Couple questions here. I am looking at an old D7E to buy. UC is about 50%, blade is good, home made canopy, power shift, hydro, no tilt, hitch, no winch or ripper, runs good. I am curious of what something like this might be worth? Also, we are inching closer to a job on my place making two ponds. My thought was to use the dozer to push all the top soil off the pond areas, push top soil from the berm areas I am adding with the spoil, and put the top soil back and shape. I can pretty closely estimate time for a scraper, hoe, etc, but how do you look at this with a dozer? Soil is sandy loam, figuring 1ft depth, 1 acre total area to push. Any considerations on this? Or too damn fast to even worry about?
D7E is hell of a machine. Value depends on undercarriage, whether it is 160 or 180 horse. No tilt blade to me, is a real negative. I would hook pan behind D7 or D8 here to strip top soil and stock pile. Than do cuts and fills the same way. I can cut and haul with pans a whole lot faster than I can push be it with D7's or D8's
I do not have a pan found yet but the areas I need to clear for berm areas are only 50ft wide by 1000ft long. I am hoping the pushing method is most efficient here. I REALLY wish I had an angle blade on the machine for this. I would be interested to hear strategies for this. I can give up a little dirt on one side and kind of planned to push one side, then step over in small increments but deep cuts to get the dirt to roll to one side like I want. Angle blade would just run sweet here. All this soil is sandy loam so should push like butter.
Angle blade not good.These old machines are great if taken care ofPrice vary for alot of reasons.Under carrage is problay the first if overal machine is in good shape.I would think a average E would sell for 20,000 plus or minus all day long.
One acre seems small enough that a dozer alone should work just fine. An angle blade is OK for landscaping, etc. But for really moving dirt the dozer on your 7E will really produce. I have operated 7E's with a 435 scraper and with a semi-u dozer. Loved them, great tractors!
I don't have a pan for the machine but hopefully will have a scraper around soon to help. I was looking to the dozer to just push the dirt that will stay local around the pond and use a scrap for any distance of travel. I am curious what things I need to watch for on the D7E? We just got this one running and I am pretty happy so far. The track idler carriages are about 1" from the front edge of the rails so I am not sure how much life that really is but I only need about 100hrs from the machine right now. I have heard horror stories about the rear sprocket shaft bearings going out and was told to look for leaks. One side is bone dry, the other seems "moist" but has never dripped. Actually looks like the case half gasket might seep a little. When we got to the machine, the hydro tank was so low that the cylinders would not operate. Could not find anything seriously leaking but we added 5 gal of oil and it started working again. From what I understand, the weak point in the trans system is the converter and when they get weak, the oil temp rises? I was not able to work this one much but felt pretty solid.