The 39 is my machine and I have the D65 leased. Its quite a nice machine. Seems to have plenty of power and the cab is nice. Its the first time I ever used a ripper. It works well in this hard pack clay.
Great combination & nice machines . Working on a pond/ lake project ?
It's a 3 to 3.5 acre lake dam rehabilitation.
Hopefully the weather will cooperate for you and the big rain monsoons are over . We scoped out a site for a 1 acre pond & dam yesterday . Usually in August the ground is bone dry and the clay turns in to adobe . This year with all the late rain fall moisture content should be about perfect for dam building .
When I ordered the machine the forecast was clear for 7 days. I received it Monday at 4 in the afternoon. It rained 2 " Tuesday night , 2" Thursday and right now its still nasty. I hate to put high moisture material in the dam. I won't. The clay I am working in is good for the project. I'm going out after lunch to fire into it again and will get more pics.
Some pics of the job. And note the u/c rail , looks identical to a system one cat. It has the standard idlers and rollers. It does ride smooth. The dash is a little to complicated as far as I'm concerned.
Looking good Dickjr ! I was curios how much rain you got out of the last storm . We were on the northern edge of it and ended up getting about 1 1/2 inch total . I would be totally lost on the D65 with the digital screen ....... Probably would not even know how to start it . LOL ! So you are repairing the dam . Damage from livestock ?
This was once a small pond then the owner raised the dam. He worked out on the road and the dam washed out , he didn't know it. 7 years later it was reduced to a small pool. Last fall I repaired that break. It held fine. He decided to raise it about 6 feet and the dam is about 400' long. The type material I have to work with is good for dam building. Packs like concrete. The 65 is a nice machine, I don't know much about the dash either. It has F1 thru F6 functions with sub modes blah blah. I can make it go forward and back so I guess that's good for now. I was looking at this class machine , Case , Cat and Komatsu , the Komatsu has a 11 liter engine , Cat is 8.8 and Case is 6.7. I know the Cat has decent power , but the Case with the 6.7 seems like it would be under powered.
Sounds like you have some of the same type of ground we have . That clay is pretty forgiving & excellent for building . The D65 looks & sounds like the perfect machine for the job . It would take me a little while to get used to the digital & push button controls . If it don't have steering clutches I'm lost