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I like Caterpillar, for various reasons, but am not impartial to them, just that I know they made some well designed and built tractors that stood up to the abuse in the 40's-60's, so if you find an old D-6, 7 or 8 in decent operating condition, it ought to be worth looking into. I've seen many appearing to be in good shape, reasonably priced, few years back some nice military 7E's or G's with hardly any hours on them, like $10,000. I like the old 7's they made a lot of them, still resources around to fool with them. Hard soil, rocks, and clearing overgrown land, you will want to make sure whatever you intend to buy has been looked over, final drives, transmission, undercarriage not worn out etc. Finding the right one, in the condition you want, maybe with some known history would be the best scenario, better to spend a little more on something you have confirmed to be in good or better operable condition, than something that might need extensive work. These can be costly to rebuild. Some operators are not kind to these kind of machines, especially some of the bigger ones like the 8's and 9's, they were meant to be worked hard. I know a lot depends on how the operator treated them and how well they were maintained. As I've been told, some of the A-C and Internationals were weaker in the final drives, but by the same token, some of these were a lot easier to work on then the same era Caterpillars. I think its fair to say, looking for things like metal bits at the bottom of a final drive housing, or prying against a sprocket to see if it is loose on the shaft and other things of the sort, like getting to demo it for a few hours or run it until operating temperature to see whats going on, is good measure for any MFR. of these, each has their traits and those are how most derive their preferences, which are always interesting to hear about. Everyone has a unique preference, usually based on power, controls, feel, balance, ease of repair, serviceability, etc. Besides all the caterpillar ones, I've ran some of JD's early 1010's 350-450's later ones, 550's 650's, few years back, in '94 had a new 550, that was an excellent grading tractor, plenty of the Komatsu's small-large, some of the Case 450's 850's, also ran the JD 850 similar to the 750 described here, when in decent order they will all do this kind of work. That 850 was quick, turning was real fast, the thing would spin in a circle, something about them though, early 80's ones, repairs on that era hydrostatic drive, have to check those out I think, also think it took JD awhile to refine that kind of drive, might be completely wrong though, no expert on them. Ran a 650 JD last year, nice machine. I remember one morning, a young foreman decided to try the 850 JD out. I was pulling into the site with the lowboy and the sun was just coming up, he nosed over a hump too quickly and saw his silhouette, he got launched out of the seat, right onto the hood, just about kissed the stack, ouch I'm thinking, glad he stayed on the hood, he was not wearing the seatbelt, those tracks are unforgiving. Same guy I pulled out of a collapsed trench one morning, up to his neck in it, we used to have fun I guess you would say, he's lucky to be here today, and I am glad he did not get hurt, seemed to be accident prone, he got out of the site work business though. If you plan on dealing with a lot of large rocks, you may want to avoid a 6 way blade and stay with a straight blade with tilt control, outside push arms will take a lot more abuse vs. a 6 way. Hard ground, roots, frost, a ripper is a nice tool, not necessary by any means, still nice to have, adds weight to some machines and balances them, really makes a D8K heavy, but that 4 barrel one was a powerful tool, I used to enjoy ripping huge chunks of frost, rock was hard on your back though. Brush and trees, they do come out of nowhere and will nail you when you least expect it, and it hurts, I've cleared a lot of brush with my old ford tractor and my old D7 with no protection and even when being careful, something will get you snap at or poke you. Nice to have limb risers, brush cab, r.o.p.s for falling objects and other reasons. If you are dealing with trees, definitely use care, things can go wrong quickly. I'm comfortable using my D7 in the brush and small trees, have no over head protection, so I will not go in the woods or near any dead trees, it's not worth the risk, an old one, not the most powerful when hard digging, pushing, but it will clear land nicely, and run for years with good maintenance. I like it for this work, and I enjoy running it when I can. Brush and clearing can be really nasty work, especially when you get whacked with limbs, saplings and other things, last time I got nailed with a tree, I had already cut it down but was kind of hung in the vines a bit, or some darn thing, I figured I'd knock it the rest of the way down, and it looked to be down far enough already, but somehow, part of it came up and knocked me square on the side of the head as I passed it, track flipped it up, still don't know what it was. A pretty good whack, thought my path was clear though, had no idea of the danger. The other thing to consider is parts availability and I'll bet from owning that M-F crawler you know about parts availability for it, that can certainly make things tough to repair quickly, another thing to keep in mind, as far as the MFR. of what you purchase. If you know anyone who is good with the internal parts like the finals and can help you measure out an undercarriage, have an eye for cracks, repairs, poorly done repair welds, this is a help too.
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