What to do, 2010 or 350???

[reb]

Hello,
I am a farmer in Nebraska and I need to do some small tree removal in my CRP. I havent run or been around any crawler loader tractors before. Im trying to decide if I should pursue a 350 or a 2010. These are the crawler loaders that seem to be in my price range. I would like to know what is different (updated)about the 350 (pre wet clutch) machines. Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks, Ross/Nebraska

[Tigerhaze]

Hi Ross-

I struggled with this myself and ended up with the 2010 more out of availability of a particular 2010 in my area more than anything else. I probably could write a lot about this, but will try to keep it short. I will assume you are looking at a diesel crawler loader.

Parts availability may be one of your biggest considerations. Sprockets and front idlers are hard to come by but are still available as NOS or used parts- there are no new aftermarket for these. They are more expensive than 350 sprockets or front idlers. I believe rollers are interchangeable and available. The late 2010 rails, pads, and bushings are same as early 350 rails and bushings.

There were only around 8000 2010s made, so parts machines are becoming harder to come by.

One of the main differences is the 350 uses a 3-cylinder diesel whereas the 2010 has a 4-cylinder diesel. I have heard better things about the 4-cylinders than 3-cylinder diesels, but I have no specific knowledge to back that up. I believe both use the same H-L-R transmission with reverser. I think the final drives are different but am not sure.

I'm sure we can add more to this list as we think about it. My general opinion (not having owned or used a 350) is that if you want a unique machine go with a 2010 and if you want one with better parts availability go with a 350.

[Lavoy]

Just a couple of things to add.
350 will have only a reverser, whereas the 2010 had the availability of the HLR transmission. If you want this transmission in a later crawler, go to a 450.
As far as the 3 cylinder, I know one John Deere historian that made the remark that that basic 3 cylider engine is probably one of if not the best engine Deere ever produced. It was used in the 350 crawler, but it and it's variations were used in tens of thousands of wheel tractors, aftermarket applications, and a host of other things I am forgetting.
Lavoy

[reb]

I have a 1530 wheel tractor with the 3cyl diesel. Dad bought it around 1980 for running grain augers and odd jobs around the farm. Its been a real reliable tractor. Its my understanding that 3cyl engines are naturally balanced but 4cyl engines are not.

Im kind of leaning towards the 2010. The difference in price would buy a lot of parts. especially if you compare the 2010 to the 450.
Ross

[reb]

I

[Tigerhaze]

Lavoy and these other guys know these machines well- I learn new stuff on here every day about my machine and the other ones. I had thought the 350 had the H-L-R, but it's good to know that it's only on the 450. It gets sort of confusing to me because the 450 was supposedly the sucessor of the 2010 (the 350 the sucessor of the 1010) but the late 2010 undercarriage is similar to the early 350.

One thing I can say with certainty; if you end up going with a 2010 just to save money you should make pretty darn sure it has a good running engine, decent shifting transmission, and a good undercarriage. Any one of these things can put you back several thousand dollars if you need to fix them (or a lot more if several things go bad at once), and you may not even be able to find new parts for some of it such as undercarriage.

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

Keep in mind that Deere was upping the ante when they dropped the 1010, 2010 and 3010 crawlers for the JD 350, 450 and 550 line. Everything moved up a notch, so the 350 is really more like the 2010 successor and there really is no successor to the 1010 at that point. The 550 came in to replace the still-born 4010 crawler, which they made very few of. This was all part of the split between the Ag and Ind lines that started with the 440.

That said, the 3-cyl and 4-cyl engines from the 350 and 450 lines made it into the Ag line as well. I had a 1520 Ag tractor that had the same engine as my 350 crawler. Lots of torque and power, and they had very few issues.

In fact, those engines still exist. All four models of the 5003 and the upper two models of the 5025 Ag tractor lines still use the 3-179 and the 4-246 engine variants today.

In fact, I went and bought a new 5103 just yesterday morning. I'm back into haying, and the 4-cyl Yanmar engine in my 4500 is just a little too low on torque to handle the 248 baler when the hay gets dense, so I traded it in on a new 5103 with the turbocharged 3 cyl 179 in it. That'll do the hay baling job just fine without the whole machine being too big and clumsy for the other jobs. Oh, and the 5103 is pretty much the same thing as the old 1520, which is why I bought it.

As an aside, the 5003 series is an odd duck these days. It's all mechanical, whereas most of the other tractors in the Deere lineup have electronic control systems. Heck the things even have steel fenders on them, and I haven't see those on a Deere in years.

Stan

[Tigerhaze]

So how many 3010 crawlers were made? As of now I hadn't even heard of them. Were they just a ag crawler with 3-point or did they actually come with loader or dozer options? It seems to me that would be a heck of a collectible, as well as the 4010!

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

I never had a reference for the production numbers of the 3010. Originally, they were in the same boat as all the early industrial units: they were Ag machines to begine with and industrial versions were just painted yellow, although sometimes with modifications.

I bet that if we were to enter the Wayback Machine, we'd see that the real cause of the change was that the Dubuque plant was moving under Corporate direction from making the smaller machines (both Ag and Ind) to being a major player in the Industrial equipment world.

That would have left the 3010 and 4010 crawlers orphans, since their base machines came from the Waterloo, now big-time Ag only, side of the operation. The change would entice Dubuque into making their own variants of the larger machines (the 450 and 550) and, at the same time, entice Waterloo to drop the crawler versions of the 3010 and 4010.

As far as production numbers go, I only ever saw two 3010 crawlers. They were both owned by the same dairy farm and used as Ag tractors (no loader or dozer) in the fields that bordered a rather large swamp. It was a fairly large dairy in our area (15k acres), and it sat in a valley between two sizable hills, hence the tendency to be wet in spots and why they wanted a couple Ag crawlers on hand when working some particularly damp fields.

Given the numbers of all the other models I've seen around, the fact that there were only those two 3010's around makes me think that there were not very many made before the change occured in Deere's corporate planning.

Maybe someone out there has a reference for those production numbers. There's an awful lot of Deere history books, and one of them must mention these things.

Stan

[Lavoy]

The 1010 became the 350, late 1010's and early 350's even share a couple of transmission parts, and are about the same HP. The 2010 became the 450, they share the same transmisison, and are close in HP.
To the best of my knowledge, there was never a production 3010 crawler. I have never seen any literature, serial number references, sales pages, or any other written reference as to their existence. The only reference I have ever seen is one factory photograph that shows a 1010, 2010, and 3010 crawler in a line. It is a black and white photo, with no identifying info at all.
Until now, I have never heard any reference to a 4010 crawler, and doubt there was ever one. By the time the 350 and 450 crawler came out, the 10 series tractors had been out of production for a couple of years, and the 20 series tractors had been introduced.
I don't know enough about the 550 crawlers, but my impression is that they were not introduced until well into the 70's after the new gen tractors had come out.
If someone has any printed factory references to a 3010 crawler, let me know, I would like to read it.
Lavoy

[Tigerhaze]

This was on the Johnny Popper website about the 3010:

"While shown at the big introduction of New Generation series in 1960, the 3010 Wheel wasn't actually produced until January of 1961. There were no crawler versions of the 3010 Industrial produced, although there was an experimental crawler built."

How would you like to have that experimental crawler? It probably belongs in a museum somewhere.

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

I know that some 3010 crawlers were produced. At least two, anyway. My uncle sold two of them out of his Deere dealership in Pine Plains, NY to what was once Stockbriar Farm.

Of course, the dairy farms in that neck of the woods are gone some 30 years now, and the big old place has been cut up into dozens of smaller horse farms. I have no idea where the crawlers might have got to. Probably coming back to us as Mahindra tractors or something like that.

I also saw one 4010 crawler. Ken Canary in Amsterdam, NY had one in his Deere collection. He was the Deere dealer (and like us a full dealer, Agricultural, Industrial, Commercial and Residential) there and a big collector. He died 20 years ago, as I recall, so who knows where the thing is now.

What might have happened, is that Deere announced the things and then had to fill a few early-bird orders for them before giving up on the idea. I know that the guy that ran Stockbriar always had to be the first person to get anything new that came out.

Stan

[Tigerhaze]

That's pretty neat stuff Stan- if you ever track down any additional information I'm sure most of us would be interested in seeing it.

[NNAATZ]

kind of off subject and out of text but, i heard of a 'G' crawler alive and well in northeast IA. one of two made rumored

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

I doubt I'll ever come up with anything more on these things. I now live 700 miles away from the scene, so to speak. That farm is long gone, now, anyway. I used to work there after school and during our two weeks off in the spring and fall (planting and harvesting 'vacations', as it were) when I was in High School.

They were originally a dairy, but then switched to beef production before the end came. Now it's a bunch of little horse farms for the weekend folks that come up out of New York City. My main job was to help service equipment, but there were plenty of times I had to take one of the crawlers out to unstick a tractor from a field. That's how I became so familiar with them.

I have no clue what happened to most of the people that worked that place, much less the equipment. In fact, I can say that about most of the farms and folks I knew. All but one of the hundereds of farms around there are gone; turned into weekend horse farms or just grown up with weeds and small trees now. It's rather sad, actually.

The odd part is that, until very recently, I never knew that those 3010 crawlers were such a rare beast. I guess seeing two locally all those years made me think of them as pretty much common like the wheel tractors they were made from (you know, just like my 420). If I'd have known that, I'd have paid more attention to the big auction that took place when they went under in the mid 1980's. I was working by then, and could well have bought one at the time. Oh, well. Another great opportunity lost.

Stan