Most reliable machines from 20-30 years ago.

CM1995 said: CB - What is your budget? Click to expand... 40 grand or less ideally.

Machinery trader upstate NY is Hitachi 100 $29k high but like John said old honeys are in demand.

I found another potential machine real close by. A Kobelco SK135sr. 7300 hours with new final drives. Undercarriage looks good. The short swing gives me pause though, probably a lot harder to work on with it being more cramped in there.

Just a suggestion - LB for LB the class excavator you are looking at is very popular since it can be moved on a tag trailer and thus pricey compared to a 50K machine that has to be moved on a lowboy. Do just want a machine in the 30K lb range or can you go up a size? How often will you need to move it? FWIW we hire out all our moves to a local lowboy service. All 3 have Landoll's which are the sweetest trailers to load and unload from. Costs us anywhere from $300-500 to move a 60K 325 around town.

I'm hoping to keep it so I can move it behind a dump truck at some point. I don't intend to use it for business except when needed, but just want a versatile machine I can mostly keep on the property and around the new shop for odd jobs. Found a Cat 312 a bit farther away with 4000 hours. Very interested in going to look at that one. Looks pretty clean.

I had a 315CL and a 315DL. Both were fantastic machines, very dependable and we hauled them on a 54K lb tag trailer wherever they needed to go.

I just looked closer at the pictures of the 312. It has REGA printed on it. Looks like that's a grey market import?

It's been a while since I heard the term REGA. As memory serves, yes REGA machines were grey market here in the US. C model?

No letter, just the 312 decal.

Probably an A model machine. Lots of those were gray market as Cat was still selling 225 model machines. Analog electronics weren't to bad to troubleshoot. The build quality was pretty good as there were few structural failures that I saw. Parts are available but you will have to pirate a North American serial number when ordering them. The cabs are different an you won't be able to source parts for those. It will be very old though.

It looks like a less capable machine than the SK135, but it's half the hours. Here's the listing if you want to check it out. Facebook www.facebook.com

John C. said: Samsung became Volvo. That doesn't mean that there are any parts for old Samsung machines. Sumitomo and Link-Belt were in bed together in 1979 when I worked for the dealer. Case came into the fold with Sumitomo in the late 80s and early 90s. Parts are the same for period comparable machines. Each dealer will tell you they are not. Poclain and Drott were owned by Tenico Corp. in the eighties. It all ended up as part of Case eventually. Poclain started the change to high pressure high flow hydraulics. Case took the Drott machine and put their name on the brand. Didn't want to do the redesign so had Poclain do it. Parts were always a problem even when they made them. the "88" orphans don't deserve any love from anyone. I haven't had anything to do with Hitachi machines in awhile. I do know that 20 year old Komatsu parts are very expensive and not guaranteed to be available for any of the line. Right now the auction market machines are likely going to be much older than we have seen in the past with a lot more hours on the clocks. New machine prices are still going up but sales at this time are pretty poor. Old machines make lousy trades so those end up in the auctions. If you are looking for used, you might just wait a couple of months as the markets are showing signs of strain. Get to know someone with a background in repairing these units. Click to expand... Providing you have part numbers, you can find just about any part for Korean made machines through Korean parts suppliers and there are numerous. I can get some parts through Volvo, if not I'll buy from Korea, air freight takes 8-9 days to Au, no doubt more to US. These suppliers offer, Genuine or Korean aftermarket, nothing Chinese. Here are some examples of enquiries Ive made. I only needed some seals but thought I'd see if they stock big ticket items like floating seals, slew bearings etc. They can supply anything for the Samsung down to small items like cab window rollers like in the pic, hinges for doors, window rubbers, decals etc... some items will come labelled Volvo. Very decent prices.

So I'm buying the SK135sr. I went and checked it out today. Fired right up, ran good. Everything was smooth and it dug well. Has a few wet fittings that I'm going to clean up and try tighten, no major leaks. The only real slop in it is the wishbone pin, which isn't that bad for the age. They just changed out both final drives. It's a retired guy selling his stuff, nice guy.

We need some pics..

This video just popped up on my feed. Posted two days ago. Seems relevant to this thread since the guy bought a Rega badged machine.

I'm not sure if I should start another thread specifically for this machine at some point, but once it comes home I'm going to hot water pressure wash everything, do a full service and try to address any repairs it may need. While doing that, does anyone know if it's fairly simple to plumb for auxiliary hydraulics on these units? I didn't run the serial number, but it looks like a first or second generation. If I could plumb it to run a breaker that would be handy.

CBMasonry said: This video just popped up on my feed. Posted two days ago. Seems relevant to this thread since the guy bought a Rega badged machine. Click to expand... We've come across this before on the forum, and most if not every the time there is a way round it. Cat have a bar code reader system that can interpret whether or not a machine PIN plate is genuine or not, even from a photo. Just by looking at the plate on his video, and based on a lot of others I've seen, I'm almost 99% sure it would flag up as non-kosher. To me it looks "wrong". If he had gone to Cat with a photo of the PIN plate instead of simply running a check on the Serial Number before bidding on it he might have avoided a world of pain. EDIT: A very small (30 seconds or less) dig into the interweb and the information popped up that there was NEVER a machine manufactured that originally bore the Serial Number GG803742. The last machine ever built with a GG8 S/N prefix was GG803340 on 20/NOV/2020. Also the GG8 machine is powered by a Cat C3.3B engine, not a Mitsubishi. Another red flag if more were needed. All the GG8 series of machines were manufactured in the Cat mini-ex manufacturing plant in Athens GA. A long way away from China........ So the plate isn't kosher and by implication that makes the machine non-kosher as well. It's not hard to do due diligence, and if you don't know how to do it the best thing to do is ask. TBH I think his video was done more for clicks than to make a point. I may be wrong.

Got it home.

Congrats! Good looking machine. How much did you end up giving for it?

$28k for it. I didn't look for long, but didn't see an operator's manual inside it. I have to spend some time giving it a full service. Fixing whatever leaks I can fix, and getting it all cleaned up. I'm gonna drain everything, all the filters, re-tension the tracks, whatever I can do to get it ready to rock. It's going to be out in the field for awhile once it leaves so the less I have to do while it's there, the better. Does anyone know where to find a digital operator's manual for it? Looks like there are a few paper copies available.