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

[Herb Metz]

Recently was at local Kubota (only tractor dealer within thirty miles), 
looking for some thick gear oil/grease for my old leaky Troybilt tillers. 
Some Kubota owner from half hour away was hoping for some 'magic whatever 
gizmo' that would bypass all safeties so he could retrieve his tractor from 
"out in the trees".  Some safety was preventing his starting the motor; he 
would need a sizeable whatever to pull his dead tractor back to the shed, 
etc.  This was the seventh time this had occurred since he bought the 
tractor new four years ago.  He wasn't mad, but he was understandably upset 
about repeatedly being in such a helpless situation.
Not picking on Kubota; the other companies probably have similar problems.
Herb(GA)

-----Original Message----- 
From: jtchall at nc.rr.com
Sent: Saturday, January 17, 2015 8:17 AM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] Out with the new, in with the old

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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