John Deere 450 price $$$ continued

Well I went and looked at the jd 450 today. Here are the numbers- TYPE= T5E3M Serial# 0907781. My first question would be what year is it? I do know that it has dry clutches. I operated it and done a few things that learned about here in this forum. First off it started easily. I told the man to run a little while I watched. When he was running it I listened for any odd sounds or anything else. I stopped him and asked how long he had the dozer and what he had done to it. He said he had it for about 12 years and had done nothing to it. He said it had sat a while before he got it and the clutch on one side was stuck. He fixed that and put brakes in it while there. He said he had the clutches measured (micro) and they were good. He has done nothing since. He explained that he had not used the dozer over probably 300 hours since he has had it. By this time it had been running for about 30-35 min. I got on it and shifted HLR at about 3/4 throttle. I did this in range 1,2,3, and 4. There was about 1 second lag between each position. I played around with the bucket and the Hydraulics are strong. I got off and idled the motor down. The blowby tube had no blowby. At 3/4 throttle there is noooo blowby. I watched the exhaust as I reved the engine and only slight puff of black ( not grey ) smoke. At idle or open throttle there is no smoke. Then I lifted the front of the machine and got under it. All bolts were in place and nothing was cracked or welded that I could find. Can you all look at my pictures I have posted and tell me what you think of the track and roller condition? This machine comes with a backhoe but it was not on the sight. One other thing to note is that he had it on a sight and has been using it. When we arrived at the sight the first thing I did was look for anything leaking. There was not one drop of oil anywhere on the ground under or around. I also rocked the track pads from side to side to see how much play there was and could move them a little. I have him at 12k and he is not going any lower. Please look at my pictures and tell what you think if you can tell anything from a photo. The pictures I posted in the community album are titled "jd 450". The link is:

Link

I read your other posts but did not reply cause I have been busy, been getting in at dark-thirty ever since the last rain- which was... I can't remember now. I thought I would ad a few things; As always, JDemaris has given you some good points. I think you can find a newer and maybe cleaner 450 for the same money. I bought a JD350C Dozer sight-unseen a few years ago and prior to purchase I contacted the local Deere dealership and got an inspection report. They measured all the componants of the U/C, ran it and basically checked out everything that was reasonalble. It cost me about $300 but I think it was worth it. I have other Deere crawlers and have been around them for over 20 years, but I was still very nervous until I saw it arive and got to run it. I'm glad I got it, I fired it up yesterday and used it. So, I guess where I am heading here is look outside your area, if you are not already. If this tractor is going to be sitting for long periods of time then I would try to stay away from the dry clutches. Sometimes my 350C's or 450C sit for 6 months plus at a time and they always are ready to work as if they were run the day before. I have read on here folks having problems with the dry clutches freezing up if you let them sit.

I'm not sure I would pay 12K for that 450. Just my 2 cents.. good luck - Mark

If you agrevating the sellers then maybe you are not getting the whole story... If I was selling something I'd be happy to show a tractor to someone as many times as he would want to see it and answer questions.. But then again, I've never sold anything so maybe I could get agrevated. LOL -Mark

I have also noticed that the jd 555's are a lot cheaper than one would think. I saw a post on here somewhere saying that some of them had a sucky trans; is that why they cheaper? what do you think of the 80's 555? I am also looking at a case 450B, it is a 1980 with 500 hours on a new motor rebuilt by case dealer. It has 4in 1 bucket and backhoe for 14,000. That's a little more than I want to spend but maybe can get him down.
Again I thank you for your input here on this forum and am sure others do to. I build houses for a living (Log Homes and conventional frame) so I guess I will start posting followups on that subject if folks have questions. I am un-educated on a lot of things but not when it comes to residential construction.