Need to buy used Cat 943,953 or 963

Hello every body, I'm new to this forum and I'm not native English speaker.

I'm in sub Saharan Africa where track loaders are not popular and I need to buy one of these three machines(943,953 or 963) or one of the last two followed by "C" as track loader are versatile machine, so as I'm not mechanic and never own track loader I'm seriously worrying about how this machines might be in Africa and what problems may I face in the future from this machine. The questions that I'm focusing are:
1-How can I find spare parts?
2-What parts of the machine do I focus checking before buying it?
3-As hydro-static transmission is expensive how can I check it's current state (whether good or bad)?
4-Is it to change the complete hydro-static transmission if fault or it have parts to change over time as the engines?
5-I'm planing to buy made in France from Italy what shortcoming have French cat versions?

Adding all these some friends who operate heavy machines warned me from these machines as they are new to our environment and advised me to buy old slow machines which they are familiar with like fiat-allis fl10c or fiatallis fl14c knowing spare parts of fiatallis are rare all around the world.
I'm more interest in machine that is versatile, easy to operate,do the job well and fast, So I'm requesting to all experts on this forum to help me chose the right machine.

Thanks for advance to every body.

I would think an older and slower model would suit you better, something like a 955L or 977L.

Hydrostatic drives would make me very nervous, especially with limited repair options.


Good luck!

To elric thanks first, but I'm going to ask is there any reasonable repair options some where like Dubai or Kenya? besides I can order parts from some countries like Dubai,china or European countries but how frequently does hydro-static problems occur?

Gobsan, Welcome to HEF forums!

First, I'd spend a few hours, and read through this whole Track Loader section. It'll answer a lot of your questions, as to drawbacks/benefits of various machines.


As for " any reasonable repair options some where like Dubai or Kenya?" I'd be worried, as here in the states I've heard of some eye watering repair bills. Overseas I would think would be higher.


Something that could be repaired by a good mechanic without specialized tools sounds like the best choice. That said, I've very little seat time on a bucket cat, perhaps someone else can chime in?

Mr. elric

Thanks for your advise, change all my plan on hydro-static driven machines, I take the decision to buy cat 955l or 977l, but which one you strongly recommend as I need to take down large and small trees,grading,removing large stumps in my 100 hector farm.

Thanks for advance.

Welcome to the Forums gobsan!:drinkup

I think your wise to choose an older mechanical loader, not a hystat machine considering parts and service availability in your area. Either one a 955 or 977 would do what you need. Personally I would go with a 955 as they were more made and parts should be more readily available.

Good luck Gobsan, and please let us know how it works out.

Thanks for welcoming me to HEF forums.
I would appreciate all the efforts you paid to help me take better choice, I would like to post images of the machine I selected to buy. Its from France and costs £11,000, it already done 6490 hours as the owner says.
I'm happy taking time on this forums, please your comments about pics.

Thanks all of you.

Many thanks to you.

Finally I've purchased this machine in Switzerland and waiting for shippment, it costs $12k.

That a nice looking 955, I think you did well. How much will it cost to ship?

I would've bought that loader if it was close to me.

Really I'm not sure how much will be shipment cost but it depends on container size and how to load it in the container but a friend who shipped two little track loaders I guess cat 931 and a Komatsu in one container told me he spent $4k to Mogadishu port. Now I'm planing to remove the cab and bucket to fit to the container.

Will a 955 fit in a standard shipping container with the cab and bucket removed? Or do they offer wider containers?

Take some pics.

Ok, I'll take pics. But I'm little confused about the machine module it has 955L label with serial 64j4992, I've checked the serial with ironrecord.com I found this serial is 955K so is ironrecord.com data accurate? And what is the difference between 955K and 955L and is 955K have many shortcomings than 955L?

Thanks for advance.

I couldn't tell you the differences between the K and L, they were a little before my time. There are other members who are much more knowledgeable, maybe they'll chime in.

Cat 955L container enterage.

CM1995 said:

Will a 955 fit in a standard shipping container with the cab and bucket removed? Or do they offer wider containers?

Take some pics.

Click to expand...

Can you guess the type of this container?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nnvo9A4N2o

That's impressive. That's got to be wider than a standard 40' conex?

Reminds me of what an old timer did once to clean out a concrete culvert. He removed the cab and seat of a 953B in order to allow it to fit inside the culvert. The operator sat on a custom made wood crate to get low enough to clear the top.

gobsan said:

Can you guess the type of this container?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nnvo9A4N2o

Click to expand...

That's a bit of a tight fit right there! Would be nice if they could find a container with a removable top. We shipped out a used stone crusher a few years back and the container it went into had a top that could be removed.

The thing that had all of us at the quarry worried about was the small ratchet straps they used on it! I believe this was a 4 ft Symons crusher and they used four 1 inch straps on it after setting it on wood blocks in the container. I use straps that big to haul my wife's Vespa scooter!

Gobsan, be sure to get some pictures of it when you get it delivered, if it's as good as it looks in the pictures should be a good machine.

I've compared information from the website http://www.ritchiewiki.com/wiki/index.php/Caterpillar_955K/955L_Crawler_Loader to this http://ironrecord.com/ and the result I got was very different as you can see the attached files, www.ritchiewiki.com says "In 1971 and 1972 Cat replaced 955K with 955L, but retained the 955K serial number prefixes. The 955L features increased horsepower to 130 FWHP, beginning with 64J03994, 71J03198, and 85J04672." while www.ironrecord.com says 64J04992 is 1973 955K.

Please see the attached as reference of my findings, and is any one can confirm me which website have correct data?

I talk to cat dealer near my area with email and they replayed to me like this "Please find the attached file as you required. Also note this is a very old version of machine but all parts will be available in classic which will be costly rather than normal price of Cat parts" with attachment data from this this link www.ritchiespecs.com/specification?...er&make=Caterpillar&model=955L&modelid=93219#

I also compared information from the website http://ironrecord.com/ to the website http://www.ritchiewiki.com/wiki/index.php/Caterpillar_955K/955L_Crawler_Loader and the result I got was very different as you can see the attached files, www.ritchiewiki.com says "In 1971 and 1972 Cat replaced 955K with 955L, but retained the 955K serial number prefixes. The 955L features increased horsepower to 130 FWHP, beginning with 64J03994, 71J03198, and 85J04672." while www.ironrecord.com says 64J04992 is 1973 955K.


Research on first website http://ironrecord.com/

See this link how I made the query https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pSS2IJ1fes&feature=youtu.be

View attachment 136980

As you can see the range of serial number returned starts 09258 and it is above my serial# 04992 so my serial# is not included in 955L 64J. Then I changed the query to 955K 64J as you can see below pic.

View attachment 136979

After I changed the query to 955K 64J as you see I got a range that starts 04905 to 06214 which is estimated to 1973 production. Thus my serial 04992 is included and according to this website my machine is 955K model.

Research on second website http://www.ritchiewiki.com/wiki/index.php/Caterpillar_955K/955L_Crawler_Loader

View attachment 136981

This website states that in 1971 and 1972 Cat replaced 955K with 955L, but retained the 955K serial number prefixes. The 955L features increased horsepower to 130 FWHP, beginning with 64J03994, 71J03198, and 85J04672. Thus my serial is above starting serial of 955L which is 64J03994 and according to this website my machine is 955L model.

Finally I got confused of this two information so any one can confirm me the correct information?

Thanks.

Loading Cat 955L to Container for shipment.

Thanks to Allah(GOD), we've loaded the cat 955L with other machines into 40 feet container as you can see the image.
Thanks to all who helped in choosing this machine.