645 B Fiat Allis payloader value

Been without a payloader too long, so thought it better money to get a different one than to throw money at the old one. We have been pondering on one for sale (645 B) for a while now, and decided to pursue it. Our present payloader is also a 645, so we'll have parts. Anyway, it's a long story why we decided to knock the old one in the head, but we did. The one we are looking at is 11 grand. Has awesome BF Goodrich radial tires on it. Looks to be in excellent shape. Son is going to look at it today. One of the lower prices 645's I seen advertised for sale. But when my son stopped to visit the banker this morning, the banker went onto machinery Pete website, and decided it's way over priced. Said that on auction, 7,500 is about the high end on them. He still went along with the purchase of it, but thought we were over paying. I don't know what to think now. I am sure that the tires alone are worth 4 grand. The son will know a lot more after he looks at it today, but talking to the seller on the phone, it sounds like it doesn't need a thing. The one that I am turning into a parts machine was definitely cheaper, but had we gave it everything it needed, it damn sure wouldn't have been. It probably was a mistake buying the first one that I did, but it was a learning experience. Definitely know now that we like the 645, and want to stick with one. Can't hold the problems that we had with it against the machine, but the moron who worked on it previously, who did things to it that I would not have had a clue to look for. Like example, removing the transmission filter and connecting the hoses to it together. I am a little confused now, but if this payloader is as good as it seems, I think it's a lot of machine for 11 K. What y'all think. ? Thanks, Darrel

With your experience your in a better place to "guess" what condition it really is. But the market has to be thin for a machine of this age with the questionable parts supply.

No doubt on that, a mid 70s 955 or 951 will be low $20's high teens to a AC in the single digit thousands. IHC, Dresser, Dressta now following that ill fated path as well with fewer used machines for parts and parts scarce-ing out.


Buddy of mine still works HE stated even as Deere is nothing more than a rebadge Liebherr they latter are getting tough to find service parts for as are Komatsu Cat clones.

tadams(OH) wrote: Darrel did you buy that loader and get it home yet?  Tom

Yes, it's bought. Actually my son is the new owner of it. Not too many 21 year olds would rather buy a payloader than something frivolous, but he did. It's supposed to be here by about noon tomorrow. Darrel

If my book is right it would be made in '73 and should by rights really be a full breed A-C. I would say the price you paid is in the good ball park for what you're describing 

Darrel... I know you talked about the trouble you're having with your first 645 but I have forgotten the real issue... what was the problem exactly? 

Eric B wrote: Darrel... I know you talked about the trouble you're having with your first 645 but I have forgotten the real issue... what was the problem exactly?

Not enough time to explain it all now. Maybe I'll get a chance tonight or tomorrow. Darrel

Eric B wrote: Darrel... I know you talked about the trouble you're having with your first 645 but I have forgotten the real issue... what was the problem exactly?

Ok, here's the long version. Grab a bag of popcorn, sit down, relax, and read. In the beginning...……..Oooops, wrong story. fast forward a few years.

First 645, bought I suppose 3 or 4 years ago. Was missing entire hood, seller said transmission didn't pull as good as it should have. Did have a matched set of four really good tires, had a really good grapple fork, loader pins and such seems tight, engine ran good, priced what I thought was right at 8 grand. Kind of a funny side note; the day it was delivered, my brother in law had a semi come to the place to haul a load of cattle out for him. It spun out, and couldn't make the hill up my driveway. My oldest son jumped in the payloader and pulled the semi up and out of the yard, easily. That truck driver talked to me later, and said that he couldn't believe how that payloader pulled him without spinning a tire. He said his own payloader would have just spun out and it would have been all over with. Just had to chuckle to myself. Never did tell him that it didn't spin because it didn't put enough power to the ground to spin. Worked I guess. Can't argue with success.

   We tried different oil in the transmission, In hopes of it helping. Was told it required the red stuff. Put in the best we could get, and pulled the screen out of the transmission, and cleaned it out. Old oil had some glitter. Didn't learn it yet then, but figured out later that the transmission was supposed to have an external filter also. Some rocket scientist had removed it and just screwed the hoses going to it together. Still didn't set any performance records (actually no improvement), but it got work done for us.....for a while.

   A few months after that, when we were fueling it up one day, I noticed a bolt that looked like it had fresh fallen out of somwhere, but I couldn't find out where. Found out about five minutes later where it came from. My son had just gotten down to the hay yard with it and it died on him. Went down to it, started looking for the trouble. Found all three of the bolts that hold the injector pump in were gone, and the pump had gotten pushed out and the drive gear shot. Go figure.......how does like that happen? Hadn't been touched in XX years, and all of sudden injector pump bolts go loose and fall out? Can't remember what all got damaged, but the pump went to injpumped. Payloader was out of commission until spring. I think actually spring came and maybe turned into summer before we got the pump back on, and had it running again.
   

I don't exactly remember the time line of events after that, but somewhere along the way we changed transmission oil again, and put some plain ole hydraulic oil in it. Then it would pull like a locomotive, better than it ever did; like good enough to be a keeper! Looking back, maybe the injector pump rebuild had given the engine a little more oomph or had something to do with it. Still not sure on that. Enthusiasm was short lived. After running it for a while, we were back to a dead beat transmission. Got pissed and parked it. A couple days, or maybe a couple weeks later, I walked by it, and for the heck of it I pulled the transmission dipstick. Not a drop of oil on it. Where did did it go.....? Had no idea at the time, but I very quickly added some oil to it and tried it again. Had the "bring a grin to your face" attitude again. Pulled to beat hell. A day or so later, Shameless sent us about 10 inches of his purdy. My wife tried to get to work, but couldn't even get down the driveway. I went down with the pickup and got it stuck too. Called up the son. He came down with the payloader. Pushing snow with it like I couldn't beleive. Went around us, backed up, pulled us out, and plowed a trail clear to the mailbox. I thought we had er licked, until the son called and said he bareley made it back up the driveway.

   When I got back home, I pulled the dipstick on the transmission again. Once again, no oil on the dipstick. Looked for leaks, puddles, anything. A real head scratcher. Decided to top it off again and this time we were going to watch it extra close for leaks. Was pushing up snow/manure with it, and it was really pushing good when the leak showed up......in a most non-suspecting place. Out of the fill cap on the hydraulic oil reservoir! Yup, the hydraulic reservoir was running over. Talked to an expert, and found out that one particular seal goes out in one of the pumps on the front of the transmission, it'll transfer oil from the transmission to the hydraulic system. That was definitly what was happening. But, by this time, whenever we pulled the engine oil dipstick, we were seeing the gray, milky substance on it that no one likes to see, and anti freeze was disappearing. Not at an alarming rate, but enough that we couldn't deny the inevitable.


    So now what....? After much thought, studying, pondering, I had a plan. Not a good plan mind you, but a poor man's plan. I was going to drain all of the oil out of the transmission and the hydraulics, get an external transmission filter back on like it was supposed to have, and then fill everything up with the same kind of hy-tran oil. Now for the dumb part: I had a very simple easy plan to put an overflow tube on the hydraulic oil tank at the upper level and run it back down to the transmission. I know it would have worked, and it was only going to be temporarilly, until I could get the pumps off and the seal fixed, or until the engine decided to out from it's complications; oil anti-freeze cross contamination. The whole plan never got past the planning stage. I was using the payloader to just push a little manure up one day, and just got into it a little bit, and the most gut wrenching metal to metal sound came out of the bell housing area, and we quit moving. No forward. No reverse. No nothing. Just noise.

   Talked to my expert once again. He figured that the flex plate between the engine flywheel and the torque converter on the transmission had shelled out. Made sense to me. Knew the engine had to come out. I knew that if the engine did come out, that same engine was NOT going back in with it's potential for failure. It may have went for hundreds of hours, or may not have made it for one hour. Not a chance I wanted to take. So it sat for about the last year and a half. Really didn't know what to do. I guess the fact that it sat for a year and a half is a testiment to the fact that I don't rush into anything or make rash decisions, except some times. LOL.

   So recently, my wife started reminding me daily that I had better come up with something to get the corrals cleaned out for HER cattle ASAP or else! And the corrals are beyond cleaning with XT or the 185, and I refuse to abuse a farm loader tractor like that anyhow. So, back to needing a payloader. Took a very serious look at the situation with my son, and came up with this plan. We decided that the transmission (when the oil level was adequate) was working as it should. Figured a new flex plate shouldn't break the bank. New seal in the pump that was causing the oil transfer shouldn't be earth shattering. Already had an external filter lined up for the transmission. Weak link: The engine. So that was it. The old girl was going to get the minor repairs, plus a new engine. Now I talked to Steve Fischer out of Sleepy Eye MN, about an engine, and he was going to line me out with one, at a fantastic price. Just needed to get the old one out to take to him, and get the new one. We were pretty sure, when we went to pull the engine, that we wouldn't need to bother taking out the flex plate bolts. We thought it was tore apart anyhow. The engine wouldn't come out, so we had to take em out. Then the engine came out, and the flex plate was as good as gold. But the torque converter and beyond sure had issues. Don't know yet what exactly is tore up, but the torque converter is plum loose (won't come off though) and makes a rattle when we turn it. When we got to that point, I told the son that that was the straw that broke the camels back. This thing just became a parts machine!

   I even forgot several other issues with it that seemed to drive me nuts that were complete flukes, but I think I've clacked away at this computer keyboard long enough already. Darrel

I have been down a similar road a time or 3.Darn pesky little things, like paying for conveniences of the right machine for a job that doesn't have a pay check when your done. May the new machine be the answer to your troubles.

Thanks, Eric. I really do hate to start pirating parts off of the first 645. I know that once the first part comes off of it, it's all over with for good for it. Which I guess was the whole idea anyhow. Probably the first thing to come off of it will be either one hydraulic valve stack section, or both of them, if they'll fit. We need a third one on the new payloader for sure to run the grapple fork. If we can get four of them to work, we'll do that right away, in hopes that some day we can put a split grapple onto it, which would require yet another hydraulic valve. Darrel

Do you still have that 545, John. ..? Darrel

Darrell, I saw 1 listed for sale in last weeks shopper. It had 2000 more hours on it than your new one. They were asking $6500.00. Can't think you guys got hurt.

NomoreJohnDeere wrote: 50000 US dollars or 50000 Kronar?