Hi all, been reading here for a while, only posted a few times. I bought a very clean low hour Dressta TD7M dozer this summer. It only had 245 hours on it and as expected is pretty much like new other than the usual scratches. It works excellent and is a lot more machine than the Deere 450B that it replaced. Very pleased thus far. I changed the engine oil and filter, fuel filter, hydraulic filter and the transmission filter. The fluids for the hydraulics and transmission looked very good. Checked the oil in the final drives and it is also clean. Antifreeze looks nice and clean and tests OK. My question is with the low hours but 4 year time span, should I go ahead and change the tranny, hydraulic and rear drive fluids? This is a farm dozer, not a production machine. It sits in a 3 sided equipment shed, not an enclosed building so it sees temp changes. Plus any info on where to find manuals would be helpful. Dressta quoted me a bit over $600 for operators, repair and parts manuals. I have found enough on line for the cummins engine. Thanks in advance for any help!
Correct me if I am wrong storm56, but did you not answer a couple of your questions? You asked if you should change the fluids due to being a low hour machine but being a 4 year time span, your previous paragraph stated you changed the engines oil and filter; checked the hydros and tranny fluid which you said is ok; final drives are clean and antifreeze is good. I would imagine if you checked them, and you are satisfied, well, you should be good. BUT....I personally would change the fluids you haven's changed yet. That way, there should be no question in your mind that they are good. As far as manuals, I cant help. Hope that helps.... Regards, YID
storm56.....pull oil samples on all fluids...and they will tell you what u need to no........
Well kind of. Fluids did look fine, although my senses fall short of a lab analysis. I like most here do a bunch of reading on the net. Spent some time over on "Bob is the oil guy forum" recently. Bunch of guys there pretty much feel the time factor in determining OCI's is BS. Many based their opinions on lab tests done on oils that did more sitting around than lubricating. Bottom line is that they all tested fine and had much usable life left. I changed the filters on the hydro & tranny because that was what a mechanic friend suggested, he felt the oils would be fine for a few hundred more hours. He suggested changing everything at 750 hours which for me will be like 3-4 years. Dressta recommends these fluids be changed at 1000 hours, no mention of time. I always like input when making a decision such as this, that is why I asked. Cost of fluids to change these items will be over $500. I do not mind spending the money if it is necessary, just hate throwing money out the window, or in my case powering my friends waste oil burner. If I would not have to change the fluids, those bucks would go a long way towards buying those manuals I mentioned.
I could do that, any idea on a testing facility? Never had a reason to test like this before.
Look around on e-bay and you might get a deal on manuals. Oil is cheap repairs aren,t I keep everything in a closed shed and do extend change periods.We use then on the farm and run 60 to75 hrs each yr.