First off, it is advertised as a series II and from my limited research I think it should be a series III. I haven't seen the dozer - it is not nearby unfortunately. The dealer lists it as a 1998 model with 5500 hours. The pads look new and the sprocket in the picture looks like it has quite a bit of wear left. Since we have lots of fairly soft limestone rock chunks around our property, I really wanted a dozer with rippers, and this one has 'em. Since I'm shopping for my first dozer, I'm not familiar with the attributes of various models. Does anybody know what kind of steering this has - joystick, pedals, ?? Is this model hydrostatic drive? Any peculiarities I should be aware of with this particular model? Thanks for any advice. John
Hello John, We have a d5c LGP that we have had for many years. We dont put many hrs in a year on it though. It is a pedal steer and a dream to work with. It pushes good even though it is a LGP. Now the bad side. We had about 3200 hrs on it and the transmission went out. When we were talking with the mechanic who overhauls these all the time he said that they use the same transmission in the D3,D4,and D5. All they do is increase the speed of the internals in the transmission in the 4 and 5's so they can handle the extra torque. The mechanic said he had done alot of rebuilds of these. We also had one of the slave cylinders for the brakes go out. not a big deal though. The only other thing is it is hard starting. I dont remember the year of it right off hand but I think it is a little older. I'll check tommorrow and let u know.If i remember right they are made in Brazil.:my2c:
I looked at one recently while searching for a dozer. A local contractor had basically the same machine, even the ripper. They had owned it since new and it had almost 6000 hours on it. They had to replaced the tranny @ 4500 hours. The equipment manager, nice guy, said that it was just starting to "nickel & dime" them to death. I passed on it, and they traded it on a new Komatsu.
Wow - doesn't sound good - guess I need to keep looking. The trick is to find a halfway decent machine with ripper in the ~$25k range, if I didn't want a ripper I could easily find a nice dozer in Texas (we're NW of San Antonio.) Thanks guys!
Call Tuff Machinery and see if he has anything or can locate something. He is in Austin off of Hwy 71. They sell a lot of D3 and D4c,g machines. The # is 866-331-9862. Tell them Quicktrax sent you.
Been to their website a few times - they have dozers in my size range, not always in my price range It looks like all of the dozers have had a spray job - I think I would rather see one in its unaltered state. I've heard stories about the bondo falling off the blade in big chunks with the first use (note just to be clear - I have NOT heard that about Tuff Machinery - this was just a comment somewhere on the Internet about some unnamed dealer somewhere in the country.) There is another dealer (Cook Equipment) relatively nearby (New Braunfels) that has some small machines that are possibilities but some of their UCs are in the 50% range. When I'm ready to move into the purchase mode from the look mode, I'll stop by Tuff for sure. Thanks!
Another option for you would be Hendrix Machinery out of Livingston, Tx. They have a website also. Google them and they should come up. I wouldn't be scared to buy a machine with wore undercarriage. You can sometimes buy machines right when they have wore out undercarriage and get the repairs done yourself and end up saving a lot of money.
I was thinking the same thing - if I could get a good machine with 40-50% UC AT the right price (while factoring in 5-6k$ for new parts), I might bite. I certainly don't want a dozer where the chains are ready to fall off the rollers though. Also don't want to buy a project. I need to put it to work right away. I'll check out Hendrix - thanks again John
If the d4c xl is a hysat one you won't have to worry about trans problems. the hysat's are a good thing from my experience.I have a d3c xl ,with rippers and love it.
The D4C can be either a Hystat or a conventional crawler. If it is a Hystat there will be decals on the machine saying and the shift handle for the transmission will be different. Hystats are not trouble free but they have solved many problems with them over the years. If you have a pump or motor shell out you basically can buy another machine for the cost of the repair. Most people don't run high hours on the juice boxes and try to get rid of them before the high dollar failures. Good Luck!
Hi John - never heard back from an email to the seller, so I guess this particular one is a no-go, but this is good education. Pondering on bidding tomorrow on a D39 with unfortunately no rippers.
D4c You'd love the D4C XL Powershift. I personally think you'd hate the hystat from that era. They are the ones that you had to move the joystick forward more to go faster. When you get into a hard push, they seem like they bog down. I rented one from Holt for a month once and couldn't wait to get rid of it. I never did find an application that it was suited for, not brush clearing, spreading, digging, ripping, or just pushing piles. My hand ached every day trying to keep a steady pace. I ran several powershifts after that (D4c and D5c) and loved them. They're stout machines. On the other hand, I have a D4G (which is a hystat) that I bought new in '03 and it will smoke any D4C Powershift at anything, pushing, piling, spreading, ripping, or brush clearing. The difference is the speed adjustment on the joystick. On this one, you have 3 positions; neutral, forward, and reverse, you don't have to hold it in one position The speed control is on two buttons on the joystick, just push one to speed up and one to slow down, at any time. It is a nice machine to run. I wish Cat would put it on their track loaders.