advice on a dozer plz

Rusty0007 · Post by **Rusty0007** » Thu Feb 21, 2013 9:43 pm

I'm new to the forum, but I've been reading and reading posts trying to learn as much as I can from you guys, thanks.

Like so many, I find myself a victim of a really bad logging experience. I said that as politely as I could. heh. Its a pretty large job as far as time, it would take quite a while to clean it all up. Renting a dozer, with the weather off and on like it will be for the next few months, doesn't sound cost effective. My time too, its not completely dedicated to dozing all day. Anyway, I've found what I THINK might be a good dozer for me. Its a 1987 JD 450E. Its been owned by a fella that bought it a few years back to kinda do the same thing I need it for, push tops and dug up stumps and such. Its got some dents and dings from pushing top piles. Its got a cab, which I think is unusual for an older 450. The cab is missing a few panes of glass but does have A/C, he says it works. It's also got some sort of wings that attach to the blade. I guess these wings pivot on pins and can be set at different angles to create or valleys or crests. They fold up, but are quite tall, so he took them off, which I guess they go back on easily. Not sure how these work exactly or how wide the blade is with these wings deployed. Most likely useless for me though, pushing rocks and red dirt in the hills of Arkansas. It also has rippers.

The story goes it came from a contractor in California that built roads. It pushed gravel for road beds. He rebuild the undercarriage the sold it to the guy I'm getting it from 2 yrs ago. This guy has a small piece of land hes worked with it and it hasn't left his place as long as he's had it. He says it perfect and runs strong. He has not had any issues with the dozer at all. Says it steers crisply and snaps right into gear. Doesn't get hot or have any leaks. Other than a few lines, he hasn't had to do a thing except change oil abd grease it. He is NOT a dozer guy though. I'm not either really. Kinda a scary situation, hehe. I haven't bought this thing yet, but looking at whats for sale around here it SOUNDS like a solid deal on something that I can use for a while and resell. In the market now there are several dozers in this price range ( he wants 12k for this dozer) but most are older, much older, or just too big. I know a D4 or a 850 would do the job faster, but I don't want a dozer that large. Too hard to get hauled around, maneuver in the woods and such. Plus, most in that price range are mid-70's D4's or older. Seems pretty old to me.

So, I said all this to ask....Does the deal sound pretty good to you guys? Also, as far as the 450E in particular, what should I watch for? Thanks so much for time and opinions.
Can't figure out how to post images in the forum yet.

Best Regards,

Rusty

jtrichard · Post by **jtrichard** » Thu Feb 21, 2013 10:09 pm

the wings you speak of are slope boards the price sounds great to me but some of the other guys (like Leonard)on here are more familiar with that 450 then me

Rusty0007 · Post by **Rusty0007** » Thu Feb 21, 2013 10:26 pm

thanks for the reply, I agree, the price sounds too good to be true. Some wise people in my past always told me ...if it sounds too good to be true...it probably is. hehe.

I've got burned quite a bit in my life. Usually when I do something I don't know that much about. This deal has all the makings of one of those past experiences. Thats why I am trying to learn as much as I can about this. I'm no mechanical idiot, but dozers are a breed of their own. It certainly won't be a good deal if this thing has a major issue. The owner seems like a pretty square guy, but 'seems' and 'is' are totally two different things. It's a shame you can't trust people anymore. Or, it could have some issue this guy is not aware of. To his own admission hes not a dozer guy either. Hopefully I can get some good info from you guys that can help me. I'm active on several forums and try to help people like myself all the time. Just not on dozers...lol. Again thanks for the reply!

jtrichard · Post by **jtrichard** » Thu Feb 21, 2013 10:33 pm

if you can get pics of the undercarriage and the rest of the machine it would help greatly also where you located? USA is a big place

also go to photo bucket to post pics this should help http://www.jdcrawlers.com/messageboard/ ... php?t=3690

Rusty0007 · Post by **Rusty0007** » Thu Feb 21, 2013 10:45 pm

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tdayzed1j78x7 ... 20copy.jpg

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mnxwpbiqt6rh4 ... 20copy.jpg

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5brffrbtrn4v5 ... 20copy.JPG

Hopefully these links work. Also, I live in Rogers, Arkansas

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jtrichard · Post by **jtrichard** » Thu Feb 21, 2013 10:49 pm

those 3 pics look great sprockets and rails looking dam nice ....she wont win any beauty contests and yes those are slope board brackets on the blade ...check the fluids and see if you can put a few hours on her before you buy

Rusty0007 · Post by **Rusty0007** » Thu Feb 21, 2013 11:21 pm

Yeah, thats what I was thinkin'. Those sprockets look new. It backs his story which is that the contractor just put a new U/C on it right before this guy bought it and he's ran it about 200-300 hours max. Yeah, I'm going to push some dirt with it for a while first. People say that the transmissions are the weak spot on these dozers but it takes hours to heat up enough to slip. But, really, I don't even know if that issue is relevant to the to 450E or if that was earlier models or not. The owner sas hes never had an issue whatsoever.

jtrichard · Post by **jtrichard** » Thu Feb 21, 2013 11:24 pm

do some hard pushing and it should not take long to heat up push it to the limit

LeonardL · Post by **LeonardL** » Fri Feb 22, 2013 7:35 am

Rusty,
jtrichard is right! Take the thing and run it! Make it work. Make it dig and push hard with it. Make several turns in both directions left and right and do it in forward and reverser. I'm sorry I couldn't tell much from the pictures you have. For some reason I couldn't get the second one to load. That could be me on my end. But it would be really sweet if there were more pictures of the under carriage. What I saw of the sprocket did look okay. The toes or grousers on the pads also look okay. It may have been toed or re-grousered at some point but that is also okay. After you have ran it, look for leaks. Both oil and coolant. The old girl looks like she has been around the block but looks aren't every thing. Some of the best equipment I've ran has looked like it had survived WWII in Italy somewhere!

The 450E is one of the best in the older series as far as I'm concerned. We had several where I use to work and had little trouble with them. Actually we had little trouble with any of the 450s from the "G" series on back. 12K is not out of line for this machine. Cleaned up and the cab fixed and if the ripper works it could easily bring 15 to 16K.
Check it out some more and let us know what you find. And... Welcome to forum!!

Rusty0007 · Post by **Rusty0007** » Sat Feb 23, 2013 8:12 am

Leonard, Thanks for the insight! I went ahead and bought it today. Its not going to win any beauty contests but seems solid. I ran it for about an hour, pretty hard. The trans temp never really got over about 1/4 into the green, same with the engine temp. It started right up and didn't smoke a bit. It steers crisply and clutched and ran thru the gears perfectly. The only thing I noticed is that when shifting to reverse it seemed to have a slight delay before it engaged. But, it wasn't a slip at all, just a pause. I'd say less than 1 second. This happened warm or cold. The owner said he always clutched between directions using the powershifter. The U/C was documented being replaced 1 month before he bought it 18 months ago. It was 100% when he bought it and he says hes put about 200 hours on it in the last 18 months. Tracks and sprockets look great. From looking at his place and the work hes done, I agree with the time. Also, he obviously didn't work it too hard doing what hes done. The 6 way balde is a bit loose. Bushings I assume. All the hydraulics work flawlessly and I didn't see any leaks. The oil was black, as expected, but it had good viscosity and not milky or anything. Hydraulic fluid was clear, looked good.

I wasn't able to work it real real hard, it was pretty muddy and it was around 32 degrees outside. The cab is missing some glass (its an aftermarket cab I found out, a Sims) and the air units wiring was not connected, but he said it worked for him. He just didn't use it because he broke out one of the front windows so it was sorta worthless. The ripper worked as designed. The slope boards were removed but they were there, cylinders looked good on those.

Other than being dinged up and ugly, I think its a solid rig. Hopefully Im not wrong. Thanks for everyones help!

jtrichard · Post by **jtrichard** » Sat Feb 23, 2013 12:32 pm

congrats...and now the fun? begins

Tigerhaze · Post by **Tigerhaze** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 1:22 pm

I would look for posts from Digitup2 on this board, as he has quite a bit of commercial experience with the later 450 dozers and has good insight on the problems you may encounter.

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advice on a dozer plz

advice on a dozer plz

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