One thing to remember about the cats is that those 3408's are really expensive to rebuild. I was at a sale last spring where they had used runners, one was an old generator motor and no idea on the other, 1980's vintage first brought $15k, second bought $17k. We run a rainbow fleet, terex, euclid, cat trucks. We have a 769d and its an excellent truck have about 17k hours on it haven't touched anything other than a few hoses, been looking for rebuilt 3408E's, all i have found have been in the $35k range. If you are looking for a cheap truck or trucks, might look for terex 3350b's or tr35's. We run a pair of tr35's everyday, m11 cummins power, do alot better on fuel than our cat and are cheaper to work on.
The 3305b's are usually 8v-71t detriot power, although you can find some with 855 cummins. We bought a real nice truck for a spare for $10k, it needed some work but had 5 90% tires on it, though its detriot powered. its also not as big as the 769c, its like a 25-30 ton truck, where as the cat is a true 35 tonner.
The last truck i would look for on the cheap is a Euclid r35, 324td vintage. These are a true 35 tonner as well. We have had a couple of them. The have kt-19 cummins power, also expensive to rebuild, but we had good luck with K's. The problem we had was the connection to the allison atec tranny's. they are not protected the best and would get loose and lead to problems. I see you are in Iowa, Spreitzer inc ( Now Scott Van Kepper) was the dealer we used for our Euclid parts when we ran them everyday, they were pretty good haven't used them in along time though, since they were bought out.
The biggest thing i would tell you on what ever you decide to buy is to check out who your dealer is, and it you can find a terex or euclid dealer in your part of Iowa. If this day and age most equipment will do what you need it do no matter the name on it. It's all about dealer support. I am in within 90 mins of peoria, and we run that 769d and have a few old d400d's for moving overburden that's it, mainly to being treated poorly by a dealer.
One last thing if this is your first quarry experince, get ready for MSHA. Don't buy something that works, its going to have to pass noise and dust exposures, and those guys are out to write as much paper as they can. Good luck on what ever you decide to get, its all ways fun to buy big toys.
