Ordering a Pro 300D tomorrow. I need some info on engines. It is available with a Perkins, Cat, or Duetz. I know Perkins are reliable, and am not a fan of the smaller CAT engines. If I had to choose between these two I would choose the Perkins. It is the Duetz I am not sure about. We own water pumps with these engines that are great until something breaks and then they are expensive. I have done some research and found that the most comon cause a major disaster is not changing the timing belt every x amount of hours. The questions I have are: Is the Duetz in the welder oil\air cooled or water cooled? Does the three extra horse power make that much difference? Is it worth the extra cost? What if any bad or good experience have users had with this engine or the other two?
Water cooled on those. Perkins is owned by CAT now I believe, they use them in the skidsteers as well. Hell cat even uses mitsubishi too.
I don't know about the ones on the welders, but some of the small Cat engines are the Perkins with a Cat tag on them.
perkins for sure.....but I wouldn't buy a miller anyway...lol why not a vantage
My machine has been down for two weeks. During this timeI have rented a Vantage, and a Pro 300D. I just like the 300d a little better. They weld about the same to me, and both have about the same auxilary power. The size is the biggest seller to me the 300d is more compact.
Most of Cat's smaller stuff was Mitsubishi engines, worked for a dealer for 5 years and would get parts in Mitsubishi bags and boxes. Cat does own Perkin's I believe and has been that way for many moons, first heard about that back in 1995 when I started at the Cat house. Deutz is a darn good engine. Bobcat's use them alot and have seen those engines with 3-4000 hours on them in the rental fleet and we've never done anything major to them. Service them regularly, do some hydraulic work but the engines seemed pretty bullet proof. My first diesel welder will have a Deutz. As far as expense goe's from my experience that yellow paint come's with a nice price tag. The Perkin's are decent engines, have not messed with the tiny one's but the one's at Cat were pretty good little engines, again though they were yellow, we called them Perkapillar's. Either way it would mostly come down to preference. If you service it regularly, use a high quality oil, filter's and maintain it properly it'll last years.
I can vouch for the Duetz in older machines, like big blue 300D. Very reliable, the only problem ever encountered was a bad injector at a cost of $750. I think those particular ones were air cooled but I cannot say for sure. You are right in that parts for them are pricey, but heck I think all parts are pricey these days. Never heard anyone knock a perkins, I never run one for any real length of time.
The perkins and cat come out of the same box from what I understand when sitting side by side can't tell the difference. I run a cat myself and have no prolems at all quite too. Duetz is a good engine but noisy as hell and it is air cooled which I'm not all that crazy about. The cat runs my machine with no horse power issuse at all.
I have a Cat in my Big 40 with 4800 hours on it and have never had a lick of trouble. Great one fuel economy and very quiet as well. The aux. power is awesome. When in the pipe I can run a fan, light and grind with out the light dimming.
I have a lincoln classic 2 with the duetz and it has 10485 hrs on it. All that has been done to it was a timing belt at 6000 hrs and new injectors at 10000 hrs. It's been a damn good motor with the best fuel economy in any machine I've ever owned. It is air/oil cooled with a belt drivin fan pushing air over the motor all the time. I couldn't be more pleased with the performance. IMHO you can't beat a Lincoln pipeliner machine.
I got a Miller Pro 300, on the outside cover is has the cat powered sticker and when ya look at the motor it's yellow with a Perkins tag on it. It'll run probally 3 days hard before you got to fuel it up. Mine is a little older a 2004 model and I only have 1200 hours on it, but it'll run my miller suitcase and anything else just fine. The only thing that I can see to improve is I went ahead and put a block heater in because the preheat just doesn't do the job below 32 degrees. Other than that its a nice machine.
Just curious what you ended up with??
I'm sure you will be happy, I have no trouble with mine runs like a charm and good on fuel. I drop the oil every 300 hrs if working hard, 500 if not. As well as fillters.
happy welding.
Just Curious. What would you call "hard" use. What size rods or carbons? How many hours in a day?
10 hrs a day 1/16" wire.or 3/8" carbon.Thats on a big 40Diesel.
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