New to me: 450C with 6-way and 93A hoe

[Goober]

Started looking for a dozer 2 weeks ago to cut 3 building pads on my property and immediately found a 350C, 450C and 455(?) on craigslist practically on my back doorstep. I was looking for something D3/D4 sized and wanted to see how a 450C stacked up. All internet roads pointed to jdcrawlers.com as the place to learn about these beasts so I spent a few long evenings reading everything I could about dozers and the 450C specifically.

This site has proved invaluable in learning how to evaluate the health of a potential crawler and I'm happy to say that my purchase machine checked out on all points. 4772 machine hours and at least 50% life left in the (what appears to be original) undercarriage. A brand new engine from a 455 (which I think is the 70hp version of the engine that originally came with the 450C). Completely rebuilt transmission and steering clutches and a fairly tight 6 way blade. Freebie in the purchase is a fairly beat up, but still functional model 93A backhoe with 3 buckets (and the barrel swing cylinder ). Total cost, delivered (all of 5 miles from the sellers house): $11,000. Fair price for a solid working machine I think.

Looks like I'll be replacing a lot of hoses in the near future - anyone know if they are JIC fittings or something else? Looking at getting a selection of fittings and a hose crimper - lots of old tractors and equipment in my area that need hose work.

Two people on my road noticed the dozer coming in and want to pay me to do work on their properties - I wasn't expecting to make money with this thing, just to save the cost of paying someone else to cut pads and roads for me. Who knows, maybe a career change is in the future for me. What's the rough cost of operating these things per hour, including maintenance, parts (assuming I make my own hoses), fuel, filters, oils etc...?

As far as manuals go - are the pdfs available for sale on the John Deere website good or should I go for the aftermarket stuff on EBay and Amazon?

Was hoping to get a set of rippers and a winch for the baby - anybody know what part numbers would work on the quick attach plates on the back?

Wish me luck - never driven a dozer before.

Images:

[1010c]

Congrats on your purchase of your first john deere dozer. It looks like a good dozer. I would buy a john deere manual either from deere itself or a reprint online. In my opinion deere's manuals are the best available for your machine. One thing to check is that wear on the sides of the pins of your track I think that is just a adjustment problem. But I am sure others will chime in soon.

[Lavoy]

Pin boss wear is usually bottom roller wear. Great looking crawler, you will have fun.
Hose ends will be typically NPT. I for one would never make a hyd hose for anyone, way too much potential liability, and unlikely your regular insurance will do you any good. Any potential money made could be lost hundreds of times over in a lawsuit.
Lavoy

[Tigerhaze]

Hi Goober-

I'm glad that you were able to look on this site and gain some insight from the threads...this is what this place is all about.

A 450C with a hydraulic inside 6-way dozer blade should be a nice combination for you. The hoe will also be handy for you- I wouldn't worry too much about the barrel swing cylinder as long as it currently isn't leaking or jerky. If going bad that is what you would see as a problem. A rebuilt HLR is very pricey so that is a plus, and it never hurts to have new steering clutches.

One thing to realize is that a dozer when combined with a hoe is very rear heavy, and since you can't counterweigh it with soil in a bucket you will need to be somewhat careful on slopes. Also the heavy hoe can cause quicker undercarriage wear which leads me to the next point...

I would agree that maybe it is the original undercarriage. Parts of your undercarriage have some significant wear from what I can see from the photos. The track adjusters appear to be almost all the way forward on the trackframe- that coupled with the proper tension you currently have (usually a good thing) means you probably have some significant pin/bushing wear. You can do some measurements to confirm but that with the wear on the track links (rails) and the sharpening points on the sprockets leads me to that conclusion. I also can't tell for sure, but the flanges on the front idler seem to have uneven wear- the inside flange appears to be more worn than the outer flange. That could be a sign of misalignment of the track, but others could weigh in. The pin boss wear Lavoy mentioned further supports the overall conclusion.

I am not trying to scare or upset you, and it is not to say that you can't get some good use out of the undercarriage as it is but it may also be a reason to rethink trying to use it commercially unless you are ready to get new undercarriage if deciding to use it a significant amount of the time. However for casual use for yourself and maybe some neighbors it should be OK. Over time you will find that when turning it may want to jump track. You'll just need to go slow and keep an eye on it. Also when not using the hoe you may want to unhook it as that puts a lot of weight on the sprockets- it may give you some additional life from them.

I'm not trying to put a damper on this and others may have a different opinion, but thought it best to give you an additional assessment. In the meantime have fun with it and don't worry too much. t should be good for you in the short term and appears to be worth replacing undercarriage down the road. I wouldn't worry too much about not having used one- if you read the operator manual they are fairly simple to operate and with some practice you can get pretty good at rough grading.

As for using it commercial you also have to factor in liability insurance, transport, and the occasional breakdown as well as other things. I have a rough idea on operating cost per hour but there are some commercial operators on here like Digitup that could give you a better idea.

[jtrichard]

X2 with TIGER take the hoe OFF when not using it .... if you can get some pics of the bushings on the tracks

[Goober]

Thanks for the voice of reason Tiger, a bit disappointing to realize that there is more wear on the UC than I thought - just goes to show that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Even though I had educated myself on how to evaluate an undercarriage, I didn't know enough to get all the details. jtrichard is asking for pics of the pin bushings - what else should I take pictures of so that you guys can tell me how far from the danger zone I am and what I can do in the near term to protect my investment? Idlers are definitely worn more on the inside flange than the outside as you noticed in the picture.

I'd already gathered from many posts that operating the dozer with the hoe on the back is a bad idea - a few passes up and down the arena pushing some dirt around confirmed this, the hoe made the front of the dozer bounce up and down when going over any little bump - kinda like a truck with bad shocks. I'll only have the hoe on when I'm using the hoe, at ~3000lbs, it's way too heavy for daily use. The specs on the hoe are impressive though, equivalent or better than a Case 580 which I am surprised and happy with. The dozer definitely has the 23+gpm hydraulic pump on it as it can make the hoe dance quite nicely, but as some have pointed out makes the blade "twitchy" - anybody installed a flow restrictor to slow down the blade articulation with the bigger pump or will I just get used to feathering the controls to be able to finish grade?

Hi Goober-

I'm glad that you were able to look on this site and gain some insight from the threads...this is what this place is all about.

A 450C with a hydraulic inside 6-way dozer blade should be a nice combination for you. The hoe will also be handy for you- I wouldn't worry too much about the barrel swing cylinder as long as it currently isn't leaking or jerky. If going bad that is what you would see as a problem. A rebuilt HLR is very pricey so that is a plus, and it never hurts to have new steering clutches.

One thing to realize is that a dozer when combined with a hoe is very rear heavy, and since you can't counterweigh it with soil in a bucket you will need to be somewhat careful on slopes. Also the heavy hoe can cause quicker undercarriage wear which leads me to the next point...

I would agree that maybe it is the original undercarriage. Parts of your undercarriage have some significant wear from what I can see from the photos. The track adjusters appear to be almost all the way forward on the trackframe- that coupled with the proper tension you currently have (usually a good thing) means you probably have some significant pin/bushing wear. You can do some measurements to confirm but that with the wear on the track links (rails) and the sharpening points on the sprockets leads me to that conclusion. I also can't tell for sure, but the flanges on the front idler seem to have uneven wear- the inside flange appears to be more worn than the outer flange. That could be a sign of misalignment of the track, but others could weigh in. The pin boss wear Lavoy mentioned further supports the overall conclusion.

I am not trying to scare or upset you, and it is not to say that you can't get some good use out of the undercarriage as it is but it may also be a reason to rethink trying to use it commercially unless you are ready to get new undercarriage if deciding to use it a significant amount of the time. However for casual use for yourself and maybe some neighbors it should be OK. Over time you will find that when turning it may want to jump track. You'll just need to go slow and keep an eye on it. Also when not using the hoe you may want to unhook it as that puts a lot of weight on the sprockets- it may give you some additional life from them.

I'm not trying to put a damper on this and others may have a different opinion, but thought it best to give you an additional assessment. In the meantime have fun with it and don't worry too much. t should be good for you in the short term and appears to be worth replacing undercarriage down the road. I wouldn't worry too much about not having used one- if you read the operator manual they are fairly simple to operate and with some practice you can get pretty good at rough grading.

As for using it commercial you also have to factor in liability insurance, transport, and the occasional breakdown as well as other things. I have a rough idea on operating cost per hour but there are some commercial operators on here like Digitup that could give you a better idea.

[Tigerhaze]

The pin and bushing wear itself will be somewhat telling (you may see a definite wear spot on each bushing rather than being round and really bad wear will expose the pin through the bushing), and a photo of either the front or rear bottom roller on each side at the front or back of the rock guard would also be helpful. When Lavoy mentioned pin boss wear, what he meant is that the outer bottom roller flanges are probably hitting the small raised outer portion of the track links (i.e. pin boss). That would indicate the roller surfaces are worn to allow that contact to be made. The upper idler would also be helpful to see.

As you probably know from reading posts on here that undercarriage wears as a set so if you see evidence of wear in one spot it is probably on all undercarriage components (assuming individual parts were not replaced).

The main thing (besides leaving the hoe off) to reduce wear is do not make really sharp turns (puts a lot of stress on the side you are turning towards), do not run the dozer parallel to slopes (puts a lot of weight on downhill track), and try not to drop it over humps you are crossing-ease over them. You can tell when you are doing things that wear on the tracks as they will sound "grumpy" (popping, grating sounds).

Lucky for you 450 undercarriage is still available- you could be in the boat that me and JT are in in that early 2010 undercarriage is generally no longer available.

[jtrichard]

i am a little luckier then tiger all 3 of mine have late tracks 2 early crawlers and 1 late and all have very good chains sprockets and rollers

[hydrogeo]

"The main thing (besides leaving the hoe off) to reduce wear is do not make really sharp turns (puts a lot of stress on the side you are turning towards), do not run the dozer parallel to slopes (puts a lot of weight on downhill track), and try not to drop it over humps you are crossing-ease over them. You can tell when you are doing things that wear on the tracks as they will sound "grumpy" (popping, grating sounds). "

Sorry for the hi-jack but got a little chuckle, I don't think I'd be able to take my 40c 2' from the edge of the lawn in these parts without breaking all these rules, LOL.

[Goober]

Ok, took the time to get a bunch more pictures and edit them for display here, so here we go...

Left Idler showing flange wear:


Left rear bottom roller (is it just me or is there something missing from the roller?)


Left second-from-rear bottom roller:


Left track bushings:



Right idler pics:





Right rear bottom roller:


Right front bottom roller:


Right track bushing:

[jtrichard]

Lets see where do i start looks like a bird s**t on the right idler where the crack is (has to be Vee-d out and welded) ... left rear roller YES the outer flange is gone and it looks like the roller is to far inward for some reason ...Right rear roller does not appear to be turning/rolling ...Right front roller looks good could be welded up if the shaft and bushing/bearings are good....what you have listed as right track bushing looks like it is right on top of the upper roller? looks like they are worn down to a point that they need welded up (may be not i just looked at another pick of the upper and it dont look that bad kinda hard to see in these pics)and also you can see the pins and bushings have all ready been turned so .. I would "A" adjust the left front idler(aline to stop the inside wear) maybe weld it back up "B" ... find a few used bottom rollers and replace as needed... "C" reverse the sprockets and "D" run it till the tracks fall off ( which would probably be many,many years) OR run as is till they fall off (that could be years also depends on just how much you run it) and start looking for a complete new under-carriage... DO NOT try to adjust the tracks up much tighter as that will speed up the sprocket wear

[Goober]

Right chain P&B has definitely been turned, left chain has less wear - has it also been turned - there is some wear on the top and sides, but not scalloped like the right.

So it's idler misalignment that is cause the flange wear on the left idler? How is that adjusted? Is there something else that could be causing the wear? Even on the left sprocket, the track is wearing the outside of the teeth noticeably, like something is pulling the track towards the center of the dozer.

So basically get the dozer up on blocks and pull both tracks so I can:
1. Weld the right idler
2. Adjust the left idler (however I do that)
3. Remove & repair/replace bottom rollers (make sense to just put a complete new set of rollers on - it's only $1200? Do they wear more with a worn chain then with a new chain - ie if I put new bottom rollers on and then eventually replace chain will I be throwing money away with the new rollers because of running them with an otherwise worn undercarriage?)
4. Flip sprockets - I'm guessing this means put left sprocket on right side of dozer and vica-versa?
5. Replace every single hose on the machine (not related to these photos, but EVERYTHING is leaking)
6. Do a complete service ($714 in parts and fluids - I'm picking this stuff up today)
7. Start pushing dirt.

[jtrichard]

yes you can replace the bottom rollers and still use the old chains ...the only thing you DON"T what to mix is a new sprocket with these old chains......the book will tell you how to do a alinement YOU DO have the book RIGHT????? there are shims (called straps in the parts list) on the inside and out of the yoke that holds the front idler..... Yes on sprocket flip

[Tigerhaze]

I generally agree with JTs advice to fix just enough to run to destruction- you don't really have anything to lose with that at this point and you may get several hundred hours out of it. I have noticed with my 2010 that once they get worn like that they start to wear really quick so wouldn't expect to get thousands of hours but you could still get some decent farm work out of it before then.

[Goober]

Yes - I have owners manual, parts catalog and service manual for the dozer, just haven't read them all cover to cover yet . Thanks for quick feedback - this allowed me time to run to the berco dealer and pick up a set of rollers and get all my service goodies at the Deere dealer. Labor Day weekend will be spent wrenching so I can start pushing dirt next week!

yes you can replace the bottom rollers and still use the old chains ...the only thing you DON"T what to mix is a new sprocket with these old chains......the book will tell you how to do a alinement YOU DO have the book RIGHT????? there are shims (called straps in the parts list) on the inside and out of the yoke that holds the front idler..... Yes on sprocket flip