Im looking at purchasing a older Champion 740A grader, The fellow is asking 7000$ for it. It looks to be in good shape. I dont know much about graders, is there anything i should look at to decided weather its a decent buy or not? I see alot of graders in the 5 -10k price range and i often wonder why so cheap for all that machine ? Thanks
Drive train is the big issue. Does the engine start easily and run normally? Does the transmission work in both directions and all ranges? Is there any unusual noise or vibration in the machine at any time. I'll check tires next and then work my way into the front axle and then the blade carrier and hydraulics. That's my general checkout. If you look close at all that, the small things will start to catch your eyes and ears.
A 740 is an older machine, harder to get parts for. Plus most companies don't get rid of their graders until they are worn out. Not saying it's junk, but look carefully. If you're not doing any fine grading, don't worry about blade tightness. However, Champion and Volvo have three small gears that run against the large circle gear. The two outside gears actually turn the circle, or rotate the blade. In between the two outside gears, there is a timing gear. If that gets worn, it can mess up the timing of the two pistons that turn the outside gears, and jam the rotation of the blade
We bought this old 740A a few years back & it does the job for us. Only use it about 50 hrs annually, but is a nice old machine for doing our parking lot maintence. Ours is a 1978 model year I believe. I think we paid about $7,600 for it.
I wanted to buy a grader to re grade my property. the earth needs to be moved around because water flows and pools everywhere. Its very messy come spring and fall. Recently everyone has been telling me just to use my bulldozer. I have a old D450 case dozer that works great but it seems small for the area i want to do. People are telling me a grader gets stuck easily on rocks and roots.