Tag Archives: Heavy Equipment

How to rent a Caterpillar 953/963 Track Loaders

Kevin “The Heavy Equipment Guy” Here!!!!

If you need Cat track/crawler loaders, then you are at the right place. Call me at 817-733-3799.

Here at Star Tractor…we rent out a lot of heavy equipment in the Dallas Fort Worth Area (DFW) We take pride in our equipment and customers. We provide compaction rollers, pneumatic rollers, asphalt rollers, bulldozers, crawler loaders, articulated trucks, excavators, long reach excavators, excavators with hydraulic breakers, backhoes, backhoes with breakers, asphalt recyclers, soil stabilization (mixers), motor graders, skid steers, vac-tron trailers, wheel loaders and much more. Call us at 817-733-3799

Cat 963C Track Loader
Cat 963K Crawler Loader

Inspect the heavy equipment before you take it on rent

When you are buying machinery for your business you got to be sure that they are of real good quality. By no means should your business suffer for procuring items of inferior quality. It can lead to huge amount of loss and if you are a start-up company you just will not be able to bear it. It therefore becomes imperative that you check the items first and only when you are absolutely sure that the machine you are buying are of supreme quality that you should go ahead and buy them. In the construction business, heavy equipment constitute a major part of the business expense and hence many business owners prefer not to buy them and usually take a different approach. Instead of buying heavy equipment they procure the machines by renting them. Finding people who wants to lease their heavy equipment is simple these days and hence many construction businesses are following this module.

Inspect the heavy equipment yourself:-

If you are the person who would be operating the heavy equipment or you know about machines well then before you take it on rent you should personally visit the owner of the machine and insist on inspecting it once before you take it on lease. Ideally, heavy equipment owners understand the reason behind the inspection and often do not hesitate from the party on an inspection. You should drive the machine and check if its axles or the undercarriage are in order. You should make a note of all the important assessments that you have made and if you find anything wrong in it, inform that to its owner so that he can get things right for you. Heavy equipment if appears to be an old one will have some or the other issues but that needs to be sorted out before you go for it.

Change of faulty parts:-

If you like a particular machine and feel that it stands completely compatible for the kind of work you want it to perform you should go ahead with it. However, if you see that there are few parts that has gone faulty or may wear out in the near future, you must inform it to the owner and ask them to get that replaced. Also you should ensure that they replace it with a branded company whose products last for a longer duration and not any other company who also manufactures parts of heavy equipment but does not last long. You should remember that once you take it on rent and then if anything goes wrong you have to get that fixed. The owner will not take the responsibility and to a larger extent this clause will be present in the agreement as well.

Go along with an expert:-

At times we need expert opinions from people who know about the subject more than we do. If you know of someone who knows about heavy equipment more than you then it makes ample of sense to take him along with you and inspect the machine.

Heavy equipment rental business

Rental business is one such business which is not majorly hit by recession or any sort of economic slowdown. People who use the products will continue to do so no matter what is the economic condition of the country is. However, it will not be correct to say that they are not at all affected by any slush in the economy. Their business also gets affected but perhaps the impact that they feel is lesser than people belonging to other sectors.

Construction sector in specific is at its peak and everything pertaining to this industry is really doing well. Right from cement industry to iron and steel to heavy equipment all the businesses is going great due to the push it has received from the construction and infrastructure sector. People who are connected to the construction industry are having a gala time and are considered to be making huge profits. Though not all are in the same money making mode but we can definitely count most to be in that genre.

Heavy equipment rental business has gone really up in the recent times and most companies dealing in this sphere are generating good sum of profits. Hence, if you are a person who has different types of heavy equipment or would like to deal with construction machines and have good contacts with people in the construction industry then starting up a heavy equipment rental business will be most apt business for you. A person who is a mechanic and now runs his own workshop can also get into this form of business and can run it quite successfully. All you need to do is pick up old heavy equipment at lower price, give it a new look and a new life and then you list them online or you hunt for people who want to take it on rent.

Normally if you have good contacts then you need not hunt for people. They will come straight to you and you have to guide them to pick the right equipment. In order to run this business, you first have to gather few information. Firstly you need to know how and from where you can procure heavy equipment at a cheaper price. This is perhaps the crux of the case and once you know that you are sorted. Rest is all simple and you can begin the rental business. There primarily 2 ways to get heavy equipment at a lesser price. The first is by procuring machines in an auction and the second is by buying old machines at junk rates.

There are heavy equipment that are repossessed by lenders. They do so as the owner of the machine is unable to pay the debts and the lender is forced to repo it and sell it at a lower price. Once they have sizable number of machines they call for an auction. Not many have the information about the auction which results into low walk-ins. Check with the repo guys and you can expect to get some solid lead from them. You be a part of the auction and fetch as many machines as you can which can then be refurbished and leased out.

Tips on how to run a track loader

Heavy equipment like dozer, excavators and track loaders are not so easy to run and require years of experience to understand how to deal with the machine in different conditions. For instance, if you are working on a rugged land or trying to clear trees in a forest, you will experience severe hardships to operate the machine. Simultaneously, not every machine is meant to do all kinds of work and therefore you should be depending on the best, the one that has the ability to perform the task. Operating heavy equipment is certainly not like driving a car and is a far complex subject. So for beginners, getting into something this complex without someone experienced beside you can lead you into a deeper mess. It has often been witnessed that the best of the operators had a tough time dealing with situations and they take a day’s time to complete a job that perhaps take few hours to complete in a normal situation.

We would be discussing in length on how to operate a track loader that is considered to be one of the most important and effective heavy equipment in the construction sector.

Brakes are your priority:-

When you are on the tracks of a crawler loader, you must ensure that no one gets under it. Proper functioning of brakes should be the uttermost priority of an operator. Once you slip inside the cabin, the first thing you got to check is if the brakes are in order. Try to push the brakes using your feet and see if it’s getting pressed smoothly. Anything wrong with it can have very serious consequences and also has the potency to damage the machines and injure people.

Making optimum usage of joysticks:-

Joysticks are the eyes of the machine. You need to learn how to use it optimally. In order to move the machine to your right, you need to make use of the joystick that is located to the right of the driver and in order to move it to the left, pull the one that is to the left of the driver. The joystick is also used to control the boom. The drive rods also play an important role as far as the movement of the loader is concerned. The drive rod is used to operate the tread at the bottom of the machine. The drive rod is also used to increase or decrease the speed of the tread. So if you move the drive rod forward, it tend to move ahead and pulling backwards will take the tread back. In case you want to turn the machine to your right, simply hold the drive rod located to the right of the machine and move it forward without doing anything to the one on the left. This will tilt the machine to the right.

Take help of the user manual:-

Referring to the user manual is another option one can go for. The user manual contains lot many ways and process to run the machine and especially when you get stuck on something, it is advisable to refer to the book and come out of the situation.

 

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Land clearing with big heavy equipment

Land clearing is probably one of the most difficult jobs in the construction business. It takes a good amount of time to get a small piece of land cleared especially when the work is to demolish an existing construction and take the debris from there and dump it elsewhere. You need to have several pieces heavy equipment in order to do this job. Just using a bulldozer or an excavator may not be sufficient to do the entire job and in case if you want it to be done sooner then you got to deploy more such machines. Clearing land can become quite a challenging task taking into consideration the existing structure that needs to be demolished. Quite often, a contractor may get the work to demolish a big house and may be given very little time to complete the work. It becomes very crucial for him to deploy suitable heavy equipment that have the capacity to complete the work in time. It has ideally been seen that contractors get nightmares when they are given contracts of land clearing within a stipulated time. They are of the opinion that land clearing is not a job that can be done in few days. It may take a long time to break an existing structure part by part and then carry the debris and dump them in the dump yard. They also suffer from the problem of not having sufficient number of heavy equipment. Either they have already deployed few heavy equipment at some projects and can’t get them off from there or they simply do not have the equipment with them and may have to arrange it from somewhere which might take long. The machines that are typically used for land clearing are bulldozers, excavators, backhoe loaders, wheel loaders etc. Then you also need trucks to transport the debris to the dump yard. It is highly unlikely for a contractor to have all the equipment with him and therefore it becomes a challenge for him to collect all the needed stuffs and then begin the job. When it comes to land clearing that has big trees on it, it becomes all the more difficult. The contractors then need equipment that can cut the trees, make logs of them and then transport it to the destined place. In order to do this job, they need grade chain saw and staff that knows how to operate the saw. Cutting the trees requires special skill. You need to cut the tree in a way that it falls at the spot you want it to fall. If it falls in some other place, it may cause serious repercussions. So in a way, you are dealing with something very serious and dangerous. If you manage to cut the tree properly, you also got to ensure that the tree doesn’t roll over on you or any other person present on the site. A lot of safety precautions are needed to be taken when it comes to land clearing.

 

Caterpillar 336E Excavator

Right from building a house or a tall rise to constructing bridges, dams and roads, you need an excavator for every type of work. Excavators are the machines that dig the earth and get the mud out. It is needed for several purposes. Most importantly, it is needed to prepare a foundation for the building. So you dig up the ground to start setting pillars from there and in order to do this digging business, you need a good excavator. Excavators are of different sizes. You can get a smaller one for small excavation works or deploy a bigger one for huge construction or mining projects. The size of an excavator depends largely upon the kind of project you will need it for.

All the construction equipment manufacturing companies produce excavators with different unique features that hit the consumer market every year. However, the excavators produced by CAT are simply outstanding out of the league. Caterpillar’s 336E excavator is one such extraordinary piece of steel that does not have much competition from its rivals. Caterpillar has always maintained its performance and has ensured that the trust consumers have on the brand remains intact. It is because of this CAT products get overwhelmingly positive responses whenever it comes out with a new model. People are dead sure that it will have something new to offer them.

Speaking more about the 336E excavator, the machine has a net power of 266 hp. The figure only suggests how good the machine is in terms of power. It has a displacement of 537 cu in and the total operating weight of the machine is 30498 kg or about 68,000 lbs. The fuel capacity of the excavator is 620 liters with the cooling system fluid capacity and hydraulic system fluid capacity of 40 and 410 liters respectively. One of the most intrinsic features of the machine is its engine oil capacity which is 40 liters. Not many machines of this size has this capacity of engine oil installed in it. The hydraulic pump flow capacity is 280 liters per minute and the swing drive fluid capacity is 19 liters and the speed of the swing is around 10 rpm.

Changing our focus on the undercarriage, the shoe size is around 800 mm with maximum travel speed of 5km per hour and a drawbar pull of 300 KN. The minimum and the maximum capacity of the bucket is around 1.2 yd3 and 3.3 yd3 respectively. This model of excavator can be installed with 3 different boom/sticks. HEX1, HEX2 and HEX3. The maximum digging depth for all the 3 options are 27 ft. in, 24.6 ft. in and 21.8 ft. in respectively.

If you intend to buy this machine, you can get in touch with the nearest authorized Caterpillar dealer or heavy equipment dealer and he should be able to help you with the proceedings to buy this stuff. Caterpillar has managed to keep the price within the range so that people do not find it very hard to buy it. One can even visit Caterpillar’s website and can order it online.

 

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Heavy Equipment being used in a Rock Quarry

We have seen the use of heavy equipment in the construction sector but the very same heavy equipment also play a pivotal role when it comes to the mining industry. Rock Quarry is one much business that requires good heavy machineries to work on it and get the minerals extracted. A rock quarry site is not so often seen like a construction site which can be seen at every nook and corner of the area we are living in. It is found more in an isolated area that is inhabited by no humans. The sight that you will get is a barren land with huge piles of rock all around and men working with big machines. However, what kind of machines can be used on those heavy rocks is a thought that must have pondered many minds. When you extract minerals from the crust of the earth, you got to follow few processes for that and you require the help of the machines to follow the required processes.

There is a need of stripping and drilling equipment when it comes to rock quarrying. In order to extract the minerals, you first need to quarry the rocks that is on the surface and for that you need to either strip the surface or blast it with some explosive. In case you decide to strip the surface, then you can make use of heavy equipment like crawler tractors. Bulldozers are used to break the rocks wherever needed and then the crawler tractors are used to carry the dirt using its big blades it has in the front. It can also rip the rock apart with the help of the ripper arms that is fitted at the rear of the machine.

A wheel loader also comes handy in quarrying rock. They are widely used to load the dirt in trucks or tractors. They use their hydraulic arm and bucket to perform this job. The intrinsic feature of the bucket is that they are real huge and has the capacity to carry dirt weighing almost 35 tons. A wheel loader is a must in a rock quarrying site and one can’t think of working without it. Other than just lifting dirt into tractors, they are also used to load the mined products on the trucks which can be then transported for further processing. If the rock quarrying site is huge, then it makes perfect sense to deploy big wheel loaders. However, if the operation is limited to a small site, then one can make use of small wheel loaders as they are available in different sizes.

Last but not the least an off-highway truck also forms an important component in the family of heavy machinery that are used in rock quarrying activities. These big trucks are used extensively to carry huge piles of stuffs from one place to another. You can’t take the service of ordinary trucks that we see on the roads. These are special trucks that are used exclusively for transporting mined materials.

Cat D6R Dozers

Big construction companies go for the best heavy equipment in the industry and when we talk about the best heavy equipment manufacturing companies, we have one name that has been very prominent all over the years in terms of upgrading its technology, delivering high level performance and ensuring that it has customer base is content with its service and quality and that name is Caterpillar. Caterpillar as we shortly pronounce it as CAT has been the leader in this segment for the last many years. Despite of numerous cut throat competitions from all corners, it has still managed to keep its position intact.

Though all the heavy equipment manufactured by CAT are of supreme quality, it specializes in producing excellent dozers for its customers. We will be speaking in length about the D6R dozer and would highlight few of its specification and the fact from where a person should buy this model.

CAT D6R dozer is a powerful machine with a net power of 175 hp and is turbocharged. It has a displacement of 638 cu in and the total number of cylinders it can hold is 6. The operational weight of the machine is 41900 lb and the fuel capacity is 383 litres. This is quite phenomenal as it has enough space for fuel and can run for days without having the need to refuel. The cooling system fluid capacity is 74 litres, engine oil capacity is 27.5 litres and hydraulic fluid capacity is 76 litres. The operating voltage of this dozer is 24V and the alternator supplied amperage is 70 amps.

Let’s change our gears and speak about its gears. It has 3 forward and 3 backward gears with a maximum forward speed of around 12 km per hour and backward speed of around 15 km per hour. It has a standard show size of 22in and the total number of shoes each side is 41. The total number of track rollers that it has on each side is 7. It has a hydraulic pumping system that has a flow capacity of 190 litres per minute which is pretty good. If we talk about the blade, the width of the blade it has is 3260 mm and the height of the blade is 1412 mm and the cutting depth it has is around 459 mm.

CAT D6R dozers are available at any CAT store or heavy equipment dealer or you can even order it over the phone. However, if you want to inspect the machine first before buying it, you can visit to the nearest CAT store or heavy construction dealer and check if they have the model available. You can then inspect the stuff and see if it suits your requirement. Caterpillar has tried to keep the rates modest and you can also check if the company can offer you any discount. Ideally, discounts are given on bulk purchases.

Buying the dozers online is another option that you can go for. You can compare the price of the dozers from other sellers and then take a wise decision.

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Tips on how to run a dozer

Operating heavy equipment is no child’s play and it requires good deal of skill and knowledge to operate any kind of machine. People who possess years of experience can also experience tough time operating equipment and if we consider someone who has just taken the cabin, he needs to ensure that he does not bump it off to people working on the site. Construction companies usually take due care of their machines and do not let it out to a novice. It will be a big risk to let a beginner operate heavy equipment without the presence of a senior person or veteran operator inside the cabin. He will definitely need guidance that will help him to learn to operate the machine and will eventually make him a better operator.

Out of the many machines, a bulldozer is the one that has been found to be extremely difficult to operate in rough terrain. If you try to work with a big dozer in a place which has been affected by some kind of natural calamity, you will get to know the sort of toll it can have on a person. When the land is hit by a storm or a hurricane and leaves everything wrecked, you need a dozer along with other set of heavy equipment to set the place back to normal. Few basic tips one should follow when they make their way to run a dozer.

Wearing good pair of boots:-

Wearing good pair of boots is a must when you are making your way inside the cabin of a dozer. Wearing anything below average can have serious consequences. Your legs may skid from the brakes when you try to apply them and that can lead to serious injuries. In order to avoid any such misadventure, one must invest in quality boots. Along with it, it is also advisable to wear a good pair of gloves as that will keep your hand protected from heat and dust.

Make proper use of the joystick:-

The joystick in the bulldozer is the eye and brain of the machine. You give orders to the dozer by moving the joystick to the desired direction. Make sure that you know which move of the joystick will take the machine to the direction you want it to go. When you get yourself inside the cabin, check if the joystick is in order and if it is moving freely. That ensures that the machine will move smoothly at your command.

Have good control on your pedal:-

In order to slow the dozer, you should make use of the decelerator pedal. You will locate this pedal just next to the brake. You may not want to make use of the brakes too often and can use the decelerator pedal to slow the machine whenever required.  It is important to check if the decelerator pedal and the brakes are properly oiled and are easy to apply or else there are high chances of you bumping off the person that comes in your way.