Couple months down the road I'm going to want something else done, etc, etc, etc. I have a few thousand dollars worth of work for the excavator that I know I want done now but as soon as he leaves I'm going to say I wish I had him do it that way, etc, etc, etc. I'm more worried about the major stuff such as the transmission issue these are known for. I'm not worried about if I have to put a couple thousand into it because it would be well worth it. It's the headache of repairs and the time spent on it that I'm worried about. I definitely don't think I would lose money on it because of the savings by doing it myself. I would think that what I'm using it for is light work since the trees only average about 4' and I know what I'm working with so I would baby it a bit. I guess that's the risk you take with a 50 year old machine used for hard work. All of this is assuming nothing MAJOR breaks. I could easily get $10,000 of work out of this machine over the next couple years and then sell it, hopefully for what I paid for it.

Honestly, this thing will probably just sit at his house and rot if he doesn't sell it to me. He also trusts me and knows I will take care of it and if anything is going to break it would have broken with him in the seat too. Even said I could take it to my house to use it if I pay the hauling fee. He also said I can use the machine first. Re: Newbie - 1968 JD 450 Crawler in reply to nrowles, 04-24-2017 05:20:29Īgain to note, the seller is a very good friend and would not hide anything from me. What are your opinions? What things should I look at more closely on it? What are the things that break on these machines? I see these things listed online anywhere from $7,000-$12,000 in that year range. I told him I would give him $4,000 for it and he's thinking on it. He wouldn't knowingly hide anything from me. Everything functions properly but the bucket leaks down. As a newbie I'm not really sure what that means. I think he said the clutches were rebuilt but the left lever can be a little slow sometimes. Engine was rebuilt 15 years ago and doesn't have but maybe 100 hours on it. He said 'I have one sitting there I'll sell you'. Was at my buddies yesterday and looked over at his and said 'yeah I've been looking at them online'. And I'm sure I could find more for him to do if money was unlimited.īeen being nosey lately just to see what crawlers are out there and what they go for. I currently have a few different projects I was getting ready to call the local excavator to come out. I have all these ideas of things I want to do with the land but every time I think about the work involved to remove the trees it stops there. I purchased 14 acres of young plantation pines and built a home last year.

1965 john deere 450 dozer specs