Well, the time had come today, when I had to reluctantly spend 10 of the saddest hours of my entire life running a 450 Case dozer. (Only kidding... ) An out-of-stater bought a house 3 miles from me here, and rented one of our 315C's to do some work around it. A sizeable contractor from Connecticut himself,(70 employees,) he brought up his own 450 Case dozer, and a JD 325 skidsteer with a vibratory roller attachment, forks, digging bucket and a finish bucket. I dropped the hoe off last Monday morning and left. One of my neighbors referred me to the owner in regards to doing some sitework for him, so today I cheerfully went to work there, fully expecting to be in my nice, warm 315 with the radio and heater blasting, enjoying life in the Green Mountain State. WROOONG... Instead, he was enjoying the heater and radio, and I was elected to run the orange iron. My first thought to myself was, "boy, how am I going to explain this to the guys on HEF's, especially guys like DigDug who hears me spewing venim at Case equipment all the time?" I just prayed all day nobody would see me, and luckily, it was far enough back in the woods that no traffic could see what was taking place. All kidding aside, I hopped onto it, a 10 yr. old machine, and went to work. I must say, the motor was as sweet a running mill as you could ever ask for. The thing was fairly comfortable to operate, and within a 1/2 hour, I was at home in my easy chair on that thing. I especially liked being able to change the speed between both tracks as you could with this series. Really handy when pushing on a radius with a full blade to speed up one side, and slow the other. I really enjoyed the day on it. Of course, I was multi-tasking it too. Jump from that to the 315 to load my buddy's C-60 that I arranged to hire for shuttling around material on site today. I'd load 6-8 loads, then push some, etc. By 5:00 p.m., I asked Mikey (owner of the C-60,) if he'd like to try running the dozer a little, and he quickly accepted. 29 yrs. old, a logger by trade, NEVER run a dozer 1 hour in his life, and amazingly, this kid was doing what I told him to do like a guy that had been at it 30 years. I've never seen anyone pick up on something so fast in my life. I ended up in the hoe, him on the Case, (he looked a lot better than me on it...) pushing to me, and we got more accomplished in 2 hours than I did with the owner working with me in 8 hours. Had I known Mikey could run one so good, I'd have told the owner to go have fun somewhere...we got this.:thumbsup I hated to see it get dark so early tonight. We shoveled the tracks out like good boys, fueled and greased and went home to find food.I guess I have some appologizing to do to all the Case men now. It was a really good day on the orange side of things.
EEEEEEAAASSSYYY , on the Case bashing. Just kidding sounds like you actually liked the little rig. I think if it was a 450 it was alot older than 10 years old. I think they grew in size a little in 1990ish ,and became the 550. So that 450 could be 18yrs or older?? I could be wrong it happened to me once before.
Better your sister in a cathouse than your brother on a Case :lmao :lmao Says he who is hiring a Case Loader next week...cause I had a guts full of those Komatapillars
If I'm not mistaken, the 450 first was replaced by the 455. I spent a fair amount of time on a 450 loader. For what it was, it wasn't a bad machine at all.
digger, i think hes talking about the crawler dozer not loader. :drinkup
I got the oppurunity yesterday to run a case450 also. Finegrading with laser about 6 tenths cut. Bossman set it an tenth high because he wasnt sure how i would do with the laser. But i got it done, and he finished it off. Really quiet machine. I have heard a few people say that the undercarriages don't hold up on them as well as they should. But I guess that depends on what your working in. Overall i like the CAT D4 LGP best. But i haven't used alot of dozers so. But the case was nice. Hope to get in a deere soon to check it out. -Michael-
Yeah, that's why I specified 450 loader , an didn't just say "450". They're similar enough that the loader and dozer versions shared the same operator's manual.
nothen like a little practice sounds like lowboy had a little fun and made a little Money:beerchug thats one good thing about being a lowbed driver.i have run into customers that need help from time to time so in my off time i get to go play too.its kind of nice to do something different and enjoy. as far as case equipment i really dont see or move much maybe 8 a month. i like case controles on their backhoes:IMO
did you take any pics?
Unfortunately I didn't take any pics of that day working the Case. As the thread title declared, I hoped no one saw me, so pictures would be like the story that Grader4me posted of the thieves stealing his company's camera and taking pictures of themselves... To add insult to injury, I let the guy who owns it dump about 25 6 wheeler loads of stumps and brush on my property this weekend, so in return I took the Case home here and pushed the piles over the bank with it. This time, however, I couldn't hide. I am on a main road that everybody could see me. All kidding aside, after an hour on it I was right at home. Kind of reminded me of an older vintage Cat dozer with the reverser set up like it was. The accelerator pedal is handy when you come into a pile too...you can pour the coals right to it while carrying a full blade, then immediately back off. (Only pushed full blades of brush, not enough power to push full blade of dirt...:lmao )
We have a Case 450 that is around 40 yrs old and I love running it. It has never given us any problems and it will start everytime, even in the winter. The old girl just keeps chugging along.
Anyone have a case 450 operator's guide to sell or copy for me? Mine's a 76' case 450 dozer
Hi guys just need to post 3 messages to be able to enter a new thread since I new New to this forum