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

rlgoss at twc.com rlgoss at twc.com
Sat Jan 17 06:28:48 PST 2015


I'm sitting here thinking about the interactions you and I have had over the years, Cecil -- the time you and Bear stopped by on your way to Portland, the time my son and I visited you in Oklahoma, etc.  There's been a lot of water flow under that bridge. 

The company policy that blows my mind the most is the one where they purposely design an adjustment screw on a carburetor so that NO standard tool works on it, and then refuses to sell the special tool to anyone who is not licensed to do the repairs.  So I went home and built my own out of an item from Harbor Freight and a chunk of vinyl tubing.


Larry
---- Cecil R Bearden <crbearden at copper.net> wrote: 
> John
> the reason we get these electronic digital over computed machines is 
> because the business management now allows it.  The managers of old 
> would have raised hell with the dealer and on to the manufacturer to 
> change or stop producing this electronic crap. Now, most of the managers 
> just say " that's the cost of doing business"  and very soon the 
> business goes belly up or the expenses are so high that manufacturing is 
> outsourced to a 3rd world country where those guys are rebuilding our 50 
> yr old machinery to use in their production......
> 
> We put up with a lot of this crap because of the political and legal 
> system here in the US.  In an injury case the first thing the plaintiffs 
> lawyer asks is how old the machinery is....  Then makes a federal case 
> about the forklift being 20 yrs old...    The EPA requires the computer 
> crap to make sure that you now need that DEF to make the exhaust stink 
> worse.......
> 
> They call it progress...when it is really B.S.
> 
> Cecil in oKla
> 
> 
> On 1/17/2015 7:17 AM, jtchall at nc.rr.com wrote:
> > 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
> >
> >
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> 
> 
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