recommended best older small dozer

[case310350]

Looking for recommendations on an older smaller dozer. I had a case 350 which was nice, sorta wish I never sold it. Like the 450C Case, its about as big as I would go. I suspect most here use bigger dozers, but any input on the subject would be great.

 

[Bluetop Man]

Hand clutch D4. Not much to go wrong you can't fix yourself.

 

[g_man]

I bought a Dresser TD7G. It's a 1990 vintage. 70 hp cummins, 14K lbs, 6 way blade. My first dozer so I don't know much.

But originally I was looking for a JD450C or Cat D3. Could not find one that seemed worth the money they wanted. So I bought the TD7G and put on new rails and sprockets for less money than an "as is" JD450C. I am glad I went with the Dresser. It runs and works great, is easy to work on, about 20 years newer than a JD450C, and Komatsu has had all the parts I have needed.

 

[oceanobob]

JD 450G torque converter and 4 spd shift on the fly transmission, the last 'mechanical' drive dozer before the H which has the hydraulic drive motors. Not too many Case around here.

 

[22a]

Cat D4D or a Fiat 70CI.

 

[stumpjumper83]

deere 450c - 650g are all good tractors. The 450b's is good except it has dry steering clutches that are more suceptible to problems than the wet ones. That being said cat ran dry clutches i think up to the c series I belive, but i'm not a cat guru.

IH/dresser made a nice product, but parts tend to be more expensive and harder to get than deere or cat.

Cat in my opinion produced the little dozers, but focused on the larger ones, leaving them a little behind the competition in that field.

Case is ok I guess never seen enought of them to draw an opinion, other than that they have a unique steering system, that has a learning curve that I havent mastered

 

[Bluetop Man]

The 350 and 450 older CASE dozers with the gonads steering system always got high marks from people who owned them . I would stay away from the newer machines. I had an eyewitness report of CASE and Komatsu coming off the same assembly line in the mid 90's.

 

[TozziWelding]

Deere 350 or 450, good little machines, and easy to work on.

 

[Greg]

Cat D3 is great little machine.

Tozzi, I beg to differ on the easy to work on about the 450 deeres. My experience they are a real rotten little bitch to work on.

 

[johndeere123]

I've ran and worked on a Deere 350C and it seems to be a great little machine.

 

[hilton850]

we have a case 450D with a 6 way blade and have owned it for about 25 years...I'm going to guess it's a late 70's or early 80's model. We've had a couple issues, the biggest one being rebuilding the engine last year and in hindsight that may have been avoidable - we had a bad water pump which we thought we had fixed but I think it got run low on coolant once before we changed the pump, which led to a blown head gasket which put coolant in the oil and the rest is history. All that being said parts are easy to get and relatively inexpensive. I personally like the way the case operates, one reason is ours has not had any brakes at all since we've owned it and I don't even miss them. Another thing is if you have the right setup you can haul it behind a pickup. I like our case better than the neighbor's JD350 but that's the only other small dozer I've operated. With my limited experience I vote case 450.

 

[pp13bnos]

I have to give a vote for the D3. I have a series 2, and parts are easy to get, and for the most part its fairly easy to work on too. Except one starter bolt that is right next to the frame. That one bolt, nearly made me bald, and grey. Ohh wait, never mind, I was already like that. There are alot of machines out there, I guess it just depends on your budget, and just how old you want to go.

 

[JMJ_D31]

My vote is the komatsu D31. Im surprised no one else has chimed in for the Komatsu. To be honisted my D31 is the only dozed I have ever operated so I'm probably not the best one to get advice from. I have to say I really like my 1985 D31.

 

[_Rod]

I also vote for the Komatsu D31. Our is a 1996 model and a real work horse.

 

[td9clyde]

TD 9 the old start on gas switch to deisel style good lil tractors hard to beat run forever and they aren't bad if you run it once in a while if it's an everyday thing it gets old i have done that before and you can do all the matainace yourself

 

[Bluetop Man]

Stay away from the used 350 and 450 Deeres with shuttle shift trannys. If they very many hours on them, the discs are probably already glazed, and you don't want to the the sucker who came along at the right time, trust me. This problem was recently discussed here. Don't let it happen to you. The CAT D3 of yore has a rock-solid torque convertor. That's where I stick my money if I wanted powershift.

 

[pafarmer]

John Deere 450J LT gets my vote for top contender for small frame dozer. From a mid size up ie. CAT D6 and up I switch over to CAT for best of breed........my .02

farmer

 

[Andre Grondin]

Hi !

I own a 1966 350 straight dozer with a 6 way blade ! very nice machine easy to fix
very versatile hydraulic reverser I love it !!

parts are pretty easy to get

 

[tuney443]

Stay away from the used 350 and 450 Deeres with shuttle shift trannys. If they very many hours on them, the discs are probably already glazed, and you don't want to the the sucker who came along at the right time, trust me. This problem was recently discussed here. Don't let it happen to you. The CAT D3 of yore has a rock-solid torque convertor. That's where I stick my money if I wanted powershift.

Sorry,NOT true at all.I've had 350 and 450 B's,C's and D's the last 34 years with absolutely no issues from the reversers,tranny's, or anything else for that matter in thousands of hours. I use mine regularly from basement excavations to stumping and heavy pushing,it's definitely NOT just a topsoil princess for sure.IMHO the very best small dozer class alive.You can keep your powershift trannys and that goes for Deere also.

 

[pafarmer]

Sorry,NOT true at all.I've had 350 and 450 B's,C's and D's the last 34 years with absolutely no issues from the reversers,tranny's, or anything else for that matter in thousands of hours. I use mine regularly from basement excavations to stumping and heavy pushing,it's definitely NOT just a topsoil princess for sure.IMHO the very best small dozer class alive.You can keep your powershift trannys and that goes for Deere also.

Agreed 2X..350's and 450's are a great machine. I have owned numerous of each over the years.