Whats an Oliver running gear worth?

I am looking to get an older Oliver running gear from my neighbor. We have not set a price for it. What would be a fair price to offer him? It is the older kind that has the turntable front end and has the rims with the dust cap built into the rim. I have offered him $200 but he said no. It will need to be sandblasted and painted and new tires put on it. I am looking for any suggestions on what it is worth or if anybody has seen these sold in order to get a price figured out.
 
200 would be the max I would offer.
Last gears I bought I paid 100 for and they guy put decent rubber on them for me.
 
I looked around a little on Craigslist and a couple other farm sites.
Must not be too many Oliver running gears out there

Only one I found had a gravity bed on it and they were asking $850 for it.

Found a number of old running gears, but they were not Oliver, if you have an Oliver tractor and want a Oliver wagon running gear, looks like you are going to have to sweeten the deal for the owner.

Or buy something else.

If you do decide to buy I would jack each wheel up and check the bearings, if they roar you could be looking at much higher repair cost.
 
You can't buy a running gear around here with good tires and bearings for less than $500 . . . so it's all relative to the local conditions.
 
I sure wish I could get $500 for every old running gear I have around here. I'd line them up out by the road.
 
Running gears are hard find in this area, as a lot of gravity boxes and hay racks are still in use . . . and there's always people looking for a running gear to build a new hay rack on. The ones with rotten tires and bad bearings do go cheap if they show up at auction, but if you think about the time and money for tires, bearings and maybe a wheel or two, $500 doesn't seem so bad for 'ready-to-go'.
 
I'm in southern Michigan and I buy at least one running gear a year for my hobby of building parade wagons. Within the past few years I have bought: John Deere 952 - $200; John Deere 953 (3 of them) $200, $250 and $500; John Deere 963 (2 of them) $150 and $200; New Idea 629 - $425; Gehl 500 - (2 of them) $500 and $400; unknown spoke wheel (3 of them) $100, $275, and $400. All these gears were well used and the tires were nothing special. Each gear was a project but I knew that going in - wire wheeling, priming, painting, replace bearings and races where needed, replace or rebuild bolster standards, and new tires because buyers of my parade wagons expect new tires. Without knowing anything about the condition of the gear you are looking at, your $200 offer seems good to me as you don't know about the bearings and races which can easily cost over $100 and the sloppiness of the steering which is not always an easy fix.
 
I paid $225 for an electric wheel running gear with serviceable tires and crossmembers ready for bed. Put another $200 in treated lumber and have been using it. SW Missouri.
 
you already offer enough for those old units. good gear with hayrack at auction couples weeks ago brought 300 for whole thing
 
My first running gear for a hay wagon was free - pulled it back out of the briars on the farm for a rebuild. That's where free ended.....

Lumber for the deck, screws, fasteners, etc. Paint and new tires and pretty soon I've got some $$$'s into it. Good news - it's basically a new hay wagon.

In my neck of the woods, for a running gear only - to be made into a hay wagon - allow for $2-300 for deck materials. Another $2-300 for wheels and bearings. Another $100 for paint, gas for trips to the store to get the materials, etc. No charge for your labor - but it is time consumed that could otherwise be doing something else.

So you got a running gear and maybe on the high side - you spend $500 to $700 to rebuild it. Good news is you basically got a new hay wagon. Add to that the cost of the running gear - say at $300 and you're into a $1,000 hay wagon - but again basically new.

The folks that sell the running gear, for whatever reason, don't see that you can buy a nice used COMPLETE hay wagon for $1,000 in my neck of the woods - all day long. I bought a very nice complete 8 x 16 hay wagon at an auction for $550. I'll take that deal anytime over refurbing a running gear and making it into a hay wagon.

$200 for a running gear sounds pretty good to me - if it doesn't need a bunch of welding, spindles and bearings.

Good luck,
Bill
 
ray,
if you are going to be pulling the wagon any on the road, you might look at buying a wagon with a 5th wheel style front axle.

the wagons with auto steering were great when new 30 to 40 years ago, but after years of being jerked around, fully loaded behind a corn picker or baler,

most of the steering parts are worn, so they may not track so well at speed.

these old 5th wheel style front axle wagons will pull fine up to 50 mph, (do not need to be going faster than that anyway, if that fast)

just a heads up, if you plan on doing any highway running with the wagon.

by the way, I would not take $200 for my old wagons, may not be worth much to others, but they are to me. I had forgotten the old wagon with the sideboards still had a load of corn on it at the time of the picture.
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Are you sure it is an Oliver? Never heard of Oliver using that type of wheel altho other makes did. And Electric built a lot of the Oliver wagons and they did have a 5th wheel style gear.
 

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