We're thinking about buying a td20g dresser, I have no knowledge or experience with them other than what a few people have told me, we've even considered a 15e and haven't ruled that out either, the 15 would be a better fit for my operation but the sheer size and power of the 20 is appealing as well. I want either the cummins or else the ih 466 motor so that put me into these machines vs. the older ones, we've looked at the 15c and yes I was impressed with its performance but maybe opted for the newer 15e instead. I was looking for a semi u blade and a cab with standard pads not lgp but beyond that I guess I'm open for opinions and imput. I know its not a lot to go on but I've got to start somewhere as they say. Can anyone tell me something about these machines and what to look for and avoid or what problems they have or the major points to look at. I"ve looked at komatsu as well but they have eveything so crammed in they apprear a pain to work on and fix and since I keep them forever the maintance and repair end is a major one for me and people tell me the dresser line is much easier to repair and get at things on them and are simplier in design so theres no computers and electronics and don't take the pullers and presses to get them apart and fixed like some of the others do or was I given a line of bs and thats not the case at all? I've ruled out the full hydrostat dozers for now and all I've come up with is the dresser lineup, I guess I'm not a major cat fan [I know I"m the only one who isn't] but the larger case and jd models are out of my budget for now. Thanks in advance for any imput.
The old 15s were decent machines. I don't remember if they had the 466 or something a little smaller. Torques and transmissions were simple but still a pain to get out of the machine when you had to fix them. Pumps were simple and tracks way back then were pretty easy to work on. There were a bunch in the woods with torque converters and power shifts. There were also a bunch in the wheat fields with direct drives for pulling discs. The 20s that had the modular 2 speed steering worked real well. The big issue then was the V800 International engines were just impossible to rebuild. As I recall just changing a starter meant you had to take the engine loose and jack it up for clearance. I think the hard nose was part of the frame and couldn't be unbolted to ease pulling the engine but I could be wrong about that. I've heard that the newer machines had the Cummins engines but I don't know anything about them. Most of the part of the country that didn't want Cats went to Komatsu. I'd also like to hear of other's knowledge and opinions.
I ran a TD-15C for a few years and I considered it one of the better dozers that I have operated over the years.It seemed to do everything well.Some of the design choices I took issue with such as using a cable to tranfer the force from the brake pedal to the brake bands.As I remember the fuel tank had to be removed to change it if it broke. They used the 466 engine and as engines go you don't get much better than that for reliability.I remember one wet job that I had it on and it was working beside a Komatsu D65 LGP dozer.The TD-15 would go just about anywhere that the Komatsu did pushing roughly the same load.Ron G
old boss has a td15e, i liked it. Had a power thru the turn option I liked. Powered by cummins. Ih put their decel pedal on the opposite side as cat, but it still worked. stay away from any ih v8 diesels. Parts are getting outrageous and impossible to find. If you can find the parts you will spend more doing an inframe than you would to buy a whole runnin cummin.
Td20g and 15e We have run the IHC line for awhile and find they are a very solid dozer.The 15's we ran were the c series that ran the 466 and they were over acheivers in there class.Ours were equipped with semi-u blades that were outfitted for the U.S Army and sent up in northern Canada we bought them used with about 1500 hrs on them.We had excellant service with these and I sold one to a neighbor who is still using it regularly.The 20's we had were the E models and had the v800 engine,these were strong tractors but we found the balance to be off which we attributed to the heavy engine?Can't say for sure but Iheard once they put the cummins in that greatly improved this tractor,the new td20h does't seem to be anything like the 20e which I guess it shouldn't.Hope this helps you a little. Oh ya I have no idea what the US army was doing up there but it helped us! Steve
defantly avoid any thing with a IH motor parts are getting almost impossible.
I wouldn't say any ih motor, the 466's and other in line 6's are still easy to get stuff for. But a v-800 is a rare & obsolete bird, though it is a sweet sounding motor.
We've ruled out anything with a v8 a long time ago, thats why we are considering a g model with a cummins in it, the newer 15e's had a smaller 8.3 cummins in as well and they seems to run nice, I demo'd a 15c a few years back and that had a 466 in it and it really ran nice, I was impressed with the machine, I've only ran a 15e a little at a dealers dirt lot for a few hours so I didn't really get much experience with it but from what I did do it was a nice manchine as well. The 20g was the one I was really thinking about, every time I've bought anything in life I always ended up buying something too small and outgrew it in a few years, with the 20g I don't think I'd ever outgrow that and thats why I was leaning towards that size machine, not that I'd need it today per say but it would work fine for what I do today and hopefully tomorrow I wouldn't outgrow it and need something bigger, but then I've said that before on a lot of things and been wrong. Right now we are spending too much time moving dirt with too small of machines and I need to speed the whole process up and thats why I was thinking about a larger dozer, Thanks for the replies and imput. Anybody know of any for sale worth looking at?
IH/Dresser TD-20G Dozer In my opinion, the TD-20G along with the 412B Scraper and 175C were 3 of the best designs that IH/Dresser made. The TD-20G with the Cummins L10 was a big improvement over the TD-20E with the V800. We have 3 TD-20G's, 1 TD-20G LGP, and 1 TD-20E that we converted over to a L10 Cummins motor. The 2 speed clutch steering that the E's and G's are a great design also (each track has a high/low/clutch/brake). I agree with your assessment that it takes too long to get anything accomplished with the smaller 120-180 HP machines. Why spend 3 days on a 140 HP machine when you can get the same job done in a 1 1/2 days with a 225 HP machine. We have 1 small 95 HP dozer with a 6 way blade that we rarely use. It you find a good TD-20G, it will be one of the best buys you can make.
Clansing, New here but saw a reference tonconverting a td20e to a cummins. I have two i use for farming and would like to do the conversion. Any tips or hints? The biggest obstacle seems to be the "torque converter". What did you use? Thx
Hey Farmdif the Cummins should be a straight forward change up as all the 20's run cummins.Our new TD 20h has a m11.As far as torques go if its a farm crawler the do not have torques,so all you would need is the proper cummins bellhousing?Does this help?
to Randy88 There a few Dresser dozer down here{Austral;ia}, Haven;t heard any thing against them . and they all seem to perform well