Once again, I simply don't get it. Eighty thousand dollars? Certainly thanks to the Biden economy a dollar isn't worth what it was even just a year or two ago. But eighty thousand dollars? That a LOT of money; at least it is to me...
I went to the website link in the craigslist ad and read over the various descriptions and looked at the photos. I'm sorry, but the wording seems really overstated and embellished. The description of installing new belts and straightening some bent grousers is borderline absurd. Come on; there are several suppliers of track belting. How hard is it really to get some belts cut to size and punched? Yes, changing them out is a PITA, but it's hardly the ordeal as described.
Last year in the mad rush to get Thundercat ready for SV2022, we had several grousers that were bent and needed to be straightened; maybe 10-12. Scott grabbed what he calls a Hickey bar (I'll describe it momentarily) and straightened them in place (meaning not removing the grousers from the tracks). Honestly, I think the process was complete in 30 minutes, maybe 35, but it wasn't a big deal. The Hickey bar is nothing more than a 6" diameter piece of roughly 3/8" steel plate welded to a piece of steel tubing about 5' long. The plate has three or four cuts in it of different sizes to fit over the object to be straightened. I do recall on some of the more severely bent grousers it took both of us and various means of trying to stabilize the grouser while the other was doing the tweaking, but at the end of the day the straightening process was a minor event in a day of work. Why would you go to the time trouble and expense to sandblast and paint the grousers when the first time you use the machine and cross some gravel or pavement you'll take the paint off?
When I look at the photos of the engine, for example, I see the valve cover has a bunch of surface rust. Maybe it's fashionable to call it "patina" but cleaning off years of crud and leaving the rust is not "restored". Restored means making it look like new, and it doesn't. The heater hoses look ancient. If I'm buying a used snowcat, presumably to actually use, why would I want hoses in that condition? I'd much rather have new heater hoses.
"Fully Restored"? I don't think so. How about "Thoroughly cleaned, with minor repairs performed and machine fully serviced"?
