First time operating a bulldozer - FINALLY putting the Cat D4-7U to work! 

That dozer has come a long way...I remember when you first picked it up, what a difference between then and now.

Charlie is so cute! "What are we doing today dad? Oh, we're going in the woods and making a trail? Ok, I'm in, lets go!" LOL

The ultimate reward for all your hard work and expense. The old CAT should give you years of good service on your property.

So cool to see you operating the dozer after all the time spent rebuilding it.

What a lucky D4. From seeing it dragged out of the bush, a sad, neglected, forgotten, with no future, rejected old machine to a proud contributor to society. Thank you Matt for performing and documenting its rehabilitation.

Matt, here's my two cents worth as a forester: on your chunk of dirt you don't really need to put in any skid trails/service roads just yet. that can wait until the time you go to harvest your timber. by the time you get there things will have grown up and the situation will look quite different than it does now. the stumps you've been grrrrr-ing away on will have rotted by then also or be so compromised that you won't even notice 9 out of 10 when they pass beneath the tracks of the tractor. keep any machinery out of the stand as long as you can to minimize any damage to the root systems of the trees you have to work past. the other thing is that the size of your property is so small that it would make more sense to shovel log it when that time comes. while i'm no fan of shovel logging, in your case it would be the best option. that eliminates the need for an extensive skid trail network and you can pile the brush for burning at the same time you're forwarding your logs. that way your equipment footprint is massively reduced and in turn, ground compaction is not an issue. ground compaction is a problem on your side of the cascades because of the runoff you see in the winter months. you're essentially in a temperate rainforest, so the looser you can maintain your soil profile, the less problems you're going to have later with erosion. in your shoes i would start looking for a grapple or a young boom and cab riser you can stick onto that hitachi you're working on.. the other recommendation i would have for you is to start an aggressive pruning campaign as most of your trees are now tall enough you can safely prune them to about 6 feet in height off the ground. if you do one or two each saturday, in about a year you'll have the bulk of it done. the pruning serves two purposes: one is you're creating defensible space around your home. even in western oregon wildfires do happen in spite of the copious amount of precip you get there. the other is, if you leave the pruned branches scattered about, you're recruiting beneficial fungi that form a mycorrhizal symbiosis with your trees, thus acting as an impromptu slow release fertilizer. another aspect of pruning is that you'll be creating high value clear timber in the butt log if you run thru and prune up to 20 feet over the course of the next 20 years. the other aspect is the increased amount of growth your trees will be putting on as the crowns are forced upward. right now your timber is spaced a little far apart so your trees are going to be a bit woofy for the next 20 years until the canopy closes in overhead if you don't prune them in your reforestation plan you'll have to submit to the state of oregon when you go to harvest i would include a few more native species to your area such as port orford cedar, western red cedar, pacific madrone and of course a spruce or two but maintain the primary species of doug fir you have now. a few red alders will also be good nitrogen fixers for regenerating stand after harvest. although scotch broom has become naturalized in your neck of the woods, and is a good nitrogen fixer, i would avoid letting it take foothold at any price as the stuff is an invasive species and will crowd out any saplings and seedlings for the first 10 to 15 years of growth after replanting. cheers mike

For any newer viewers of the channel, I’d recommend going to the beginning of the playlist for the dozer project and getting a look at the ball of rust that eventually became this fine specimen. Pretty remarkable. The mechanical machine has the stuff to do whatever you ask of her. The carbon-based machine showed signs of steady improvement as the video went along. I predict an unstoppable road building team in the near future. It’s great to see her running and working! 🥸👍👀✅

Hi there - I grew up running a 1963 Cat D4c, so I feel qualified to give at least some notes: 1. Nice work. Building a road on thick sod is frustrating as hell, and you took it in stride. 2. Yes, you can boost the throttle about 10%, which should even out the power. 3. Does this model not have a low range? That speed looks like 1st gear in high range. 4. Philosophical Rant: Dozers of this era cannot just move dirt at will - you have to work with the land contours. Just keep that in mind. All in all, I am very happy to see how you operate this old girl. I watched all of your restoration videos, and it made me very happy.

This is were your excavator will come in handy stumping 👍👍👍👍👍. D4 is awesome bud💯💯💯💯💯

Great job on the dozer! The only way to get better at operating it, is to operate it!

You must be making a lot of Dozer drivers cry watching this but practice makes perfect good on you fella

I main thing I learned with my D4 was to Not feather the clutch!, fully engage your clutch, it's not a pickup clutch that is designed to partially engage.

I agree, keep the engine speed up, you do not want to lug it. On the stump removal, use your blade tilt and with the low corner dig down in front of the stump. Then raise the blade as you push to help roll the stump out. With your blade horizontal you are wasting energy pushing dirt with the stump.

Sounds like the engine is running on very low RPM, even though you just rebuilt it. Any diesel engine needs to be hot to work efficiently, running on tickover or just above is not good for the engine. You will see a difference if you up the revs. Most all heavy equipment has a set working engine speed, tractors, excavators, generators , and even bulldozers and all need to be hot compared to gas motors.

Giving new life to these old beasts this is the real magic! Greetings from Ukraine!

Wow! Love watching that old D4 working hard after all your hard work on her.

You are supposed to push the stumps out of the way not drive over them😂😂😂😂

What a beautiful piece of land!!

You've got talent, keep showcasing it

Yep! The excavator will make quick work of those pesky stumps but until then the D4 has more than enough power to clean up those trails. Another satisfying dozer video.

I've said it before and I say it again, your videos are more interesting than any Hollywood "blockbuster"

People dont know how much fun that is !

Nice piece of ground- looks like we can look forward to lots more content once the excavator is done, then a dump truck, then maybe a roller.

Always think about water drainage with a new road. A flat road might be very difficult to dry out if you don't construct big cut off drains.

Charlie blazing the trail for you! lol Thanks for the video.

I've said before but will say it again, I think you did an absolutely incredible job with the restoration of the D4. The quality of your video work deserves credit as well, it's better than many so called professional RU-vidrs with actual camera operator production team. If they are just Christmas Trees even you little mini excavator with a thumb should be able to pull them stumps out shouldn't it? From the videos I watch a Dozer just doesn't work well for clearing trees & stumping.

The blade angle / tilt will be the next thing you should adjust , as it makes a big difference on how the blade cuts . Too steep an angle and it will want to cut big divots , too shallow and it will want to just ride along the top and not cut into the ground very well . This is going to be something you have to adjust constantly for different soils , and even the same soils will behave a lot differently depending on moisture content through the seasons . All this in addition to controlling the blade height . I think you did pretty ok for your first real test of that little wonder . The bigger stumps , will move a lot easier if you can dig down and around them , and , you may have to work from several angles on them . Or wait until the Hitachi is done and just pluck em right out , lol .

Wow Matt has that dozer come a long way from the day you pulled it out of the forest, weeds and all. You do realize the dozer will get dirty😁 It's great to see that puppy out there doing it's thing, you havin fun?😁

You must be very proud, that little machine is awesome!

Awesome seeing the dozer in action. My first experiences with a dozer where more or less the same as you had. Every machine is a little different and it might take time to master all the operation actions. Your property sure looks nice.

Word of advice- stay well away from the pond unless you want to have Dave Sparks bring all his heavy rescue stuff up to get it back out again.

It's great to see it finally being used. You couldn't of picked a much worse job for your first attempt. Stumps and grass take some skill to do a good job. From now on seat time is the best way to learn. If the fan is reversible change it to blow out through the radiator or try to find another one. Blowing the air out will keep the radiator a lot cleaner.

Awesome to see the old iron working the land, thank you for the trouble to film it. A couple tidbits about dozer vs. stump, if I may. First when you address the stump consider the likely radius the roots grew to and try to start cutting way out there. When the stumps are as short as you have there's not a lot of leverage for the blade to work with on the trunk of the stump so starting wide breaks the roots purchase and offers the dozer more leverage. Second, when you do sock into the stump and the dozer starts to stall try lifting the blade at that moment. Raising the blade and walking into the stump will often roll them right out rather than killing the motor. It can be a lot to juggle and I understand the hesitancy to commit to the blade lever when there's a chance of killing the motor but you can switch hands for the main clutch because there's really no need to be steering while pushing that hard. My Dad has a great big old IH from the 40's and he calls it the International Harvester Fitness Machine because you can get pretty busy in the cab of one of these.

If you leave the blade an inch or two above the ground you will find the stumps without digging up the ground

wow what a beautiful place lush green

Hi Matt and channel. The machine sure sounds smooth and well tuned . Where to practice as to grade of roadway. back blade motion will assist to level things. The technique as to float the blade in reverse to level and clear any grass, dirt or wood debris. Your operator methods looked fine. Think safety ahead in operator skill. M.

I got to operate a dozer for the first time 2 years ago at age 64...could not wipe the smile off my face! What a blast. I feel like if I had jumped on one when I was sixteen that would have been my life long profession.

Glad to see it running. Enjoy the learning process.

Mat,enjoying the fruits of one’s labour must be a great feeling it’s not a D12 but it sure looks fine,the way it started certainly tells you that that everything is as it should be enjoy,thanks for the vid,Perth🇦🇺👌👌👌👌👌

Your new trees are really putting on the new growth. Good retirement plan!👍

All the hard work on th e dozer and now you get to play an learn everything about it an how to run it.. maybe a house screen in front of the rad that way it don't plug up the fins.. and you can pull it out easy and give it a bang to clean it out or custom made screen kind of thing. Leaf blower could help with blowing it out back in the bush if not near the air compressor too. Have fun bud your earned it!!

Good to see you actually starting to use it. Well done. I am not a dozer operator but in my opinion you did okay.

I think someone made a really good job of rebuilding this D4😊

Very nice! Great to see it get a bit of a workout and that engine sounds very smooth. You will get more comfortable with it quickly. Dozers are deceptively difficult to run.

Yes more throttle! I kept thinking it sounded like it was idling and wanted to say "throttle up!" every time a stump stopped you. Anyway, live and learn. You did an amazing job on the restoration and I'm sure you'll get the hang of operating with more practice.

Excellent presentation. Really like how you reflect on your work as well as self-critique. The future looks promising because the more experience you get with your machines, the better you will be at the desired goal you set for each one. Of course, I believe you know this already. finally, Look forward to viewing more of your videos. I'm very interesting in seeing the end result of your cleaning the pathway. Peace.

Great accomplishment on the dozer, it works nicely. Also, you have a beautiful piece of property, the soil looks great. Thank you for sharing.

Wonderful plan, glad to hear someone the idea trees are there future.

When you go to grade, keep your right hand moving on the blade control. Constant little adjustments up and down as you move forward. That will keep the blade from digging in. You can always smooth things out in reverse with the blade in "float" !

It must feel great to enjoy the fruits of your labor and to operate this sweet machine to improve your beautiful property. Congratulations!

Dozer looks great , just need a little seat time , it will come . Didn't realize the big excavator had a baby lol , seen ya moving it at the beginning. You're going to have a nice group of equipment for your property, that's great !!!

you more than make up any short comings with your amazing mechanic skills. great work

Great seeing the old gal get back to work. I'm sure it's a joy to operate. Even drone footage! Love it!

Great to see the first time out perform so well !

Don't worry about how it looks, if I had done this there wouldn't be much more left... Great job, you'll get the hang on it! 🤣👍👍👍

Sounds really good , and so quiet with that muffler on there , couldn’t tell if you were wearing hearing protection that’s something you should all ways do with any out door machinery

Soooo cool to see the dozer in action! She ran great, you should be very proud! Then your property, Gods world right there!

It's good to see you put that machine back to work. Nice Job Matt!👍 That excavator will be the machine to remove those stumps. One day soon.....

Looks like fun! I’m sure you will only get better with practice!

Awesome place there. Nice to own some land away from town. If you were into archery what a magnificent place to set up a 3-d animal target range.

Dozer runs great. Job well done.👍

Was really cool seeing your whole property like that, looks amazing. So gratifying seeing the dozer rebuild working well. Thanks for sharing that and really love watching your channel.

Beautiful, she fired right up! Love how Charlie has to be right in the action. 😂

You’ll get there bud! I ran a front end loader for a year without much of any experience, I got better every month. Learn by doing, it really is the best way.

I think you did just fine...you are learning by doing so there will be times when you can see where you want to improve...nothing wrong with that all all. Going slow the first run is good anyway so you can get a rough idea on the course you want...you can come back later with a higher throttle to clear the more stubborn stumps! I makes me nervous when Charlie gets so close to the equipment while it moving...but she seems to know when to get out of the way :)

Great job that dozer running sweet

Good to see you and the dozer getting to do some work. You put so much work into it that I can understand how careful you have to be. The excavator will be even more fun. You have a great place to use them!

Great video! It's really great to see the fruition of all of your hard work being put to use! You will learn. We all do. I'm sure there is and educational video on RU-vid on how to use it! LOL I am so happy for you! It's so beautiful there!

Good job ! Yes, entertaining for sure! Took a few years but, Success !!!! Big thanks for sharing!

Love the mini excavator. That is so cool to see her working. Those old stumps sure are tuff. The D4 is alive and well. Thanks for the video and the sky cam shots were great.

Daddy’s girl is out there to help you! She’s a sweetheart! Charlie girl!❤️❤️ Good job on the dozer rebuild Matt, it’s perfect for your needs there! 👌🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Well, you just had to go and get it dirty, didn't ya. Seriously, I think that I may have heard adrenaline in your voice. Your excitement for using it shows. 👍👍👍

A may zing Matt, the culmination of your efforts!

Dozers running like a champ! Nice!!! Yes you need some butt time to learn!

Takes them stumps out easy good to see your hardwork rebuilding it has paid off

I think you are being too hard on your self. The results are damn good, especially for a beginning operator.

Nice Dozer, works well! Don't do like me and regret those sharp corners I wish I did'nt do. There's always that longer trailer one day comming in...⚜️

cant wait to see the hitachi ex120 put to work

Iffen you find a stump that gives the dozer a hard time, you do have a winch on the back end that might be able to take care of it ;) Nice yard and nicer job on the rebuild and even sounds great too.

Man nice awesome toy great job nice too see your hard word fixing the dozer working like a charm 👍

Man that machine purrs! Amazing job on the restoration

All you need is MORE and MORE seat time. No one is an operator in the first hour. Keep doing your thing!

Oh NO, don’t get our fully restored dozer dirty.😂, nice job, you soon got the hang of it. Beautiful property btw.

So Great to See Her Running! 😃👍🦾

Cool Matt, you’re always busy with your projects brother! Good luck my friend, take your time Matt! You got this!

Dude I can't believe I am watching this. I watched from the beginning you getting the dozzer tell today. 😮

Marvelous seeing and hearing the fruit of your labour!! 😊

It is so enjoyable to watch your videos. The transformation of the D4 was amazing. I will bet money that the excavator will turn out just as nice. I grew up in Central Oregon but now live in Bossier City LA which is across the Red River from Shreveport. I love seeing videos from my home state. It appears that you have quite a few acres of land.

Such comedy of the shot of you starting the dozer and then emerging on the tiny backhoe. 😂😂

Wait, when you get the hatachi going then those stumps are history Matt! 👌🏻👍🏻👍🏻 If you gouge the ground too deep, then pick up and go over the dirt and back drag it to fill it in! You’ll get the hang of it with time and practice my friend! Very nice property Matt! Beautiful! If you knew traveling the path, it will pack down with time! I think you’re doing a good job and getting used to the dozer already! 👌🏻👍🏻👍🏻 The corner of the blade is used for stumping and if you angle the blade brother and use the point of the blade as you stick the stump picking the blade up at the same time! Great video and 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 for your first time my friend! Stay positive and definitely don’t cut yourself short, you will get it Matt! Good job and good video! Kirk from Louisiana sending prayers and positive energy your way for you and your family! Oh and Charlie Girl! 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👌🏻👍🏻👍🏻🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🙋🏼✌🏻✌🏻🤜🏻🤛🏻👍🏻

... but you got it dirty (great work)

Being able to walk up start the machine and go to work,heaven on earth great job

Everybody has trouble the first time you will learn quickly. It is hard to see the corner of the blad but that is what your blad is doing good luck stay with it.

Hell yeah bro!! After 2 years, we've all been waiting for today! Stoked for you man!

What an accomplishment. How satisfying it must feel to use that machine for the purpose that you bought it for and to know that you rebuilt it all. Great job.

Blade control will take some time to get a feel for. After you get the stumps cleared, and the ground loosened up you may find that back-blading gives you the smoothest surface. Great to see it finally in action!

Matt you did just fine. The machine looks great too. Like everything practice makes perfect… John

What a beautiful piece of property

Amazing, I remember when you first got this dozer....I really wasn't expecting much to come of it...just amazing what you have accomplished.

PNH, u almost gotten all of the stumps pushed-out. The cat d4-7u dozer worked good, with adjusting the cluch it will be great.