Almost bought another John Deere 350 Straight today, and it's somewhat interesting how it happened. A buddy of mine sent me a link to an auction on govdeals.com; at first glance it was a roached old dozer that had been sitting forever, and the bid was only $1,225 with a day left on the auction. It was listed as a 1969 John Deere T4F3D, which sounded familiar, because it's the same designation my 1967 JD 350 Straight has on the data tag. After I checked the serial number, I figured it was a 1970 John Deere 350 Straight; one of the last ones made. And it looked like hell because it was painted olive drab! Yep, military surplus, and that usually means low hours and well-cared for, at least when the military owned it. And then I realized it was only about 45 minutes southwest of me, in the tiny town (population 1,365) of La Coste, Texas. I figured it was worth a look, so my buddy and I went this afternoon to check it out. Damn thing has only 440 hours on it! And the undercarriage is in excellent condition, too. The engine wasn't frozen; I was able to turn it by hand. Has a 6 way blade, too.
Tach location is interesting; down by your feet. Anyway, it was owned by the city of La Coste; apparently it was purchased from Lackland AFB years ago. However, when the operator had a heart attack in about 2018, it sat idle, and critters chewed on the wires. I didn't have time to try to get it running; would have needed to jump it off the solenoid, which I was prepared to do, but I didn't have wires available to hot wire the Stanadyne injection pump (it needs 12V to operate). But at that point, I knew I wanted to put in a serious bid on it. At the very least, I knew it was worth several thousand in parts, and if the engine or trans was junk, I wanted the single grouser track shoes for my JD 350 (it has loader shoes). With 1 minute or so to go, the high bid was $1,300, so I threw up a bid of $4,511, thinking I was going to win it, but the high bidder's high bid was $3,700, so I was the high bidder, but at $3,700. And then he started bidding in increments until he was the high bidder at $4,561. I tapped out, and I'm not regretting it, but I sure would have liked to have won the auction. I'm sure he's pissed that I showed up and bid; otherwise, he probably would have won it at $1,225. So, did I screw up by not bidding more? I'm thinking this could be a better machine than mine that I paid $8,500 for a few weeks ago, but that's hard to tell. Mine runs and operates, but needs new track shoes before I put it to work.
Hard to say what shape it was in. You can certainly still use your dozer with triple grouser shoes. It just won't have as much traction so you take shallower bites.
Yeah, you're right on that. Too bad I didn't run across it a few weeks ago. Understood on the shoes. I could always try it out as-is. Thanks
Think I would have kept bidding up to 5500! Easily worth it, either way just the undercarriage.
I bet the steering clutches are frozen.
You have an excellent point. It's got dry steering clutches and it's been sitting for about 8 years.
I hear you, and if I had more bandwidth, I probably would have upped my bid, but work is crazy now, I have my other JD 350 to work on, and I need to get back to work on my 24 Hours of Lemons '72 Javelin road racer.