I'm not a dozer guy but see some of these with fairly low hours reasonably priced. Are they a decent machine or an electrical nightmare?
Decent machine. Its basically a re-branded Fiat-Allis 14C.......the powertrain from the convertor through to the finals are the exact same. Parts has been an issue at times.
I found that if Case dosen't have the parts also look at a New Holland DC 180. Controls are different but drive line is the same. The later ones had the transmission control valve moved up from the bottom to keep them out of some of the crud in the belly pan.
I understand they have a lot of electric controls on them and also a hydrostat in place of the brakes to counter rotate the tracks. Electronics kind of bother me on construction equipment.
The steering on these machines is different from anything I had worked on. Never had much trouble with it. As far as the electrical the most trouble we had was from mice.
We had a fair share of electrical issues on the early 650K and 850K but those 1850K no real issues.
The dealership I worked for sold two early model 1850K’s to a city land fill. The only real electoral issue we had was trash ripping the harness out and the alternators would go out and machine would start because electrical grounded through alternator. Even though we sold both units together they were totally different in parts and wiring.