close.

Personally, a dozer does not work efficiently as a loader and a loader does not work well for a dozer. I also believe that you risk damage to loader and tractor when used a a dozer. One only has to look at design and mass of each to understand.

A tractor with a loader, such as the model you describe, can be very effective, if used carefully, you have to watch the stack, lights and hoses. Reason I say this is, I've done a lot of clearing with my old 850 ford with a wagner loader. Mostly pushing things off to the side after cutting with a saw or what have you.

Safety is a big concern, all kinds of things break, snap off, spring loaded limbs, vines, this work can be extremely dangerous.

Dozer is ok, but larger trees, stump holes, rootballs with lots of your good top soil attached can be an easy way to make a mess and erode or lose top soils. Dozer gets much better traction, can push trees over easier, but the tractor/loader would be a much more useful machine to have long term.

I'd look into rental or hired out, unless you really have a need for a dozer, the model you suggest is light and not all that powerful, decent grading tractor, and similar, for clearing I'd want something bigger, a little more power, and with a brush cage, limb risers and similar.

Compare hired out, and rental, then ownership.

Fence rows, a dozer wins hands down, don't care what size as broken fence posts, like old t- posts, all kinds of hardware and junk that can flatten tires is very possible, I'd not run a tractor in there unless you carefully push from the outsides and work into a windrow, piles and not cross the path of the fence line. I could not believe the junk that came up in a small fence row that was cleared by the power company, allowing me to expand a field, my friend came over and plowed that section after I had been working it, and some tire poppers appeared, post anchor, sheared off t-post, glad that JD 7420 did not hit anything, now its clean but not only is it good to clean off he surface, I'd want a hoe to dig down and explore the soil, to insure nothing was in there, that and or a metal detector.

Dozer wont get flat tires from thorns and unseen steel fence posts.

Gene

Hey RS, I have 2 3400 Ford tractors, 1 loader & 1 loader/backhoe and a Case 350 dozer. It is nice to get on the dozer and just push things out of the way compared to the loader just chewing away a bucket at a time. Loader is less likley to tear up ground around the house/barn and dozer is more at home in the fields and rough ground. I like both of them!

You're gonna bust up that 3400 if you try land clearing. That's not what it's for. "But that stump was only six inches"

RUN AWAY from any small JD dozer. I had 1, 1 is enough. Even my buddies have had small JD dozers, 1 will usually cure that problem. If you are going to spend the money on a small dozer get a Case.

I will gaurantee you will have to put a transmission in that JD before you get done. The original purchase price is only the beginning. Maintentance and repairs will eat up money real quick.

By the way, I was in the earthmoving business for over 30 yrs. NEVER buy an old JD crawler!!!!!

If you like having rabbits and birds around . You are planning on eliminating their shelter and food .

(quoted from post at 09:10:36 02/04/13) Wanting to do some clearing on some land. Small trees and scrub. Also need to clean some fence rows. I have a Ford 3400 industrial with a 730 loader and have been looking at a John Deere 2010 dozer. Would the dozer benefit me any or would the loader do the same job. Horsepower wise I think they're pretty close.

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Get the dozer you won't regret it. You will be amazed at all you can do with it. A loader is fine if you want to load dirt on a truck. Otherwise it is a nusiance to use clearing ground. You have to dig out the brush then haul it to a collection spot, etc. A dozer you just push it in a pile. I had an IH 340 and I wish I would have kept it.

been doing this for 40 years. get your self a crawler loader. dozer is fine if all you want to do is push and grade but with a crawler loader you can pile brush better dig bigger stumps dig bigger rocks and lift logs in stead of pushing them. for your work a Case 450 or 455 with 4 in 1 bucket would be first class set up the old JD were junk from day one

Wondering what model you had. My friend has a 450C and it's not a bad little machine, for a Deere. Of course, I'm not the one who has to spend money on it. You have to be careful with it because that H-L-R trans will go right into reverse from forward, throwing you over the dash, cuz the shifter quadrant is worn out.

Is that the same Case company that went bust, merged and was bought out?

Get a small excavator I have a Kubota it has the back hoe and the blade for pushing. I have clear a lot of places with it it can dig out 3 ft stumps and then pus he dirt back in the hole and load it onto a truck to haul away orpie them up for burning. Rent one and see what hey can do you won't be unhappy.
Walt
PS there are thousands of jobs around he farm that you can use it for. The most versatel machine I have ever owned.

A lot depends on the number of trees, tree size and size of root systems. A tractor-loader-backhoe can do that job better than a tractor loader, but not nearly as fast as a dozer. I dozed out quite a few medium size trees with the HD7; those trees were certainly too big for a TLB.

On the largest trees, I dug around the trunk with the dozer and cut off the lateral roots, then dozed up a dirt ramp so I could get the dozer up higher to push the tree over. Mostly Cottonwoods and Box Elder trees.

Nope different company. The dozer Case company sold off it's tillage and combine line. The dozer Case company Saved IH from the drink and then improved on it's combine line to become the number one in rotary combines. Oh I forgot the dozer Case company designed and sold to JD the plans for the 100 series combines and the 40 series heads the lead them to the number one spot in conventional combines. All the while dozer Case company was doing this they were and still are the number one maker of Case Backhoes and othe fine construction equipment. Must be some other company that went busted

I am a JD guy and I would never own a JD 2010 anything. They where one of the worst failures JD ever made. Also they are only 40 some horse power. That is not enought to really do much dozing work.

I would go with back hoe of some sort. You can dig tree stumps out much easier with them and you already have a loader to move them with after you get them dug out.

IF you want a Crawler then the oldest JD I would even think about would be a 450. Also the older Case crawlers where a fine smaller machine. Like 450 or 550. Remember a JD 450 is more like a Case 550. The Case 550 is a little bigger and the Case 450 a little smaller.

Too bad that Ford industrial doesn't have a hoe hanging on the back. I did a lot of clearing work with a farm tractor/loader with a little three point hoe hanging on it, for ballast as much as anything. Then I had an IH 3444 TLB. It was a real hoe hanging on a tiny tractor, but it did an amazing amount of work. More than once I was dragging it out of the mud with every function available, and wondering if this was the time I was stuck!
Now I have a Ford 655A TLB, and a Fiat Allis FD5 dozer. The dozer is great for pushing and grading, but is a real luxury.
Do yourself a favor and get something with an arm on it. Probably since you have a loader, a small excavator would be the ticket.

Do yourself a big favor and get a small-medium ~12-15 ton class excavator or at minimum a 4D class powershift dozer.
Leave the 2010 to rot where it belongs.

You're only going to tear your tractor up on that kind of work.
I'm not a big fan of attempting to clear land with a wheel or track loader either but they'd probably work OK in easy digging.
Dozer or hoe is the tool for clearing land.

Rod

Just wondering just if.........somebody had a shop and lots of spare time. Along with an otherwise good 2010 except for the engine. And a 440ID crawler that was totalled except for the engine and belhousing.
Being that the belhousing bolt patterns match.....? Would a 2-53 powered 2010 crawler not be a huge stretch of the imagination?

If you want to clean up land do yourself a favor, and invest in track hoe(with thumb), or a dozer with a root rake. Preferably both! My hoe is a 200 class size machine and is the perfect size for clearing, only downside is i cant haul it. My dozer is a D-31 Komatsu(copy of a D-3) and is a little small for my liking, but I can haul it. I would go for a D-4 size machine if I had it to do over.Besides the actual machines that they mount on, my rake and thumb are the two best investments I've ever made. If your retired and mostly want to play, Id roll with what you listed, but if you actually want to cover some ground, Id start shopping.

Thanks for all the comments. That's what I like about these forums. You get views from all sides. I hadn't thought about a trackhoe before. Surprised at the opinion of the little JD Dozer everybody had. Had a chance to buy a HD7 a few months back. Guess I should have jumped on it. Didn't know much about those Jimmy diesels though.

I cleared alot of acres with a tractor. I would do it again over a crawler if the Hp is the same. 1650 cockshut worked well for trees as long as you do it in spring when ground is wet. Put the loader up about 8-9 ft off the ground and lowest gear,push the tree over with minamul slip on the tires. That 8 ft trunk makes the tractor worth 4 times the horsepower of a crawler. Once the ball roles out you push and lift the tree out and remove. the best tractor I used was 4430 front assist. I could clear 10 acres faster than the neighbor was doing it with a d6 cat. Once you get the hang of it you can cut the scrub clean with the ground and just disc over it later.Other option is to take out the bigger trees (over3inch) in the spring,wait till ground freezes and shave off the scrub.

You don't push trees or stumps out with a dozer either. Use a root rake... break the roots off on the bigger ones. Otherwise... hook the rake into the stump, lift and push. It's much more about technique than brute force... without the broken loader arms and busted front axles.

Rod

Nope not the JD 4010 but the JD 410 back hoe with bucket we had them in the Army spent more time repairing them than running them.
Walt

Track hoe with a thumb is the best.You can dig around two sides, push the tree over, then pick it up and shake the dirt off drop it a few times if it isn't clean then pick it up and stack it to burn. A dozer with a rake is good only if the operator knows what he is doing. If you push with a dozer the trees and brush gather dirt and it will be very hard to burn.To do it properly you need to push ahead 20 to 30 feet while raising the blade/rake as you push. ,reverse drop the blade and repeat thus rolling the brush/trees and then it won't gather dirt or mud. it is slow going but you get better results. This is what I do for a living .