...I remember a Wardair 747 landing on 14!
I had a bit of personal familiarity with the two Wardair 747-200's they ordered straight from Boeing (they also had -100's from the aftermarket). These had all the structural upgrades for 820,000# MTOGW, but were delivered with earlier brakes which limited them to 785,000 if memory serves. This was intentional to avoid landing fee excess costs at HKG etc.
They soon upgraded the brakes, and could have applied for the higher TOGW if it ever seemed worthwhile, but meanwhile they had two 747's that could stop on a Canadian dime.