Crawler Dozers Upcoming Auctions

About Crawler Dozers

Crawler dozers, sometimes called “bulldozers,” use steel tracks to maneuver in contrast to the tires of a wheel dozer. Although slower at traveling and more expensive to maintain, tracks provide better traction and weight distribution on various surfaces than do tires. Crawler dozers are common to construction, agriculture, landfill, and other jobsites because of their ability to move sizable amounts of soil, gravel, rocks, sand, and other materials. They’re used to prep sites, grade surfaces, clear debris, demolish structures, rip rocky or packed soil, and more.

Smaller crawler dozers may have as little as 68 net horsepower and weigh around 15,800 pounds (7,167 kilograms). Caterpillar fields compact models optimized for mulching and shiphold and port-handling duties. At the high-capacity end, Komatsu’s giant D475A-5 boasts 890 horsepower and an operating weight of nearly 240,000 lbs (108,900 kg). Komatsu’s 500-plus-horsepower product line includes models designed for work on mining operations.

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Caterpillar D6 Crawler Dozer

Early Beginnings

The crawler dozer’s roots trace to Morrowville, Kansas, in late 1923. Farmer James Cummings and draftsman J. Earl McLeod patented an “Attachment for Tractors” consisting of a front blade and supporting arms. The inventors’ patent included a diagram of the blade mounted on a wheeled tractor, but within the next several years it began to show up on tracked models manufactured by companies such as Caterpillar. Besides agriculture, construction, and mining, dedicated “bulldozers” started to serve in the military as well, constructing defenses, airfields, and the like, as well as clearing mines and obstacles.

Modern Features

Today, the dozer market includes a huge variety of small, medium, and large machines equipped with hydrostatic, mechanical, and hybrid drive systems. Advancements in dozers have included the implementation of intelligent, automated GPS and other systems designed to provide machine, power, grade, slope, and blade control. With 3D grade control, even operators with little experience can achieve precise results. Automatic traction control and extra-wide or low ground pressure (LGP) tracks (also known as “swamp” tracks) can help a dozer operate on soggy or unstable terrain.

The advent of wireless telematics is as important a development to dozers as it is to other modern heavy machinery, keeping fleet managers apprised of machine location, productivity, and status. The industry has also taken its first steps toward crawler dozers that can be controlled remotely or even autonomously.

Find The Right Crawler Dozer

Popular manufacturers of new and used crawler dozers available on MachineryTrader.com include CASE, Caterpillar, Deere, Komatsu, and Liebherr. Some of the most plentiful models you’ll find on the site are the Cat D5, D6, and D8; the Deere 650 and 850; and the Komatsu D65.