I came across my 450 when looking for a unit to use building my ranch on my East Texas tree farm. I found it high in the mountains of West Virginia where the owner had used it to clear a snow covered mountain top for his residence. He completely replaced the lower end and did an excellent job. Previous and original owner was US military in Massachusetts who used it to dig graves. The bearings, bushings and dipper controls where complete worn, but the original loader pins pushed out with my fingers. I went through the unit front to back, top to bottom and gave it a complete sand blast and original paint and decals.
My wife even enjoys running the 450, but understands that it's my toy.
I'm looking for a removable ripper set, so if anyone has this pecticular device just sitting around, please let me know.
Thanks, and I certainly like seeing all the restoration. As my daddy once said to me, "Just caus' it's old, doesn't make it useless".
I also came across this 1966 Mack single axle dump truck in up state New York. It had 144,000 original miles on it. I brought it home and am looking to put a nice tilt bed trailer on the back to travel the JD 450....
