An earlier post talked about not taking the time to fix things before they become a major issue. I got this education watching my Father run his business. He always said he "saved" money by just "fixing" what was broke. Said you did not need to go looking for deeper problems.
Well it sure made it a PIA when you where broke down when everyone else was working/planting etc. Had to help him work all night to fix things half way then work all day only to have it fail again.
It made me maybe go over board the other way but in the field break downs just drive me crazy!!! So I go the other way on maintenance. I replace things that may still have worked for a long time.
An example of this is if I have the pump coupling off, of any JD front driven hydraulic pump, I replace the fan belt. Belts are cheap compared to the time lost to fix them in the field.
Another why in the world put old tubes in new tires??? You have them off, replace the tubes. on rear tires it costs more in labor than the tubes cost.
On my combines all the belts get replaced every 1000 hours. Straw choppers get new knives and rebalanced every 1000 hours too. Funny thing is that on the JD 6620 parts I can usually sell the take off parts for decent money. I have two brothers that will buy all the belts for half price of new. LOL They think they are saving money that way. So they will replace a worn/broken belt with a used one. I only will do that to finish before a rain or something.
On tractors that do heavy field work I replace the tires at 50% tread. They lose a lot of traction under that. Plus the used tires still bring good money. I just sold a set of 18.4 X 42 tires at a sale Saturday. They brought 75% of what the new tires cost me. Talked to the back bidder about that. He looked at it that he was saving 25-30% over the cost to by "new" tires. He told me he ran them until they where slick. LOL I wonder what his slippage is in some ground conditions. His fuel must be cheaper than mine.
So are any of you guy like me in that you hate to half way fix something???
Well it sure made it a PIA when you where broke down when everyone else was working/planting etc. Had to help him work all night to fix things half way then work all day only to have it fail again.
It made me maybe go over board the other way but in the field break downs just drive me crazy!!! So I go the other way on maintenance. I replace things that may still have worked for a long time.
An example of this is if I have the pump coupling off, of any JD front driven hydraulic pump, I replace the fan belt. Belts are cheap compared to the time lost to fix them in the field.
Another why in the world put old tubes in new tires??? You have them off, replace the tubes. on rear tires it costs more in labor than the tubes cost.
On my combines all the belts get replaced every 1000 hours. Straw choppers get new knives and rebalanced every 1000 hours too. Funny thing is that on the JD 6620 parts I can usually sell the take off parts for decent money. I have two brothers that will buy all the belts for half price of new. LOL They think they are saving money that way. So they will replace a worn/broken belt with a used one. I only will do that to finish before a rain or something.
On tractors that do heavy field work I replace the tires at 50% tread. They lose a lot of traction under that. Plus the used tires still bring good money. I just sold a set of 18.4 X 42 tires at a sale Saturday. They brought 75% of what the new tires cost me. Talked to the back bidder about that. He looked at it that he was saving 25-30% over the cost to by "new" tires. He told me he ran them until they where slick. LOL I wonder what his slippage is in some ground conditions. His fuel must be cheaper than mine.
So are any of you guy like me in that you hate to half way fix something???