I found an old Austin Western grader that I'm thinking about purchasing. It's a four wheel model with an IH engine. Front two wheels and tires are gone, rear two are trashed. Engine has a hand crank and seems to be stuck. Serial looks like M5180. Can anyone tell me what model this is and what it weighs?
Not afraid of a little work are you? Actually that could work out just fine for a grader to have around, I've seen people use even older antique graders than what this sounds like. They really don't do anything different on the new ones, just a lot faster and more comfortable. A picture would go a long ways to identifying it. The engines that had hand crank only went up to 40HP or so. Unless this is a diesel that starts on gas? I was going to guess less than 10K, but googling shows there were some bigger engines with provision for hand cranking. How did the roller turn out?
Roller didn't pan out, got outbid at the last minute. Work doesn't bother me, I'm currently working on a '37 Cat 22 that I hauled in a few weeks ago. Seized engine, trashed head, looks like it's been full of water for decades. I'm making good progress on it, hopefully have it running around before spring. If I end up with the grader, I don't know exactly what we'll do with it. We maintain about five miles of dirt and gravel roads on the ranch and we're looking for a faster, easier way than the tractors. If parts are available and inexpensive we might try to fix this one, but we also discussed cutting it down and making a nice land leveler we could run with a big tractor. Either way, we have to get it here first. I'm waiting on the owner to give me a price and I have to figure out how to move it. It's sitting on the flat rear tires and the blade, front wheels are gone. To get it on a trailer, I can't decide if it would be easier to try removing the blade and letting it roll on the wheels and front brake drums, or if I should try to lift the machine and weld some skids or wheels to the blade and let it ride on that. I'll try and attach a photo.