opinion on old ** massey & ferguson excavators, what do you think of these earth-moving machines like the best models with their defects and performance? a friend of mine would like to take an old ** 450 S/350 S , he needs to do a mountain job in a moraine rocky area, he should make a path and climb steep and steep slopes to make the stations to install the pylons of a cable car, a cableway . what do you recommend? do you think it is suitable for the purpose as an excavator?
Good day The work does not sound so easy for what must be a very old machine, suggest he looks for a more up to date model. Kind regards Uffex
The swing and travel brakes were nonexistent and a real handfull when working on hill country even when they were new. They also had a bad habit of breaking the track links. Its not fun to climb them down the side of a hill 100 metres or so to retrieve the track with drive on one side then to climb back up dragging the busted track. If your mate likes an adventurous life,then buy one
Depends on what the machine costs also. If its cheap, who knows how much work it could do. At least you wont be screwing with computers! LOL
in fact, the excavator is about 43 years old but it is very cheap, the work is very complicated, you have to climb up steep mountain slopes, you suggest which car, maybe we hire the right excavator, thanks
The ** excavators were one of the first really advanced excavators according to my former neighbor. He bought a couple brand new 450S's in 1969 and 1970 and acquired some other ones over the years. They were hydrostatic drive but quite slow by todays standards. Never heard of track links breaking but new tracks aren't available. Neighbor put over 30,000 hours on one. 6-354 Perkins is a great engine and sips fuel. The first pic. looks like a nice well maintained machine. If everything works and the price is around scrap value I'd go for it. A member on another forum had a 450S that was lost in a shed fire. His machine only had about 3000 hrs. and he didn't have any complaints with it. He replaced it with a Poclain that he said wasn't near as nice a machine. "as for week points i can say with all honesty i never found any it had 3000hr. on it and i used it hard never spent a dime on it other then reg. mant. if the one you got is not beet you will like it i replaced mine with a poclain [case]not as well made." http://www.earthmoversmagazine.co.uk/massey-ferguson-excavators-remembered/
Thank you for your testimony, maybe we are orientating ourselves on another type of excavator, maybe more efficient and more recent as a production thanks
Parts availability? if you cant get parts you can't keep it running get something newer. You get what you pay for
Thank you for your valuable advice, what would you recommend as an alternative, efficient and economical to use as a digging machine and as a small crane for small lifts for loading and unloading heavy goods and heavy carpentry, thanks will I do treasure of your precious suggestions, thanks again