Machine longevity

First off this is not a rub to any that own newer machines, it is a rub as to how short a service life most of those machines hitting the market as used are as to ability to keep them working even as hobby machines. I own a forty plus year old Allis, parts are almost non-existent and it does have other shortcomings comparing to a 953 or even Deere rear engine or other hydro tractors but it is forty plus years old with some units as old as sixty still pounding away at farm fence rows, building driveways, cutting materials out of creeks or hill sides. I know of five Allis and Cat dozers that date to WWII still in use and functional.

My point albeit long in coming, is will we see today's tractors making the same longevity claims?

No, I don't think they will make any claims about longevity but that is because thats not what is required from new machines now. OEMs brag instead of fuel efficiency, power, comfort, and ease of maintenance.

Governments require they have almost zero emissions
Companies want efficient, powerful, fast, smooth, robust machines
Operators want enclosed cabs, A/C to keep you cool on the hottest days, controls that are smooth, easy to move, responsive and ergonomic, air ride seats

Machine makers must supply what is required of them, and stay on top of innovation or be taken over by another make. So can these same machines be started and worked after sitting in a barn for 30 years ? Maybe not but they are for the most part reliable and maybe have their longevity in terms of being able to be rebuilt and be able to hammer out 30,000 hrs in less than 10 years.

What if Cat built a dozer with no cab, just a solid seat with a cushion, nothing electrical but 2 front lights, and controls that were direct linkage to valves that worked at 2000 psi max but were very simple and basic. How many would actually buy this ? The ones who want these for the weekend farm use don't usually buy new.

Not sure what we will see on the hobby farms 40 years from now....

Yair . . . It will be interesting to see where this goes . . . or it might just fizzle out. (big grin)

Cheers.

big ben said:

Not sure what we will see on the hobby farms 40 years from now....

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Probably those same WWII era dozers

Or at least pre electronic era machine, which will be 60+ years old and still being rebuilt and going strong long after the now new iron is sent to the scrap yard.

Yair . . . just to take this hypothetical a little further . . .

What if Cat built a dozer with no cab, just a solid seat with a cushion, nothing electrical but 2 front lights, and controls that were direct linkage to valves that worked at 2000 psi max but were very simple and basic. How many would actually buy this ?

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It's not difficult to add a cab, A/C and a decent seat to that specification big ben . . . and yes (I believe) in Australia a lot of folks would buy this. Over its lifetime I reckon it would move more dirt and clear more country at less cost than its hi-tech cousins.

Cheers.

Im stuck in this pickle now. I run a small show and do not want to take every crappy job just to make payments on new equipment. Yes I cherry pick and make a good margin. Most of it is computer controlled and I cant rebuild cost effectively. Good modern iron is from the mid 60's to about 2000 when the electronics started to get more than what it needs to be. All of the simple iron is being exported to foreign countries. Anyday I would purchase a good 40 year old machine that can be rebuilt and maintained simply at a lower operating cost. Nobody knows how or wants to repair things nowadays in the consumerism throwaway society. The methods and principles that we use to move dirt are the same just more technology has been incorporated. As long a mother Cat still makes parts old iron will earn the second and third generations owners a living.

I can honestly state I WAS a mechanic for over two decades, worked on the old machines until the changes began to exponentially expand and I could no longer keep up while keeping the old machines working. I watched as the electronics age invaded everything from toasters and coffee makers to our machines, cars today have got to be the most electronically overloaded with useless shyte ever built but people continue to buy as the bells and whistles are a draw point. I see not much use in a field dump truck other than to add engine efficiency, electronic hand controls in a machine may make a easier life for a operator but only when that machine is still moving which in today's markets is not all that long until some teensy bit of gear goes afoul and the machine has to be fixed to make more time.

I watch as old hands with cable dozers pulling cable pans make the boys on the electronic belly pan machines look like amateurs, to watch a skilled operator and a trained driver in the same field is amazing as to how well an old fart with a lot of experience on a antique can outpace a youth with joysticks while maintaining a better cut. As far as a healthier environment, yes the old open station machines did press our luck with heat or cold, dirt or weather; the new machines take the edge off and try to keep the operators from developing arthritis to our level or failed spines or the eventual operator belly from the pounding but the machines still ride hard, they still put the operators in a bind at times and still are earth movers not a Caddy running a interstate(that the old machines built).

While speed is a necessity to make money, buying the new machines may sound great but feet to field is better time IMHO than sitting awaiting a new PLC or a short harness that had a retainer clip fail to make the machine do what it needs to. Speed only works when the machine can.

Scrub Puller said:

Yair . . . just to take this hypothetical a little further . . .



It's not difficult to add a cab, A/C and a decent seat to that specification big ben . . . and yes (I believe) in Australia a lot of folks would buy this. Over its lifetime I reckon it would move more dirt and clear more country at less cost than its hi-tech cousins.

Cheers.

Click to expand...

Do you mean like this Scrub?

http://www.zeppelin-cat.at/img/pdfs/dozergrader/kd_14_100/D6GII_en.pdf

I don't think they have sold many. There is one for sale second hand on http://www.constructionsales.com.au/ in QLD at the moment, but other than that they don't appear very often. Therefore (sadly) I don't think there is a market for such a machine. The problem being that they are still too expensive for the type of buyer that wants a simple machine. The ones that can afford to buy new generally don't keep their machines very long anyway, so they don't care if it still goes in 40 years time.

Yair . . . Plant Fitter. You got me there mate, I would have thought that would sell . . . more going on here than this old bloke understands.

Thanks for the heads up by the way.

Cheers.

There is a point in every machine's life where the cost to repair it is not justified by the future earnings. The point has gotten shorter as we have gotten older. There are many reasons for that but the biggest I see is the cost of parts and labor to keep a production machine running has sky rocketed. Manufacturer's price parts out where the cost to rebuild a component your self is roughly the cost of buying an exchange component with a warranty. If it fails because the rebuilder did it wrong you get another component. If it fails because you did it wrong you eat the cost.

Just this has made doing rebuilds in most cases cost prohibitive. Only the large machines can justify a rebuild. Why rebuild a D8R when a new D8T can give you the same cost per hour and you can have it tomorrow with a warranty and get 95% utilization for 12,000 hours. Your D8R will cost you at a minimum 65% of the D8T and you will be very lucky to get 80% utilization and surely won't get 12,000 hours.

The other assertion here that I will dispute is the idea that the new machines won't last as long as what was built twenty or thirty years ago. The reality is that as the capability of those older machines slowed down and the costs mounted, end users used them less. People in the secondary markets picked them up, put some sweat equity back into them and use them only as they are needed. A machine with 70% utilization and a big failure or wear bill coming up got to sit idle or sold to the proverbial "rancher/farmer" where utilization was 10%. All those years ago we were coming out of a war with a high production of machines which made for lots of used spare parts as those machines wore out. That scenario has been gone for quite awhile. What you can find used anymore is basically as worn out as the scrapped machine it came from. That's because today's machines will have 15,000 to 20,000 hours on the clocks before they hit that sweet spot on repairs against future earnings. It took plenty of money and down time to get a machine built in the 1960s to make production for 7,500 hours. You can't sell a machine like that today.

The final issue is the real issue for the people complaining here. They don't know how to work on the electronic parts that the last generation of machines came with. But what is being forgotten is that few people knew how to work on the old machines when they were still productive. It is the shift in technology and the lag in general knowledge that will keep it a little more costly to keep an old electronic machine runnable. This forum provides a place to find some of that information. It also provides a place to whine about what was in the past that probably won't exist in the future.

Yair . . . John C.. A very well considered and thought provoking post . . . such discourse's are one of the reasons this site is so valuable.

Right now I am going fishing but I will follow this thread with interest.

Once again, thanks for your insights.

Cheers.

Also machine catch fire etc with the more complex wiring and the machine is burnt toast if the extinguishers don't put the fire out.
So the few newer machines that will make it through to old age will be the more fire resistant designs.
Some machine types are becoming more specialised e.g newer machines will not have the general purpose abilities of the older machines. e.g the old forestry log loading excavator turned back into a dirt digger, but now they have specialised booms and can only ever load logs.

John C

As Scrub says, that is a well thought out post. One of my main concerns for the small user in the future is that with the old iron now, parts are generally available, and what is not can usually be built in a machine shop in order to keep it running. With the amount of electronics in the current new machines, the ability to rebuild or repair them will effectively end when the supply of computer modules built for them ends.

The wire looms can be made, much as machined parts are, built to order from the spec sheet or schematics, but the brain can't be built so easily, and I doubt that Cat or any other manufacturer will be building them once the machine population has dropped off. Besides, they are more interested in the sale of a new replacement than parts for an obsolete model.

JDOFMEMI, That is a good thought.

From my point of view and place in the industry when the manufactures begin to stop supplying computers for the machines it will be because of government pollution laws and not because they can't make a profit in manufacturing and selling them. The difference will just be the rising price to keep that machine running. That is more a point of the governments that we elect and not necessarily a product of the manufacturer's quest to maximize profit.

But here is another thought. When prices keep rising on that stuff smart people start thinking of other ways to make those machines run. I've seen rumors on here of people doing work arounds on Hitachi excavators. I've seen and done work arounds on Dash 3 and 5 Komatsu excavators. I believe there have there been people selling hot chips for diesel pickups for quite awhile now.

If there are enough second tier end users to provide a market for that stuff, it will appear. I think an aftermarket electronics industry is on the horizon.

John C you hit the nail on the head both times

Yair . . . so John C. what you are saying is that manufacturers other than the OEM will be able to get in there and supply their own fixes and alternatives to existing electronic/computer systems . . . hopefully at lesser cost?

Cheers

I was a believer in that very scenario as to Allis Chalmers or International, my own thoughts were that the machines were superior to what was otherwise being built years ago and there were so many still out there plodding along so someone will continue to make repair parts for these machines, I was wrong then as many today are as to extending the lives of the newer equipment. Takes a large capital investment to keep obsolete parts replacement lines running let alone starting them, I just do not see it occurring. Will only take a major collapse in need for construction equipment or a major player to enter from most likely S. Korea to put Cat down as Allis was by Fiat, that occurs and all bets are off as to obtaining any repair parts for them as Allis or IHC parts today.

It may be true that hard-hard parts will be unavailable, like gears and housings. Hydraulic pumps are more easily "aftermarketed" and aren't usually made in house anyway, are they? 3D printing is all the rage among the rest of the world that doesn't appear on this forum (you know the type, the ones who don't do anything). I'm not holding my breath on 3D printing, but either that or a little artificial inteligence built into a CNC machine shop may change the landscape for obsolete parts.

I'd bet there are already bootleg brain box suppliers out there, you just need to know where to look, and maybe speak chinese (or click on the Tshirt links:falldownlaugh).

It's not just the cost of repair, it's the cost of repair vs new machinery replacement cost. Somebody will keep it going one way or another if there's the demand.

I certainly agree that some equipment is more likely to be operating than others at 30-40-50 years old, and that OEMs don't care, they're selling new equipment mostly to people that will use them and sell them off quickly. The very early tractors that survive are curiosities only, the Fords and Farmalls that had the kinks worked out are still around in hobby use. Same with vintage Cat dozers or Deere tractors that still sell for a similar premium over scrap as some much newer equipment.

Think of the types of machinery you don't see being kept for use these days, the first steel wheel tractors, very early hydraulic excavators, old scrapers, steam engines, shovels, locomotives, horse drawn combines... Does anybody here know who built the most long lasting horse drawn combine?

Cars have transitioned to electronics successfully in my view but there were some ugly adolescent years(decades?) in there. I don't know enough about modern diesels but I suspect the last decade will be seen the same way for diesels.

In any case, the problems of electronics and emmisions may not amount to much a few decades from now, either they will have been all worked out or we'll be relaxing while "Wall-E" does our old jobs.

Yair... Scrub Puller, that is my thought process. If the money is there, a way will be found.

DMiller... I agree with you on the old Allis' and Corn Binders. Basically they played the Capitalist system game as long as possible and lost. It seems the small players today have all the bricks stacked against them by the government. Will Kobelco, Case, Link-Belt and so on have any chance of competing with Cat, Deere, Komatsu and so on who have the deep pockets to influence government hacks to their way of thinking?

Delmer... Your insights hit the bullseye perfectly.

I remember my grandfather telling us kids of working in the Borax mines in Death Valley in the early part of the twentieth century. He told stories of being a mule skinner driving the big wagons. There were good drivers and ones who always had trouble. Apparently mules were smart enough to have preferences on who had the reigns or be in cranky moods that day just because. They would go on strike by just stopping. Gramps talked about carrying a 22 rifle with shells filled with bird shot. When the lead mule put on the brakes gramps would pepper one of the ears of the scofflaw to persuade forward movement. He said if you hit too much of the ear the animal got mad and slammed against the harness sometimes breaking loose. There was hell to pay when that happened.

One of us asked him if he would prefer to have the mules or work with more modern equipment. To that he asked the question back at us. Would you rather look out through a wind shield or sit in the weather looking at a mule's butt? I admit to being a bit nostalgic about a 14A or 46A D8. I put Poclains, Koehrings and Drotts back together a time or two and thought they had some good qualities in places. I've slammed my hands with gears and shafts of a Link-Belt 98 once or twice. I have come to think of all of them as looking back at the mule's butt.