I can't seem to find the thread. After some major work, my son felt it needed paint. He has done most of the work. Dresser TD7G. Identical twin to the International TD7E. This one has wider tracks than it should. Willie
Pictures of my dozer I can't figure out how to post pictures.
A few parts missing yet. No decals yet. I figure it'll be filthy by the time all the details arrive.
Nice dozer how long did it take to paint I found a d5h to go look at when I get back in town
Is that a aftermarket seat? If so where'd you order it from? Ive got a td8g need a new seat in the worst way. Paint job looks great wish I had the engine covers for mine too
I bought, and refurbished a hot water pressure washer. If I recall it's 220 degree Fahrenheit, 3000 PSI 4 GPM. It did much of the work. Paint where rough, got stripped with a 9" paint stripping disc on a big Milwaukee grinder. Tried the 4" version, way too slow. Lots of parts to take off, I'd guess 40 man hours. Fixed a few issues in the process. Almost three gallons sprayed total. There's a lot of surfaces in one of these. [ Willie
I got the seat from Finney. They have NOS, and reproduction stuff. I think mine originally had the optional suspension seat, but by the time I got it the seat had been replaced with an old take out from some other machine. Quite a lot of hardware was missing to use a suspension seat. People leave them out in rain, and direct sun. Or worse, cover them encouraging mice to nest in them. Willie
That's where I was thinking of ordering 1 from. I believe mine had a suspension seat when new. But like yours all the hardware is gone & replaced with another seat of some sort. I like the way yours looks, believe you just confirmed a sale for Finney. Brandon
I've bought a number of things from Finney. They've been great. In the spring I lost a pin from the C arm. It allowed the C arm to hit track, damaging the tube for the right angle cylinder. After waiting months for a hydraulic rebuilder, I went looking for a new one. Somebody in California had 3 NOS cylinders. $2400. was too much to pay, but I consented. It arrived with the keeper bolt hole off center. I looked the situation over, yes, I could fabricate a new pin to fit the cylinder. It was too much to pay for a cylinder that wasn't right. They checked, two more were also bad. I proposed that I could make it work, but I wanted a reduced price. They got huffy about it, I sent the cylinder back. Finney said they had a used cylinder in excellent condition. With shipping it came to $800. They charged my credit card, and notified me it had been shipped. Repeated efforts to track it failed. Eventually, they admitted they never shipped it. It took forever, several phone calls to get a refund. Willie
I have always liked those dozers . Looks great nice work .
Here, we are overrun with Deere dozers. US Forest Service timber sales used to specify a dozer had to meet certain specifications. John Deere 350 series exactly fit those specs. A logger could make a living logging private land, or get rich logging federal. My Dresser was bought new by a one man excavating company doing mostly home sites. 3400 hours.
MO Dept of Conservation/Forestry is the same here. See tons of Deere machines, used to be Allis prior to the FA merger, seems the spec sheets state everything but the Deere numbers.
I believe USFS has had few timber sales in twenty years. Any they have had are for wildlife habitat. The fifty years preceding that specifications were written to exclude all but one logger. He made millions on US Forest Service timber sales. Willie
It's near finished. A seat belt this morning, a used dipstick tube, a latch. I think I got the tracks too tight. Willie
way too tight.. back em down a bit...
I thought so. Haven't worked it since, but backing up is noisy. Willie
Very nice, but I agree should be a little sag on those rails!!
I usually put a 2x4 from the front roller to the first front idler on top and look for about 2 inches of sag from the bottom of the wood to top of the track....
Tracks look to tight from here. I've always liked those little dozers.
I loosened them up before using it
Willie, looks good. The track spec is 1" to 1-1/2" sag front idler to top idler after trying to climb a block to tighten the bottom. gg
I'm now in that range. I'm building a log arch for it. The welding has been thus far, a lesson in distortion. I've used 1 x 5 stock to make two vertical plates to bolt to the rear. Two 1" holes in each, four 3/4" holes in each. Between groups of holes a massive 1 x 5 was morticed into each upright. I was proud of myself at guestimating it'd shrink 3/32 in height when welded. Bolt spacing is now perfect up, and down. It wasn't quite flat where it mates to the crawler, so i cut, and welded to true it up. A bit of grinding, it's perfect. Putting in a crossmember of 1/2" wall 4" square tubing, I didn't guess as well. I figured 1/8" shrink, It shrunk 1/4". Bolts don't line up. If I have to cut to align it so be it. I'm getting hooked on dual shield. It's like stick welding with an automatic transmission. Willie
Looks like you did a nice job on it. I am not too far from you. I snowmobile in the Mt Tabor area. I put in at Bromely. Did you find that machine locally ? What do the Dressers run in price compared to JD's ?
Private sale from Whitehall NY. I'm not convinced the manufacturer makes a whole lot of difference in price. Most crawlers this old are very tired. A few sellers try to conceal how badly worn their tractor is. I don't believe anything was hidden with this one, but there were still a lot of things needed doing.
It sure does look nice Willie! Brings back good memories. The TD7e was the first track machine I ran...1978ish I think.
The dozer really turned out great ! Nice work Willie B .
Machine looks great! Would love to see pics of the logging arch. Did you find a winch for your TD? Darryl
A good friend had two TD7Es. He died in his late eighties. Now his son has one, his brother has the other. They are idlers. Diesels are better off running than not is the whole family's firm belief. They start a machine if they think there is a chance it'll be used that day. If they don't use it, they've been known to forget, and leave it running all night. One shows 27000 hours. It has had several partial undercarriages. I don't think the IH engine (3.9 litre) has been apart. I don't see much change in the TD7G. The G has a 3.9 Cummins. Willie
That sounds like the brothers I bought my 955 from! Their father instilled in them the conviction that you might not need that machine every day, but by golly it had better work when you do need it! Though they didn't use it enough which is, I'm sure, why all the cylinder's weep....
I can't seem to add text. My first project with heavy steel, and Dual Shield welding. It has been pretty welds on lighter stuff. I had a few blunders to hide, and significant distortion to correct to make bolt holes line up. Note the temporary spreader bar. I used a 20 ton hydraulic jack to spread, so bolts would line up. It's a log arch to lift butts over stumps, and rocks, instead of hanging up. Also it gets the choker further away from the tracks in tight turns. Maybe a winch in the future. Willie
Usually when welding on the heavier materials I will tack weld the fixed point to a welding table then as finish out the welds take it loose to see where the distortions lie, in that respect can add final beads to cause a draw away from the distortion direction.
I used strategy, it proved to be flawed strategy. I morticed the horizontal plates through the vertical. I wanted full penetration welds, so i blew out the back side of the mortises. to get me all the way in. It made for a big weld, biggest at the surface where it mated to the tractor. This pulled the plates quite concave where they should be very flat. To attempt to pull them back to flat I piled a bunch of weld on the face side. That worked somewhat. I have a 12 ton press in the garage, a 20 ton out back, a little hard to get to. 12 tons was not nearly enough to move them at all. Rosebud tip on acetylene torch only a dull red, and localized, failed to pull. I should have combined press, and rosebud. Then I bolted them to the tractor, and tacked the cross tube. I hoped distortion would be minimal as they were welded on all sides. It wasn't a lot, but enough so bolts wouldn't line up. Next one will be done in a different way.
What is this device on the back of the dozer for?
"It's a log arch to lift butts over stumps, and rocks, instead of hanging up. Also it gets the choker further away from the tracks in tight turns. Maybe a winch in the future." Chaining trees to the drawbar caused them to plow a furrow, and get snagged on every root, rock, and stump. This will tend to lift the butt end over obstacles. Also, it's a little farther back allowing clearance between choker, and tracks.
You have plenty of iron in that arch Willie. Seeing it reminded me that I took a picture of a dozer arch in an antique logging museum out in Northern Cal. when I was visiting our daughter. The winch is missing. Made for big wood to say the least.
That is one serious piece of iron! Was the winch on the tractor? or one of those manual crank things on the arch. I don't think it is suited to VT side hills. About a 10% sidehill, that thing is going to be on its side. What is the crawler? it says thirty, is it an oliver?
Looks good. Using chains with slip hooks...dropping chain in notches- simple but effective! Seen skidding plates for 3pt hitches like that...another project in my bucket list. Darryl
At Marden's a sort of surplus what have you store I found cable chokers. They have a quick attach knob at one end, and a forged widget that slides on the cable, the knob drops into the forged slide. On the other end is 3/8 grade 70 chain maybe 5 links. I've coupled this chain to 5 more feet of 70. No hook on that end. Drop it in, I'm hooked.
Side view Front view of the same model but a different tractor gg
Willie forgot to add: I was told the winch was on the arch but was driven by the tractor pto gg.