Hi Deas,I wish I could send you one so you could share the joy that we feel when you are in tune with your steed and all is well with the world.I have said many times that their dozers challange you to be your best,they say to you.........show me your stuff.Ask of me something that I cannot do and you smile.You know the feeling and it is the old timers that can appreciate what I am saying now,the old guys that grew up with the rough edges and kind of took it all in stride,we are the ones that smile the loudest because we are the ones that gained the most.
I remember in the fairly recent past that my searches for used equipment on the net have produced a couple of hits of Hyundai dozers and it appears that they build the smaller John Deeres as they are just about identical to the 450/650 that John Deere sells on their lot,at least the ones from the late '90s on are a pretty close copy.
I have heard that Liebherr makes the larger dozers for them but if you can find an Hyundai H70 or H80 locally that would be pretty close to what we have here although the Hyundai uses the 3.9 Cummins in the adds I have seen it is possible that the JD engine might be a little more powerful.
I chat with another gentleman in Australia who has some of his own equipment (a D8,a JD self propelled scraper etc.) although he is a farmer primarily and he tells me that Case is popular there for the smaller dozers.
We have quite a few of them here as well and the older ones were a bad joke,the newer ones appear to have been built offshore and they are not too bad.I tell him if he ran a John Deere the first thing he would do with it would be to dig a hole to bury the Case in. LOL
Enough ramblin',I know I come on strong for the JD but they sell a lot of them here,I would not be surprised that in the weight class we are talking about they might be the market leader here so I have a lot of company it appears.
I hope your paths will cross someday.
)Ron G