Thanks PALogger, for the info about the six wheeler vs 8 wheeler. I was hoping that a 6 wheeler would be good enough.
Metals406,
The more I look at the price of those, the more it makes more sense for me to start looking at making one. Especially if I want a tandem rear. I don't think this is going to happen this winter. I talked with the flotation tire guy again and now have the price somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 per tire 66x43x25 and $100 per wheel, so that is $2,400 for a set of 4. He thinks he'll have the right bolt count/size for the hubs but might not have the right offset needed. So I could have new centers laser/waterjet/plasma cut out and weld them in at the offsets that I want or just scarf the weld out of the centers that come with the $100 wheels and reweld them at the offset that I need. We'll see, for that cheap of a price, I might try 1 set on the 540B single action grapple and if it works good enough, get another set for the 518 CAT Swing Boom ...... have to see. I'll see how these tires work on the skidders, if its good enough to not warrant the pursuit of a floating forwarder then fine, if not, we'll have to evaluate that later. Its just too, cheap to get the flotation tires now, and hopefully they work.
I need to get this second swing boom started and finished. Once that is done will then take what I learned from that and consider making a forward off of a cheap burnt 540B's front end with an extended cab, with Flotation tires on the front and maybe tandems with the same cheap floaters on the back. I wonder how tandem axles with locking differentials would work if they came off of a semi, they are pretty cheap. I can get 150hp+ engines for it pretty cheap, add auxliary hydraulics to the back of the Deere transmission for the grapple boom. There is a 420 acre "mild hill" job where all of the wood has to come across a soft bottoms ground, so there would be a future for the machine. I think that $20,000 target could be a sound figure, I know were I can get the front half of a 540B for little of nothing. It would be a neat project.
Well on to other things. I just got back from the machine shop. Was installing a CAD system on my laptop for designing things on the road, took the 441 MTronic's SS muffler along for the ride. Had something neat in mind for it, then got into a rush and just hogged it out and left.
This is stock form.
This is larger than stock, LOL.
Should be rather free flowing.
This is a SS "grill" I was going to put in it, but that didn't happen, ran out of time.
Yes, ranger/officer it does have the original spark arrester in it, LOL.
Don't know if I've ever put pics of the machine shop up here, here are some:
