I decided to buy the Grader I looked at instead of waiting to go look at another grader that was 2 hours away. I bought a 1986 Champion 730A. It has a few minor issues but nothing real major that I know of. The seller didn't know the model of the other grader which seemed odd but knew it was a 1987 Champion. It needed a broken axle fixed and the seller would have supplied the parts to fix it. I could have got it cheaper but still would want to look at it in person. The seller took too long to get back to me is why I went to look at the 730A that was closer and ended up buying it. I didn't want to take a chance and lose it. I talked with the seller of the other grader after and he said he was offered 15K for his grader but turned it down and decided he would have a better chance putting it in the up coming RB auction. I thought he was making a big mistake. He said it had new paint and ran great, etc., etc. I saw some stuff I might be interested in, in the RB sale so went there to look at it. The other grader was there so I gave it a look. 1st thing I noticed is it was bigger. It was 780A, the biggest Champion made. It did have new paint but it also had a cracked door window which is minor. The interior was kind of mess but that's pretty minor too. What wasn't minor was serious evidence of abuse. The circle side shift cylinder mount on the grader frame looks to have been broken in half and welded back together and not the best welding. It wasn't even ground flat to look original. It looked to be about 2 inches thick steel! The moldboard had an extension on the left side and it was twisted back where the cutting edge was no longer straight. The grader I bought has an extension that was welded on but it is straight and the cutting edge is also straight. I can cut it off if need be. It's nice to feel I made the right choice. The 780A was too big for my needs and parts and tires, etc. would be much more expensive if needed. It doesn't matter how well it runs and how good the paint looks when there's obvious signs of abuse. I'm glad I didn't hold off on the 730A till I had a chance to look at the 780A. I may have lost it. Nice to get a win once in awhile.
Congrates on your purchase, They are a good grader, very tough, I started out on a 730 Champion with a 12ft blade, I believe it had a Cummins in it
Just trying to remember the different fluids for the 730, Tranny takes 10w oil, anything else it will slip in higher gears when it gets hot, clutch master cylinder takes mineral oil, brake master cylinder brake fluid, located under the rear of the cab if i remember correctly, also make sure she's charging at the right volts 14-3 -14-6, lower voltages will mess with your trans causing gear slippage.
I'll check the charging voltage. It looked lower on the cab gauge but I don't know if it's the most accurate. Would low volts cause it to not want to move backing up over a pile in a higher gear?
If I remember right it happened to me when I was running a 730 machine, tranny seemed to slip thought it was a major problem but turned out to be just a bad alternator not putting out the right voltage, also, somebody put the wrong oil in the tranny causing it to slip when it got warm in the higher gears, they put in TO-4-30, we changed it to 10w problem went away, mine had a sight glass on the tranny on the drivers side to check the tranny level, not sure if this is your problem though but somewhere to start.
I only tried the grader for about 1/2 an hour. It lists Dextron II for the tranny but I know they found that 10W TO-2 motor oil worked better (less slip) and there was bulletin to change to 10W motor oil. There's supposed to be a sight glass on the side of the tranny. I just need to get in there and clean things up so I can see it. The guard is kind of in the way. Supposed to check when warm and engine running. Volt gauge in cab showed a little over 12 volts but going to check actual output from alternator. 1 of the rad hoses is sitting on a small hose and has a flat spot so I'm going to wrap a piece of rubber on it to protect it from wearing through. I might have some hyd. hose protector I could also use. Greased it all up today and only had 1 bad fitting and 1 broken fitting underneath. Most fittings looked like they had been greased in the past but the 2 underneath for the tandem torque tube or something look like they haven't been greased in a long time. That's where the broken fitting was. Looked at the cutting edges and it's mostly just the left side that needs trimming to get it straight across. There's at least an inch past the frog at the narrowest section.
Good to hear are out and after it, Doing well I presume?
Looks like that 780 went for $17k. Cab did look a bit rough for sure.
Sorry Dave, this was the biggest grader Champion made.