Thanks to all the time you guys put into helping each other on this site. I enjoy reading this forum. I have been saving several years for a loader to clear personal property of about 10 acres. I need to cut rough roads on a hill side, take out trees, as well as dig a small pond etc. Almost ½ of land is in a flood plain, but it does have good drainage and the ground gets hard. I also want to dig A forge across a large creek as well. My budget at the moment is about 13K. However the more I read on undercarriage repairs the more Worried I become. And to confuse myself more I don’t see a lot of difference in loaders that range from 10K to 20K as far as hours and condition go. I could sell off some stuff, save up more and spend more up front (E.g. 20K) if I could get a Machine with a good undercarriage. I found a 1987 Cat 933B with 2700 hours for 12,900,and the ad states {needs P & B turn and sprockets**. I have read some opinions this may be a waste and its best to replace everything. I may be able to handle replacing the tracks, but sprockets I don’t think so. I guess what I am looking for is a ball park figure on cost for tracks and sprockets. And since the bushings are worn out are the rollers likely in need of replacement also? Also finally what would a rough estimate of a complete undercarriage replacement cost at a dealer or Independent shop in the southeast? I will appreciate any advice you can give. Thank You Johnny Walker
A 1987 with 2,700 hours? And needs pins and bushing turned and sprokets? I would suggest you get a knowledgeable person to look at a machine with you. It will be money well spent. I think you will be able to find a fairly decent crawler loader for your $13,000. You might want to look at the 931 also. I recently picked one up for the wife for under $8,000 with 4 in 1 and backhoe on it. The loader bucket has fair wear on the front edge but the machine otherwise has been good. There are a lot of them out there, just be a bit patience and do not be afraid to look a little farther from home. A little bit more to ship a bit farther can be very cost effective. Good luck.
Good advise to get good advise, but worn pins and bushings at those hours isn't shocking, depending where the machine has been and what it's been doing. A hard operator working on sand wouldn't get anywhere near those hours on tracks.
Thanks for the advice. I hope its ok to put the link to the machine I am looking at. I would appreciate you guys opinion. http://www.machinerytrader.com/listingsdetail/detail.aspx?ohid=10234893
It looks good enough to make the trip to look it over. Poor picture but it looks to me like the bushings are worn too thin to turn, you run a chance of having them fracture and spray shrapnel if they're too far gone. The sprockets actually look like the chains are not stretched out, so that's good.
Not a bad looking machine. Bucket shows little wear with good teeth. Looks to be a fair amount of chain adjustment left. Rails show some wear but should easily do what you want it for. I think you could do well with just new pins and bushings pressed in.
First, if you have never owned tracked equipment, find a local equipment mechanic, pay him to go look at it before any talk of money, whatever he charges will be cheaper than a $6500 rebuilt transmission and $9000 undercarriage replacement (experience has taught me a $10k 933 can cost as much as $25K when you are done spending money). You may have folks tell you that you can buy a piece of equipment, work it, then sell it and get your money out of it. Well, my experience has not exactly proved that. But, I wanted to do my own work and have a little fun doing, so that is worth some amount of money to me. A year ago, I started with a similar quest as you. I purchased a 933 loader thinking it would be the best all around piece of equipment for the various chores I had in mind. After a year and putting over 300 hours it, I found I had put a lot of hours on the loader but really had not done a lot of work, you can spend quite a bit of time digging around a good sized tree to get it over and this size loader does not have enough butt to push a lot in front of it. Now, if you have all the time in the world and do not mind working your land a little at a time, and you are positive this is the only piece of equipment you will ever be able to get, go for it, it can do all you need to do, kind of a jack of all trades, just will not do any of them fast. I love my little 933 (my wife nicknamed her the "midnight mistress" since I spend many late nights working on her), I feel a kinship with it now that I removed just about every part on it and replaced many of them. Cat has the best aftermarket support and you will never have problems finding a part, you may have a problem accepting the price. So, this long winded story is just to tell you, I have my 933 for sale (well, I keep telling my wife it is) and the going prices are about half of what I have spent on it. In order to move my projects down the road I bought a big excavator a few months ago, I cannot explain in words how much faster/easier/better it is at clearing land and digging ponds, so much so, when I am done and sell it, I will look for a smaller version to keep. I also just picked up a D4 dozer to finish out the pond and landscape the ground I cleared, again, I cannot explain how much faster/easier/better it is at cleaning up the ground than the 933. I will hate to sell it in a few years when I am done. Others will have different experiences, this is just mine.
I think you could do well with just new pins and bushings pressed in. Thanks for your reply. So changing the pins and bushings an option? Is that the norm if the rest of the chain is good? Or is the other option to buy new chains?
Cattoy Thanks for taking the time to respond. I usually hang on to stuff so I was hoping to buy only one loader and keep it a long time. I do have time, (well who knows how much time we really have) and there is not much I enjoy more Than clearing land of brush and trees. And you make a good point In regard to taking a lot of time to dig around a tree stump. I only have a Smallish compact AG tractor now, and talk about time wasted attacking a stump of a small 4 to 5 in tree Stump with only a box blade and front end loader at my disposal. Think I spent on entire day on one Particularly stubborn popular that was aprox.6 in in dia. And forget about small oaks and Such. Oh I do wish I could afford a nice excavator. But I don’t see many for sale for less than 20 to 30K. They seem to be very popular, and even with my limited knowledge I assume excavators and compact Loaders have driven the cost of track loaders down? In reality only one piece of equipment is all I will ever be able to afford, so I will continue to shop and Daydream about track loaders. Thanks again.
I'm in no way an 'expert' in these things but here's a brief recap of my experience to date. I too started out thinking I could clear some land (27 acres) using a New Holland TDA-33 equipped with a backhoe. That lasted one weekend of digging stumps, I refer to the poplar roots as "aliens" because the roots spread out all over the place and when I finally get one up it looks like some alien creature from the movies. After purchasing an open-faced brush cutter and renting a small skid steer I was able to mow down most of the 1-4 inch saplings that had grown up. After that what was left was all the saplings and roots. I decided to purchase a decent sized track loader. Found a CAT 941B not that far away. Took a buddy of my son-in-law that owned one as the "expert". Not knowing much about these things I relied on his opinion. He talked with the owner and found the track pins had been turned but told me I'd get several hundred more hours out of them. Anyway, somewhat on his opinion I bought the machine. I put about 500 hours on the machine over the last couple years working it mostly on the weekends. Well just recently a couple of the pins/bushings fractured and I looked to this forum for help (See my post) and these guys have been great. When I called the CAT dealer about pushing out the pins/bushings and comparing their price to buying new chains it turned out new chains were less than putting new pins/bushings in the old one. That seemed like a no-brainer to me. So I ordered two new chains, 5 rebuilt rollers, new sprockets - all aftermarket but considering how much I plan to use the machine I couldn't justify paying CAT prices. Overall cost of approximately $5500. (Around $4200 for the parts, $1000 for the welder to cut off the old sprockets and weld on the new ones, and a few hundred on some new tools like a torque multiplier). So if you're even a little handy with a wrench you can do a lot of the labor yourself and save some money. Yes they can be a money pit, but I like doing things myself and couldn't justify paying someone anywhere between $1000-$2000/acre.
Looks like there are a lot of us out there. I ended up buying a 455G knowing it needed an undercarriage and paid about $6,000 for all new after market undercarriage installed. The key for me was knowing what to look for since I never even operated one before which this forum provided. One thing I found is that with the serial number you may be able to contact a local shops who can tell you the service history. The guy I bought it from had everything done at the most reputable JD shop and for the last 2 years+ I haven't done anything except add diesel, adjust the track tensioner once in awhile and of course move dirt and trees. I bought also for my farm to clear 20 acres, roads and build a pond. Good Luck.