I've finally retired my 550G pedal steer after many years of good service and am looking for a newer machine. I do a lot of custom work and do not want to buy an oversize permit so I'm limited to standard track smaller dozers. My ideal machine will have sweeps and EROPS with AC since I do a lot of land "beautification", it gets mighty hot here in the summer and I like the protection of an EROPS as protection from those ground bees when you disturb their nest and I've bent exhaust stacks driving under low branches. I want to get a little more grunt and thus am looking for a D5GXL or JD650 LT. I've narrowed down to these two brands for later resale value; parts and service availability. Right now my favorite candidate is the D5. It seems like it has more push vs. the Deere but the price on most used units is quite a bit higher. Right now I own a JD 310G which has been reasonably trouble-free except for cracking the interior stabilizer urethane piston bushing and causing the stabilizer to droop all the time and a Cat 311 excavator which has been relatively painless to own except for a broken hose once every blue moon. The old 550G was good except for worn blade pins. I'm the owner operator and pretty gentle with my equipment since I pay the repair bills. Any advise/experience that you can give would be greatly appreciated. I'm especially interested in repair and operational costs. I'm a low hourly user with a history of only 500-750 hours of dozer time/year so new doesn't make sense.
I have a D5G XL I bought new and the hour meter just turned 4K. It has been a great tractor. Easy on fuel and the A/C will freeze you out, by the coldest A/C of any machine I currently own. Other than undercarriage and maint., the most expensive repair I have had so far is a new muffler and the two main hyd lines to the rear drive motors. Total parts, including 10 gal hyd oil, $746 with another $500 in labor to my mechanic. I also had to replace one steel hyd line that runs down the c frame to the blade angle cylinder. IMO, this is the only engineering flaw I have found as rocks and debris can collect on top of this line, eventually rubbing a hole in the line. Other than that, the machine has been great. It's a fairly balanced dozer although it could use a few more pounds on the rear end. It's strong for it's size and very responsive. i would like to have some brush sweeps for mine.
If it were me, I would keep the simplicity and pedal steer of the "G" over any of the newer ones. I am biased though. Would love to have your low hour machine.
The G model had a lot of hours on it when it left...had a lot of hours when I bought it. I try to keep my equipment long after it's paid for, my '99 Dodge pickup has nearly 300,000 miles, gets over 20 MPG, leaks some oil, ....but no $800/month truck payment is nice. I agree that the pedal steer was a lot less complex but I've rented a couple of the new Deeres and Cats and like the ease of operation and control.
Right now I do like the Cat better than the Deere, have only found one within my price range - (50-65) with the EROPS and sweeps. All the others I've found are LGP (too wide for legal hauling), no sweeps with EROPS or sweeps with no EROPS.
After running pedal steer equipment for the last 20+ years, it would be very hard for me to get used to something else.
I couldn't agree more. I drive a 1982 VW pickup with the 1.6 diesel engine. It has just over 350k miles on it and gets me around 45mpg. When I change oil in it or other stuff, I actually pour the used oil back into the fuel tank and it burns it just fine. I always keep the ratio of used oil/clean fuel to no more than 2 gallons of oil per full tank of fuel which would be around 13 gallons. Like you said, NO truck payment!!!! P.S.-- I do filter the oil good before using it as fuel
At the risk of sounding like those who advocate the new M Series graders and their joy stick controls, rest assured, Dirtroad, that the CAT and Deere hydrostatics dozer controls will not leave you pining for foot steering in the least. That said, avoid early edit ion cat hystats with an adjustable tensioner for the LH joy stick. With Deere, watch the blower bearings for premature wear in my experience. And Deere does seem to be having something of a track control problem which has been discussed on previously on these pages.
I think the d5 and a deere 700 would be more of a fair compairison. I have not run the d5g but i have run a 650h and for fine grading this ia a great machine.
I had the pleasure of transporting a JD 850 years ago where one track was faster than the other. Made for an interesting time loading the machine backwards on the lowboy. I had heard of track speed problems on the H models that had to be solved by a trip to the dealer for a session with the computer but thought those problems had been cured in the J series.
I pulled the trigger on a 2005 D5GXL today. I had it inspected by the local cat dealer and they gave it a clean bill of health except for a door latch and burned out light. It seems like a good clean 1 -owner machine...not a rental and was taken care of. It's a low hour (for me) at 2400 and priced less than many around here that have twice the hours with a cosmetic overall applied to hide the actual wear. Here's a photo off the dealer website. View attachment dozer.jpg
Good looking rig from what I can see. You'll need that AC, it's 106 here today in Central Texas. Now build a heavy duty grille for it before you get into brush. That's the only weak thing that they come with and they're about $800 for a new one, or $1300 for a heavy duty one from Cat. Lot cheaper to build one out of 1/2" punched metal. Don't know if that year model had the electric priming pump on the fuel system(mounted on top of the water separator filter), but it's worth it when you change filters on them.
I agree about the AC. Local radio station just said it is 103 at DFW airport today which is about 70 miles from me. I found a couple around me well equipped EXCEPT for AC. I'm glad I waited since I don't handle the heat as well as I used to since I hit the big 50. Thanks for the suggestion about the grill. I have a 4 x 4 sheet of 1/2" plate laying down in the shop just waiting to be put to good use.
Congrats on the dozer. 2400 hours is just getting broke in, heck my D5G just turned 4000 hrs and still feels like new. The A/C system on the G series dozers will freeze your butt out of that cab. Of all my iron, it has the best A/C. I have not had to clean the evaporator coil on it since new and it's a 2004 model. In contrast, I have to clean the coils on my 953C every season, sometimes twice a season in order to get air flow. Just cleaned it last week and now it's frosty too. As far as the grill guard, my D5 has a heavy duty one that came on the machine. Mine could have been spec'd that way from the factory. The main thing with pushing brush with a dozer is keep the brush bundled up and in front of you. Think of corralling cattle when pushing brush, don't get too far into the pile in one place, back up and get the stragglers and keep the brush in a line. I believe you will be happy with your dozer. I enjoy running mine - it's fast, responsive, good on fuel and comfortable to operate. The only thing I would add to mine is a winch for the occasional extrication.
I'm glad you posted about cleaning the evap on your 953. It's been hotter than blue blazes here the past week and the 311's AC was just blowing cool. The pressures looked OK and I didn't even give much thought to the evap. coil. Once I finally got access to the box, I found that a mouse had made a nest right in front of the coil and it is plugged nearly solid with paper and dirt. Tomorrow my mission is vacuuming as much dirt off the coil as possible and then giving it a good chemical wash and rinse.
My plan today as well is to clean the coils on my T250. It's cold coming out of the vents but no volume of air, which is usually a sign of a plugged coil. What kind of chemical rinse do you use? I just use a wire brush (very gently) and compressed air. On the subject of animals and A/C components - yesterday I was servicing my pickup and noticed a bird fly into A/C condenser housing on the back of the cab on the D5G. Sure enough I walk over to take a look and there is a nest with 4 hungry heads sticking out of it. There is a perfect space for a bird to build a nest between the cab and the cover for the condenser, it's not the first time I have cleaned nests out of there. These guys get a reprieve the dozer doesn't have a job to go to soon.. Not the best picture -
I use an indoor non-rinsing coil cleaner for use on home indoor evaporator coils. Its a non-foaming, non acid cleaner that does a pretty good job of eating thru the dirt and crud. I mix it in, and apply it with a garden type sprayer. I get mine at Baker Distributing (an HVAC wholesale store) but most any HVAC contracting supply store should carry it. I normally use it on an indoor coil where the homeowner "forgot" to change filters for years and the result is a horseblanket on the indoor coil.
Here's a couple of photos of the new machine. It's an absolute dream to operate vs. the older machine, especially since I didn't have AC or stereo before. Since I bought it from a dealer and don't have the service records I'll have to change fluids and filters just for peace of mind and to establish a baseline for my own records. I let the wife play on it for a little bit and she told me that it was a great purchase.
Looks very nice!
Fine looking machine Dig...always nice to have the wife on board!
Ditto, nice purchase there!:drinkup I really like to run my D5G. Now I just need to find some brush sweeps, they really come in handy when clearing.
Dig- Have you parted with the 550G yet? I'm looking for one this size...
Sold to to a fellow from MS.