Hello, new to the forum , not currently a dozer owner. Want a dozer for some farm projects and there is one on FB for $2700 it's not running currently, owner says it just needs carb cleaned and a new battery. He said it's a 1939 D5 serial number is 4H1153W . I'm not mechanically inclined but hope I could get it running, I couldn't find any info on the serial number. Don't know if I could find parts don't know if it would actually be able to push over trees, pull heavy loads, move dirt etc. or what it's actually worth. Any help or information would be appreciated. Thanks  

A 1939 D5 should have a 9M serial number and is a pretty rare machine.  I'm assuming this is a R5 which is more common and gas instead of diesel.  That being said I would look really hard at the manifolds and undercarriage.  Those can be very high dollar repairs.  For a first dozer I would look at a D2 or a 6U or 7U D4.  Those are pretty common tractors that are much easier to get parts for.  They are great projects to learn on and fun to operate.  Then work your way into the harder stuff.  

Hi, RanchDozer.
As CRS93082 said, that machine is DEFINITELY NOT a 1939 D5. The D5 model in 'kwestyun' would have had a rear seat fuel tank and a 6-cylinder DIESEL engine with a pony starting engine and I think there were a WHOPPING 46 of them made.

I think I would even query the '1939' year for an R5 but I'm not an 'ex-spurt' in such matters.

Definitely check the tracks and the manifolds as previously suggested and I would want to hear it running a drive it a bit before I laid down any 'hard-earned'.

It will likely do some work if it is a 'runner' but it will slupr big gobs of gas out of the fuel tank while douing it.

I think the blade and hydraulics are LaPlant-Choate who are no longer in business but did make good solid products back in the day.

Just my 0.02.

4H1153 is a 1939 R5. I'd see if it runs before any further negotiation

Another word of caution, it is a gas engine. It will burn 5 gals of gas per hour loafing along. More if you really try to get the dirt moving.

A neighbor had one in the day of 30 cent a gal or less for gas. But still worried about how much it cost to run.  He hired a larger dozer to take oak trees down and doing clean up with the R5 Cat.  He got my dad to run it one day as he had other business to attend to. It bogged down on a very small load of limbs on the blade. So my dad gave the carb adjustment a bit more gas and it would push a good amount of loose brush. The owner showed up late in the day, saw right away it was pushing better. Ran up and backed the adjustment back off. With the comment I cannot afford that it already was burning 5 gal an hour.

That R5 is not a good choice for ranch work. In fact it is a terrible choice!  This looks like an opportunity for a collector of antique Caterpillars though.
Craig

Ranchdozer, this is an early 1939 wide gauge r5. We have 4h1064w and we would’ve loved the asking price you got. Wide r5s are pretty rare. The only one I’ve seen in person is ours. And a few online, but it’s a really good find. This machine weighs 14300 pounds with no blade or wide gauge finals. I’d imagine around 14500 no blade, and maybe 16500 as it is. I know sheet metal parts are shared with gas  thirty fives and gas foutry’s, but I’m not sure about engine parts. I will admit that the r5 is a hard bird to find parts for. Any repair, or replacement of the finals would be expensive if you don’t have a donor machine if you can find them. They DRINK gas and for a dozer setup wouldn’t be the most efficient. Ours lived on a rock quarry with a blade and it shows. Someone before us took the blade off and made it a drawbar tractor. Diesel is more efficient, but for style points, a wide R5 is a gorgeous tractor in my biased opinion. If the engine is stuck, finding parts will be very hard, but if everything is free then it’s not as bad as it could be. I hate to steer someone away from a rare cat, but just take into account that if you buy it and it needs work, the supporting parts are expensive and hard to come by. Much more so than a d2 or d4. But 2700 isn’t a bad price for what it is.   

This might be a controversial opinion, but I prefer the gas cats to diesel ones. We have some diesels, d2s, rd4, diesel thirty five. Diesel is much more efficient and powerful, but the sound of a gas cat, especially one with a decent size bore, just has a special place in my heart.