Looking for Small Dozer

[mitchash]

Looking to buy a used dozer the size of a John Deere 350/450 with 6 way blade and winch. Looking to spend $8000 to $15000. What brands besides John Deere are good? I see a lot of the Komatsu's for sale at a good price, are they any goog? Anyone use one of those dozers from China? What should we look for as far as wear problems on different dozers?
Thanks for any help.
Ash

 

[ultrarunner]

Went through the same thing a few years ago... I found a nice Cat D3 with 6-way blade and ripper...

All of the JD's I looked at needed work and I found the prices rather high.

My only draw-back is the 15,000 lbs dozer weight makes it too heavy to transport with anything I own. On the positive side, it makes it easy for me to say no when someone wants to use it.

Cat customer service has been great the few times I needed it. Had a dozer blade line get damaged in the middle of some work I was doing. I went to Peterson Tractor and they asked me how soon I needed the new line. I told them I was in the middle of a job and the counter man sent me back to the shop and had a new line made for me in about 15 minutes... and for no additional cost.

 

[rvaitor]

Looking to buy a used dozer the size of a John Deere 350/450 with 6 way blade and winch. Looking to spend $8000 to $15000. What brands besides John Deere are good? I see a lot of the Komatsu's for sale at a good price, are they any goog? Anyone use one of those dozers from China? What should we look for as far as wear problems on different dozers?
Thanks for any help.
Ash

I had a JD350C with forestry package(cage, sweeps,lights, brush gaurd) was a good unit and would recommend it - they are lighter duty but I was just cleaning out heavy brush, privit, light grading. Paid in the mid teens 700 hours since re-life. Weight about 11K lbs. It was a concern to me that it could be transported fairly easily.

 

[GuglioLS]

I see a lot of the Komatsu's for sale at a good price, are they any goog?

Ash,
Not sure if the Komatsu's are any "goog" but for a small dozer there pretty good.

I have a D20A-6 Komatsu, it's a very small, light weight (9K lbs) dozer. It's very easy to work on. Take a look at this thread for the complete history of my purchasing, maintenance and user experience with it.

Not sure what type of work your going to use it for as you did not mention your intended use or the soil conditions you might be up against.

What to look for -
Undercarriage wear (all the parts that make it move or come in contact with moving parts).
Rear Sprockets - pointy(bad) broad & flat (good)
Front tensioner idler roller and track rollers - are they nice & round or, cupped / U shaped, or out of round.
Track Link Bushings (the round part of the track chain that is driven by the sprockets) Are they symmetrical round? or do they have flat spots?
Track link wear (slop in the bushings) - are the tracks properly tensioned - is there a little sag in them or a huge amount of sag? Take a look at the track tensioner mechanism, it is usually a cylinder rod that pushes up against the front roller to take up track slack, how much travel is left to keep the tracks from excessive sag. You can tell by looking how many inches of travel are left at the front of the track rails.

Leaks - any leak anywhere is not good.
Hydraulic cylinders and rods, are they leaking? Rods pitted / gouged? Rod seals leaking ?

Steering breaks & steering clutches -
Drive it around turning left & right, get a feel for how far each lever has to be pulled back to steer it.
Find a place to lower & bury the blade, BOTH tracks should continue to spin at the same rate, this will tell you the steering clutches are still good, or at least have some life left in them.

Pull both steering levers back about half way at the same time so as to dis-engage the steering clutch but not so far that it activates the steering breaks, both tracks should roll to a stop, and the engine should not bog down, then slowly release one lever, the dozer will be powered by one track but should still go in a straight line. Repeat with the other lever to make sure the dozer will go in a straight line by being driven on only one track.

Komatsu parts - new parts, they are available from Komatsu dealers. There is a dealer locater on the Komatsu web site. I have not yet found a part that I needed that I could not get. There are Komatsu parts on e-bay. An plenty of salvage equipment dealers, brokers etc that sell used parts off disassembled units.

Be patient look for a good deal and a good working machine that needs little or no repairs. Parts prices for dozer's are shocking to say the least, Dozer's are money pits. When the time comes to replace major parts, (all parts are major) you will not believe what some things cost, so be prepared for the shock of your life.

Larry

 

[GuglioLS]

Anyone use one of those dozer's from China?

Ash - over in the Chinese tractor forum here on TBN there is a Chinese Dozer owner / operator Bob Rooks I believe. Look him up and maybe send him a PM.

FWIW - Just my opinion;
From what I see they are rather light weight ~ 5500 pounds at most. So don't expect to mutch pushing power out of it. One really cool thing about the Chinese Dozer's is they have a two speed live PTO and a Three Point Hitch just like a tractor, so you can use cat 1 TPH implements. In addition to my Komatsu Dozer and 1953 Ford NAA Golden Jubilee tractor, I have a 35 horse Chinese tractor, what is called a Jinma. In spite of all the stigma, bad mouthing, ridicule etc associated with owning a Chinese tractor, I am very impressed with it's performance and reliability. For the money they are an incredible bargain. The engines are proven reliable workhorses, the same engine on those tractors are installed in those dozer's.

Even though I like my Chinese tractor, I believe those Chinese Dozer's are too small and lightweight and a little too costly for what you get. They are in the ~ 15,000 price range + shipping + other import and broker fees. I would suggest that a much larger used domestic or Japanese machine be purchased at the same price or less.

Just my .02 worth

Larry

 

[IH3444]

Case 310F, new rear sprockets, new pins, bushings, 3 layer weld on rails. All work done by Clark Automatic in Baltimore MD. More.....if interested send me a PM.

 

[EddieWalker]

I have some experience on a JD 450G model dozer. It's pretty good for small jobs, but not much on land clearing or digging or moving dirt. Just too light and small to get anything done. The owner of it said he bought it because he can get it unstuck with a backhoe and move it from job to job with a one ton truck on his trailer. When I bought my dozer, I needed something big enough to clear the land and move dirt. Every dozer is a comprimise, so you really need to know what you need it for and buy accordingly.

The JD that I ran had a solic sprocket. The only way to change that was to remove the entire tracks. On my Case, you just unbolt a section of the sprocket at a time and replace it, then do the next section until you have them replaced. Simple and easy.

Dealerships are everything in dozers. They are money pits and they break down all the time. If you can't get parts for it, you don't want it. If you can't work on it yourself, you don't want it. Nobody is gonna come out to fix it for you, no matter how much money you are willing to spend. They just don't have the time.

Look around your area and figure out who's there and who you like to deal with. I avoided JD because the closes dealer is 45 minutes away and the guy who owned that one I ran was always having problmes with them. He has five JD machines, and is down there at least once a week. They didn't care because he was just a small time contractor. Or at least, thats' the impression I got. I have a New Holland and a Case tractor. Both dealers have been very good to me, but the Parts guy at New Holland is by far the better. If they don't have the part, or if they are stupid expensive, he'll tell me where I can go to get it cheaper. He's told me where their mechanics go to get parts or have something fixed that they can't fix themselves. The dealer pays that guy to do it, then charges the client that amount, plus their time. He's also introduced me to the mechanics that work there and has gotten them to show me how to work on, or repair things on my tractor. For me, that's the most important thing when buying a tractor. Color or brand is secondary, or not even relevant. SUPPORT is the only thing to consider.

Eddie

 

[IH3444]

Crawler Heaven - Construction Equipment Parts in Palmyra, NY - The Source for All of Your Bulldozer Parts Needs

 

[mitchash]

We will be using the dozer for logging, log road building and repair, land clearing and building a pond. We used a John Deere 550 a couple of years ago for logging and it was a little big for some of the tighter spots we have in the woods. The pond we might have someone finish it with a bigger dozer. We live in upstate NY. Thanks, Ash