[AT] Out with the new, in with the old

[jtchall at nc.rr.com]

In some cases its good to be able to change out entire units as opposed to 
rebuilding the old one. If the cost of the new unit is only slightly more 
than the rebuild, you'll be money ahead and should have better quality too. 
Small 2 cycle carburetors are a good example of this. We've learned to price 
a kit vs. a new carb before determining which way to go. The downside to 
this practice is on any given machine, there tend to be problems unique to 
that model. Often the problems are simple and cheap to fix, but are hard to 
identify. When we develop a culture of wholesale changing units, the 
detective work to find the problem behind the problem is lost. Once the 
machine gets old and is not owned by someone using it a lot that can justify 
large repair bills, it becomes not worth fixing. I just don't see a lot of 
machinery and automobiles made today having as long of service life as our 
old iron. Don't believe me, stop by your local Ford, GM, or Dodge dealer and 
see if they even have parts list access to a 25 or 30 year old truck.

The boss bought a new to us forklift a couple months ago. We had a 30 year 
old Cat in great shape but it had an oil leak that was going to cost more to 
fix than the machine was worth. He traded it in a refurbished Clark. 
Evidently that thing has more electronics than a new car. Dealer has been 
out 6-8 times in 2 months trying to get it to run correctly. I can't 
understand for the life of me why a forklift needs anything other than 
bore-bones mechanical technology. The Cat we got rid of had old school 
gauges and a back up alarm tied into the shifter. It was simple and it 
worked. The Clark has a bunch of digital gauges and even some sort of alarm 
that triggers the horn if it isn't shut off in the correct sequence.  All 
that crap does is cause headaches and cause us to be down a machine.

This morning I've got to rebuild the 2 master cylinders on a 42 year old IH 
tractor. It was $70 for the kits or $200 for new master cylinders. I'm 
hoping the pistons and shafts aren't worn too badly so that new wear items 
will solve my problem.
If the parts come today, I've also got to put a kit in the brake 
equalizer--$85 vs. a few hundred.

John Hall