420 with loader

[curtis]

There is a 420 crawler with a loader for sale near me for $1000, its runs and the hydraulics work but it is in rough shape, is this worth buying and trying to use to move some dirt around? ive noticed that pins and bushing and tracks are kinda hard to get for this crawler, and i don't want to buy something that cant be fixed or get parts for.

[mapaduke@yahoo.com]

Any crawler that runs and drives is worth $1000 to me.I would Post some pitchers of it and the track pins and bushings so we can give you a better opinion.Ron

[curtis]

im not sure if pics would do much good as it has been raining here and the crawler is caked with mud/dirt and all you can really see is the sprockets. the hood is missing and it looks like it has been welded on the right side about where your hip would be when your sitting on the machine. I dont think it would be a good canidate for a restore but i would like to be able to do some work with it.

[JWB Contracting]

I would do a real good assessement on the undercarriage. You need to find out what % the rails and sprokets are as they are very hard to get. The last set of 90% rails i had for sale were sold for $2,000 cash and I wished I would have kept them for one of our keepers.

Just sold a good set of 350 chains (looks like new but snakey from use on a wide pad) for $1,000 plus two new aftermarket 350 sprokets for $250 each last night. The purchasers is going to have the centres from his 1010 sprokets machine and weled to the 350 sprockets. Just an example of what lengths people will have to go to in the future to update their undercarriage.

[curtis]

If there a site with pictures of the undercarriage at different stages of wear or a certain way to figure what percent the items are at? Also it seemed that the pins had a weld around some of them but im not sure, i will have to go back and check it over again and take some pictures.

[Tigerhaze]

Hi Curtis-

This thread will help you:

http://www.jdcrawlers.com/messageboard/ ... inspection

[curtis]

well i ended up buying the crawler yesterday, its rough but it runs. But it does burn quite a bit of oil, i ran it for probably 2 hours and it burned at-least a quart of oil. Not sure if valve seals or rings are needed. if valve seals are easy to do i will try that first, i should do a compression test on it i guess.

[Lavoy]

Here is my two cents, and worth every penny you paid for it. On an $1000 crawler, I would to get too deep into it. Say you put a bunch of money into the engine, then a final goes, so you fix a final, then the trans is bad, and you fix that. Pretty soon you have the same amount of money in it that you would have had in a better crawler. I guess I would run the crawler for a while, and if it breaks something big, quit, use it for parts, and buy another one.
The alternative is if you want to put a lot of money into it and fix it up. That is not a bad plan at all, but understand when you are done, you own it, because it is highly unlikely you will ever get your money back on it.
That is not to say that I have not done this same thing many times, but I know that when I do, I will be immediately upside down as far as dollars invested vs what it is worth.
Lavoy

[curtis]

Yea thats probably what i will do, im gonna put some thicker oil in it tomorrow. What would you guys recommend maybe 20-50w.

[Ray III]

The trouble with 20W50 is that it circulates very poorly when cold and shouldn't be used in an engine not designed for it. I would try 10W40 or 10W50 if it still smokes.

I don't think there were even any valve seals on my head before, most likely the rings.