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The difference is usually defined by how much money you need to invest to make the crawler operable, and for how many hours you can get out of it for what you will invest. The most important component that will define this in cost is the undercarriage. If the tractor requires extensive undercarriage work, replacing or rebuilding parts, those costs will usually exceed the value of the machine, even if 100% restored. Sometimes people will not care what the costs are because it's the type of machine they want. Depends on what you want to do for your money. Measuring and analyzing an undercarriage provides a lot of useful information that can help you figure out what to spend some $$ on to get some extra or renewed service life, sometimes you may be able to piece a tractor together if you can find salvage parts for the U/C in better condition than what you have. It also helps you extend service life if you can assess what rebuild options you have for a particular component. If the tractor's U/C is close to being run to destruction, most times it's scrap for an obsolete older tractor, unless you can piece it together. If it's 70% worn, you might be able to do a few things that will keep it if good enough shape longer than what the 30% left will give you, that may be plenty for a farm application, but not for a large task like putting it to hard work doing excavation. Things like final drives, drive train components, and other areas of the tractor are also important to it's condition. If it's a running tractor, that has some undercarriage issues or measures up to better than expected, it might worth repairing and servicing for use. Prior use, if abused, might reveal poorly made repairs on track frames, or on component housings, final drive issues, caterpillar seemed to have the edge on final drive strength over most of the competitors in that era, so I mention prior useage being important, and to check them out for problems. Don't mean IH's are bad by any means, different design with their own characteristics. Check all the components carefully, look for loose sprockets, metal pieces in the final drive compartments, see if you can measure the undercarriage or look for signs of heavy wear, check fluids, similar to other kinds of tractors or equipment. A lot of people find these easier to work on than others, designs vary and so does ones ability to work on them. I'm currently working on a larger caterpillar with an almost new undercarriage, I don't think I'll wear it out in my lifetime given the amount of time it gets used, really handy on a farm or if you have some acres to work on. If it's got a stuck engine and nice undercarriage, could be repaired, and put back in service. If it's got stuck engine, been outside, poor undercarriage, stuck steering clutches or other similar problems, probably a lot of work involved, although some people have tore them down and brought em back from being a scrap candidate, why it's important to look it over carefully. Some of what ends up in the scrap yards or has been left in the weeds is a shame, lot of em can be used for something, even if parts only.
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