Bringing Her Home

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CuttingEdge
2010 crawler
2010 crawler
Posts: 534
Joined: Wed Sep 03, 2014 5:13 pm
Location: Maine

Bringing Her Home

Post by CuttingEdge » Tue Mar 15, 2016 4:56 am

Bringing home my latest bulldozer; a 1988 John Deere 350D with 6 way blade today. It has been 2 years in the making for buying this particular crawler.

It is not my first, I got my affinity for John Deere Crawlers when I was a kid when my father bought a 1965 John Deere 1010 bulldozer with outside blade. Compared to the 1958 Ford 900 we were using, that was a dream pulling out wood, using a scoot in the winter mostly for long logs. Even today I can remember the staggering pile of wood behind it and how easily that crawler dragged out the wood.

My next crawlers was a John Deere 350C track loader. That worked well for clearing trees and stumps along the outside of my fields, but struggled in the woods. When it had valve issues shortly after buying it, I sold it and after that rented or borrowed crawlers as I needed them. One was a Cat D-4, another a John Deere 350B, and another was a John Deere 850C. All worked well.

But it is time for my own. I would say 80% of our woodlot here is unharvestable with my Kubota 2900. It tends to be wet ground even though we live on a huge hill, and a lot of the wood is big; too big for my small Kubota to pull, much less in mud and deep snow.

I NEED TRACKS!

So this should work well for me I think. It's a good dozer, well maintained with 100% undercarriage; new sprockets, rollers, idlers, pins, bushings, links and grouser pads all new. As for defects, it has some that I will need your help addressing.

Worn bushings on the main blade pivot pin
Worn bushings where the blade mounts to the main frame
Slight coolant leak (weeping water pump perhaps)
Torn seat

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Paul Buhler
350 crawler
350 crawler
Posts: 991
Joined: Wed May 21, 2008 6:25 pm
Location: Killington, VT

Post by Paul Buhler » Tue Mar 15, 2016 4:50 pm

Torn seat: gaffer tape for now; one down. Good luck with your new machine.
Paul Buhler
Killington, VT
420c 5 roll with 62 blade, FOPS, and Gearmatic 8a winch

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CuttingEdge
2010 crawler
2010 crawler
Posts: 534
Joined: Wed Sep 03, 2014 5:13 pm
Location: Maine

Post by CuttingEdge » Wed Mar 16, 2016 5:22 am

Hey thanks, I did forget a major issue though...well major expense and pain in the rump to fix, and that is excessive slop in the blade control lever. The previous owner said he looked into fixing it and the parts alone was $1000!

I HATE SLOP in control levers so I was thinking maybe drilling the control lever bores out over sized and then user bigger diameter roll pins?

Is this a good plan?

It seems like a good compromise; fix the problem yet at a reasonable cost. My only issue is that at some point that can no longer be done and the parts will be completely impossible to buy, where as now I can get them. But seriously, $1000 for a control lever linkage?

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Lavoy
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Post by Lavoy » Wed Mar 16, 2016 8:24 am

Not a lot of meat in the parts to go oversize. What I do is plug weld them shut, then bore to original size.
Lavoy
Parts and restoration for antique and late model John Deere crawlers.
Owner and moderator www.jdcrawlers.com

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CuttingEdge
2010 crawler
2010 crawler
Posts: 534
Joined: Wed Sep 03, 2014 5:13 pm
Location: Maine

Post by CuttingEdge » Thu Mar 17, 2016 4:43 am

That is a lot better idea. Thanks Lavoy, I have not got much operating time on it yet, but I can see there is a lot of slop in the control lever.

The center pivot pin and the pins and bushings on the main frame for the blade are worn too. More than I would like anyway. Now that it is home I must look it over and start taking inventory of everything that needs fixing and get a plan together to fix them.

I am a strange bird; I like working on old stuff and bring it back so it works like it did out of the factory (or better). You don't know how many times scrap iron con-artists have shown up wanted the "junk steel on the rock wall", and I have had to tell them we still use it. Equally I have seen their trucks go up over the hill laden with perfectly good 3 point plows, bush-hogs and the like, and in some of that old stuff, you just can't get the quality castings now like they made then.

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