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From an operators opinion, the 955 crawler loaders were a good machine, I'm familiar with early 70's and up models, that one and the 977L, was fortunate to have been on several of each in good working condition, and aside from the mechanical and repair aspects of them, it was not very often besides regular maintenance that these gave much trouble. I did a lot of clearing with the 955 H I thought it was, forgot the sequence of the series of these, not bad for msot work, you can get higher pushing leverage than a dozer, can dig around the base of the tree, it can be a productive machine in the hands of an experienced operator. The work I did was in south jersey, mostly sandy soils and pines, some hardwoods, used to clear easements before the pipe crew came in to install pipe and other utilities. I was a new hire and it was funny how they decided to see what kind of operator I was, by putting me on the first machine the company ever owned, they had 80 pieces at that time. I did all kinds of work with it, it had a fresh motor in it, new U/C, loaded trucks, cleared trees and brush, not a bad choice, a 4 in one bucket would be nice too. Not the easiest thing to grade with, track frames are fixed, the don't contour to uneven ground like ones that oscillate, so they're harder to fine grade than a dozer, but you learn to work with it, just takes longer. With tree clearing and similar work, you've got to be aware of the fact that it's very dangerous work or can be, the machine needs to have a R.O.P.S. - roll over protective structure on it, seatbelt and necessary operator protection from falling limbs as well as other protruding limbs. The last one I ran just had a weather cab ! No protection, I did quite a bit of clearing with it though, for some reason they kept me on it for quite awhile specifically for the clearing tasks. I can't quite say I know much about the mechanics of them, but from what I saw, they were quite reliable, yet I'd not know how to deal with the loader frame for making repairs, not much room to work with. When contemplating spending that kind of money, make sure you know what you are getting, was the undercarriage measured to be new or is that just what the seller says, I'd want to get it up to operating temperature and check it out thoroughly, like most equipment, it's good to run it before buying if at all possible.
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