New 450B purchase, worth it?

[cordlesscarpenter]

I currently own a 450 (straight) crawler/loader, mid to late 60's I believe (no SN), diesel, H-L-R trans, 3305 winch on the rear. I have the opportunity to purchase a 450B for a great price, it comes with a backhoe and a 4-in-1 bucket (my loader is already plumbed for loader hydraulics)... the catch is that the engine "caught fire and is unusable".

While I know I can probably rebuild or replace the engine and put her back to work, I was thinking more along the lines of "donor 450" because I now have my current 450 in pretty darn good shape physically and mechanically. But... here are the questions:

- I currently have a winch on the rear of my current 450 which obviously has a winch drive shaft, I assume the backhoe runs off of a PTO shaft, how hard is it to swap the shafting if I want to swap the rear attachment? Do they make or can a coupler be made to make an attachment swap easier?

- What all from a 450B will absolutely not be able to be used on a 450 straight? Is the frame exactly the same? All the same loader components? Same transmission? Same final drives and steering clutches? What about things like rock guards for the lower rollers? If anyone out there has experience with both machines and can answer these questions, it would be much appreciated. Thanks!

[gregjo1948]

Probably the backhoe runs off the hydraulic pump which, I think is at the front of the machine.(it is on my 350B)

[B Town]

There are many parts that are shared by those machines. Look carefully at comparison pics. How many pieces of the donor machine would you need to use to pay for the donor purchase price? Not only are parts $$$, 40 yr old industrial parts are getting harder to find. This is why I have two donor machine following me home.

[cordlesscarpenter]

Well, the backhoe and 4-in-1 bucket themselves would almost be worth it for me, along with, well everything else that would swap over perfectly or at least require little to no modification to swap. Knowing I won't have to spend countless hours online searching for parts when something breaks, knowing I have two of everything, would be pretty amazing too haha... especially once I make my move up north and am in the middle of the boonies.

The guy is only asking 4k for the machine and thinking about all the good parts is enticing to say the least... Other major parts like final drives, undercarriage, transmission, clutches (steering AND engine), frame components, hydraulic cylinders/manifold, well, the list goes on and on.

I will be using the dog poo out of this ol' girl over the coming years to build an entire homestead in remote Montana, things are going to break and I won't have a JD dealer/auto parts store around the corner so there's that... not even sure I'll have postal service for the first year or so and a lot of parts places won't ship to a PO Box.

[cordlesscarpenter]

Backhoe attachments are totally new to me, I thought they ran off of their own hydraulic system, driven by a PTO of some sort, I am now under the impression that all backhoe attachments are run off of the crawler's hydraulic system??? Can someone please educate a brother? Thanks!

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

Backhoes run off the crawler hydraulic pump. Hoe crawlers have different plumbing than non-hoe crawlers. The main lines pass out the back to the hoe and then to the blade/bucket controls. If you remove the hoe, you have to attach a jumper line across the hoe connections on the crawler.

Stan

[cordlesscarpenter]

Thanks for the input, sure helped when I went to look at it this morning. Now that I know the machine a little better, can anyone shed some light on how difficult it would be, or if it is possible to add a winch drive shaft to be able to swap between a backhoe and a winch using the same machine? Would seem silly to me to have two perfectly running rigs if I can basically take the winch and arch off my current crawler and sell that crawler, and with all the work I've done to it, basically sell it for what I paid for it minus the winch.

[Lavoy]

Not positive, but guessing the winch will interfere with the hoe mounts. While doable, the amount of time and work switching back and forth would be a lot.
Lavoy

[cordlesscarpenter]

Thanks for the input!
I realize it might be a days worth of work but I'm thinking more along the lines of planning all the logging work during one season and backhoe work during another. If anybody has a better solution to having both backhoe AND winch capabilities without having two machines, I'm all ears.