Looking at buying a 1980 Case 980B to dig a farm pond on my property. Does anyone have any experience with these machines? There's info on the engines online, but not to much about the 980B. It only has 800 hours on it. Thanks
The old 980's were pretty good mechanical operated machines. They had a 504BDT engine with tandem gear pumps. They had two different style hyd. control valve a hydreco or husco valves. Not a lot of operator comfort but will do you a good job.
Ok. Thanks for the reply.
Dead simple machine, a bit clunky but they worked good. Idlers wearing out were a sore spot.
condition would be everything, as getting parts for it would be neigh impossible. It would be worth getting an experienced inspector to go over it. It could save the day. EDIT: Does it have the tilting house option?
My cousin said he use to run one a long time ago. He said it was slow, and had gear pumps instead of vein pumps. He said they never had major problems with it. I called a few Case parts places and they said the same thing. Parts are near impossible to find. It does have the house leveling option. The seller is claiming that it only has 800 hours. It looks clean from the picture, but I find that low of hours on a 40 year old machine, hard to believe.
when something gets parked like that, usually there is a problem. Your job, find it.