Case 310G dozer update

[rtimgray]

Well, I've had my dozer for over a year now (I had to look on here to see when I bought it - about October of 2007). I've got to say that I think I got a pretty decent deal. I've used it alot for the first year and have had no major problems. I've done quite a bit of clearing, cleaned up brush/dozer piles from previous years, filled ditches, and in August/September dug a small pond (about a 1/4 acre). It's even holding water!! (Pretty good luck for my first pond try).

I've put on somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 to 80 hours on it (about 1/2 of that was the pond, so it was just dirt pushing). The rest has been clearing - and it'll take down trees much larger than I thought it would. It does have the same problem that Eddie Walker mentions to most folks that ask about dozers - it's not to bad to take trees down; pushing a big pile of them together takes a bigger machine. However, I've got more time than I have money to invest in a dozer, so I've okay with making a few more trips.

So far, I've changed all the fluids and filters through the course of the year, and it burns about a quart of oil in 10-15 hours depending on how hard I'm running it (for a 40+ year old machine, I didn't think that was too bad). It starts good in 40 degree and above weather, below that I have to jump start it and add starting fluid, but it cranks quickly after that.

It's not too hard on fuel - probably about 1/2 gal to 1 gal/hour depending on what I'm doing, of course. The only thing that I know I need to do soon is adjust the tracks. They have gotten a little loose over the course of the year and I bet it's better to tighten them now rather than after I throw one!

Overall, I'm very happy with my dozer. I don't know that it has quite paid for itself yet, but it's getting close. My dozer is alot more similar to a tractor than a dozer as far as working on it goes, so it's nowhere near the class of Cat D6 or Case 850, etc. But with a little time, I can get a lot done.

Just thought I'd share my good experience with the old dozer.

Take care.

[GeneD14]

Glad to hear of your good fortune. I have a Case 310 diesel track loader and it is a real work horse. I have no complaints but if I get a bigger hp tractor I may have to part with it.
Anyway, they are great machines and I'm sure it will serve you well.

[rtimgray]

Glad to hear of your good fortune. I have a Case 310 diesel track loader and it is a real work horse. I have no complaints but if I get a bigger hp tractor I may have to part with it.
Anyway, they are great machines and I'm sure it will serve you well.

That looks like a really nice loader (at least it's cosmetically much better than mine).

Is it very hard to get on and off of (just looking at the loader supports)?

Take care.

[john_bud]

That looks like an F150 pulling. How much is that load? I would have thought it too much for an F150, but since you are doing it...


jb

[rtimgray]

That looks like an F150 pulling. How much is that load? I would have thought it too much for an F150, but since you are doing it...


jb

I think that mine weighs 9,000 to 10,000 lbs with the blade, so I bet his is similar (my weights come from what the manual says, as I have never weighed it). If I had a trailer strong enough (and it looks like the trailer is built for it), I wouldn't worry about pulling it with a pickup. I might not want to go too far or too fast, but with some care it would probably be alright.

However, my dozer only crawls around our farm, so it's not going for a ride anytime soon.

[ToaDisco]

Im pretty certain thats either a 250 or 350 pulling that dozer in the picture a few posts up...

[IH3444]

Yeaaaaaaaa........baby! Dozer are a lot of work to rebuild, but hard to beat when you really need the grip.

[john_bud]

Im pretty certain thats either a 250 or 350 pulling that dozer in the picture a few posts up...

I thought it had the Harley Davidson trim package and that would make it an F150, no? More curious than anything..

jb

[Lunk]

I thought it had the Harley Davidson trim package and that would make it an F150, no? More curious than anything..

jb

HD Packages were originally F150 only, with a supercharged 5.4L V8.

Later versions were F250's with the 6.0L diesel.

The badge on the back looks more like a "King Ranch" to me, but I've been wrong before...

[EddieWalker]

Thanks for the update. It's nice to hear of your success and good fortune!!!!!

My latest discover, if you can call it that, is just how much faster and easier it is to get trees to the burn pile with a grapple. Just pick them up and put them in place. If the tree is to big to pick up whole, it's worth the time to cut it in half or quarter it with the chainsaw. Not that the dozer can't put them into a pile, but the dozer also adds allot of dirt the burn piles, and that's almost as much work to clean up ans getting the trees there.

I've never run a Case 310 and don't know the HP of it. I did run a John deere 450G for awhile, and working those levers to steer, along with the blade was a workout. My arms never stopped moving!!! At 80hp, maybe less, it's amazing at what the smaller dozers can accomplish. Of course, with more HP, you can get away with things that you can't on smaller machine. I'd imagine you could do anything with yours that I can with mine, it just takes a bit more planning and time.

Eddie