Grader Shopping

[Blue-Fox]

Please Tell me what/why/how you personally would spend your saved up cash on what pre-def machine.
This machine will primarily be a "county/borough" contractor secondary road maintenance machine. Summer maintenance, Winter plowing, Winging, Scraping ice and will have a Ripper, Front plow, side wing, and snow gate.

I have several older machines but newest is 95 Champ 740A series 3. @26k hours on it. I have a 726A same year at @6500 hrs. It's only got @800 hrs on motor, but lost the main 6wd hose in the gooseneck and starting to lose rest of the hoses. My 73 & 76 Cat 12G's are both tired and ready for back up machine status.
All good machines but repairs and downtime are telling me time to upgrade to a pre-tier 4 machine. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience.

 

[Silveroddo]

I don't have any real answers but I've been contemplating the same thing. Based on your zip, you're in Alaska? Who has the best product support where you are? Seems to me Cat and Deere are getting to be the only 2 real options in graders and from what I've seen, you can't beat Cat when it comes to long term product support.
I'm not in the position to spend this kind of coin on a machine at the moment, but this represents, in my minds eye a machine that's got value. Its likely going to bring 100k, but its going to have product support forever, its low hours, and pre-emissions.
https://www.minnbid.org/Mobile/AuctionLot/45292
100K for a blade is a chunk of coin for maintenance blading in my world though, I've been pondering the same thing as far as machine upgrades go. Local options are C and D series Deere's for $50-60k (c series) but they make me nervous as I've heard of several needing 30k transmissions by 7k hrs. Finding a C Series thats had a new trans and didn't have ridiculous hours would be interesting but I haven't come across any.
Makes me seriously contemplate hording Champion parts and stick with the series 3 and 4 generation of machine and just keep rebuilding them, but I don't know that that's really a tenable option either.
I've been meaning to research ex military machines a little bit, but haven't gotten down that rabbit hole yet

 

[Blue-Fox]

Yeah I’m in Alaska. NC Cat is an 8 hour round trip in a car. Deere is across town. So there’s that. But Here’s the deal with old machinery. Cough up some money now, and count on costs of your regular maintenance and maybe an oops here or there to fix something dumb. Or set on the money and face weekly broke downtime that turns into all night long in the shop, night after night waiting on parts that you cannot hardly find anymore, plus costs of lost work time (pay someone else to complete my work by deadline at 220-250/hr, or pay out Mechanic time at bottom near $120/hr for a private wrench or +\- $200/hr at any major shop - offsets every piece of profit I can make with the old paid off machine. Doesn’t take long to pile up a fortune of labor in old tired machines. I can’t do it all myself anymore like I used to and the operator has to get some rest between shifts. It’s a tough call but I’m ready for some run time.

 

[Blue-Fox]

I’m pretty old school myself, I wish I had the time to go thru each of these machines and fix all the problems. I was raised up working in the shop between jobs we rebuilt and repaired and fixed everything. In frames, trans, finals, welding whatever.. But truth is the G models are near 50 years old. That’s testament for sure. Cats are tough and reliable. Work horses. I just sent their predecessor 13k/12F to the scrap yard with broken final housings. I’ve in-framed twice and done the clutch twice, and this was second time into the finals and we found they were not assembled properly last time. Busted out several bolt holes in the spool between bull gear housing and the chain box. I learned basics of plowing snow in a pony motor 12 on the bench seat next to my dad, that made that 13k/12F look like a caddy. There’s a time when you gotta let go. On top of all that, The real operators that could run that 12F with a wing for 18 hours and be happy to start at 6 am the next day are gone too. If you want to attract good help it is paramount to have reliable equipment and they will usually work to keep it that way. Anyway I’m interested what is the good and bad of the newer machines. I read quite a bit here but hate to clog up other peoples threads with my jib jab. Thanks!

 

[Welder Dave]

A 95 Champion should be a series 5. If you wanted to look at lower hour and/or newer Champions or Volvo's you could call Jade Equipment in Edmonton and ask them about parts availability going forward. Generally Champion and Volvo sell for quite a bit less money than comparable Cat or JD graders. Just from reading on here, the last of the Champion machines had fewer problems than when they went to Volvo. There several newer Volvo's for sale on the net with less than 10,000 hours.

 

[20/80]

Just so that you know, You get what you pay for, I can tell you from personal experience the 140H is a very good machine and no regen or DEF systems, I had a 2007 140H, just over 14000 hrs on engine 3176 series before rebuild, very reliable lots of power, good fuel economy and has done everything you said you need one for, if you could find one you should consider it, don't buy junk thinking you got a great deal, if your old school and want reliability, this would be my go to machine hands down. good luck

 

[Blue-Fox]

A 95 Champion should be a series 5. If you wanted to look at lower hour and/or newer Champions or Volvo's you could call Jade Equipment in Edmonton and ask them about parts availability going forward. Generally Champion and Volvo sell for quite a bit less money than comparable Cat or JD graders. Just from reading on here, the last of the Champion machines had fewer problems than when they went to Volvo. There several newer Volvo's for sale on the net with less than 10,000 hours.

Jade is my only parts source. The Volvo shop 8 hours away has some misc stuff left over but mostly buying from Jade and marking it up. I was thinking that series 5 wasn’t till 97. I’m going to have to gather up serial numbers now and double check my years. I’m probably screwed up. These Champs are pretty solid. Just put circle sections in the 740, and now it’s having a clutch issue. I’m looking forward at needing to take them down one at a time and re-hose them and repack cylinders etc. I don’t have a lot of help and can’t leave my contract unattended. But yeah they are a great machine.

 

[Blue-Fox]

Just so that you know, You get what you pay for, I can tell you from personal experience the 140H is a very good machine and no regen or DEF systems, I had a 2007 140H, just over 14000 hrs on engine 3176 series before rebuild, very reliable lots of power, good fuel economy and has done everything you said you need one for, if you could find one you should consider it, don't buy junk thinking you got a great deal, if your old school and want reliability, this would be my go to machine hands down. good luck

I definitely agree, and have been looking at 140/160 and 143/163 H models. 6wd isn’t critical but really helps with these neighborhoods that are packed into short steep hill country.

 

[20/80]

I definitely agree, and have been looking at 140/160 and 143/163 H models. 6wd isn’t critical but really helps with these neighborhoods that are packed into short steep hill country.

Let us know what you get, with pics if its not to much trouble.

 

[Blue-Fox]

Local options are C and D series Deere's for $50-60k (c series) but they make me nervous as I've heard of several needing 30k transmissions by 7k hrs. Finding a C Series thats had a new trans and didn't have ridiculous hours would be interesting but I haven't come across any.
Makes me seriously contemplate hording Champion parts and stick with the series 3 and 4 generation of machine and just keep rebuilding them, but I don't know that that's really a tenable option either.
I've been meaning to research ex military machines a little bit, but haven't gotten down that rabbit hole yet

Have the Deere GP series been upgraded transmission wise? Have same sort of life? I have seen some decently priced D model deeres. Tempting.
I have 3 champions now. Just brought this 720 home to stand in for my broken 12G to be the winging mule. But I gotta replace the alternator and several hoses are wasted.

 

[Welder Dave]

That's a clean looking grader. 140H is a good machine but a low hour unit will command big money.

 

[Silveroddo]

That old girl looks pretty clean, If thats a series 4, I've got a twin to it, love those old girls.
I haven't run across any of the G serries with that many hours on it. We have a 770G at work thats probably the nicest machine I've run, its been good but its got less than 2k hrs on it. Most of my grading has been as a side gig with my old Champions. We primarily use graders for misc snow activities and shouldering projects. I'm really curious to see what the guys in the newer Deeres and Cats have to say about the machines they've been running.
I've got a buddy thats really spent time in newer blades the last few years. M series cat doing construction, 770G deere doing county work, then he came to work for us and got put in a 2012 ish Volvo to go wing shoulders. He said he felt like he'd been down graded to a Yugo, I've run that machine and I can say I agree.

 

[Welder Dave]

According to the head grader instructor at the operating engineers training center, the new JD graders are real nice to operate.

 

[cuttin edge]

DOT here has a fleet of aging 720As.. One of the contractors here bought one at auction, and everything had been done over. Even had 6 new winter tires. Volvo is just a newer Champion. I run a Volvo now, but the only thing I find is that if you fart, it throws a code, and parts are super expensive. A company here that looks after woods roads for logging companies, has a fleet of 12 cat machines that they bought new in the 80s. He keeps them in really good shape. They have a new M, but he doesn't figure it will be a good a machine as the Gs

 

[Silveroddo]

Not to hijack the thread, but 12 machines to do logging roads should be an entirely new thread on its own.

 

[cuttin edge]

Not to hijack the thread, but 12 machines to do logging roads should be an entirely new thread on its own.

I just mean he has had great luck with older Cats and keeps them up.

 

[20/80]

DOT here has a fleet of aging 720As.. One of the contractors here bought one at auction, and everything had been done over. Even had 6 new winter tires. Volvo is just a newer Champion. I run a Volvo now, but the only thing I find is that if you fart, it throws a code, and parts are super expensive. A company here that looks after woods roads for logging companies, has a fleet of 12 cat machines that they bought new in the 80s. He keeps them in really good shape. They have a new M, but he doesn't figure it will be a good a machine as the Gs

We have a few Gs in our fleet, good machines, just way under powered, the newer 140Hs are a big upgrade, the older M series can be alot of trouble but when they are working good they are good, they are heavier then a G, can't beat them for iceblading, quick steering for recovery and plowing, newer Ms are much better for sure, the problem with operators that are used to the rack is the joystick takes some time getting used to them first, the steering will be there biggest complaint while roading with wing and plow on.

 

[Welder Dave]

From reading on here there were lots of steering issues with the early M series. So would have to make sure all updates were done.

 

[20/80]

From reading on here there were lots of steering issues with the early M series. So would have to make sure all updates were done.

It seems the updates for the M series never ends, some do them some ignore them till there's a major problem it seems.

 

[Simon C]

Had a 120 M at a place I use to work at. Cat had to come multiple times to change software and yes new operators found it very hard with the joysticks. Just off warranty and had to replace left joystick for big dollars. Plus it had to be recalibrated by ET. Had a 14H Cat at a place I worked at. It was extremely Heavy Duty built. Probably worth the money in the long run.
Simon C