parting out tractors

Is it just me or does anyone else feel a little heart broken when a good running tractor gets torn down for parts and sold on e-bay $9.99.Dont get me wrong i have bought parts for my farmalls that were off of parted out tractors.It still bothered me.It is still better than sending the "old girl" to the scrap yard for melt down.Just refering to the 400 just posted on e-bay if anyone needs anything.No its not mine.

Years ago I was working for a man that fed cattle. One day he had just taken delivery of a pen full of real nice red heifers and I made the comment of what wonderful cows they would make. He assured me that the nice ones make good feeders too.

A few have to die in order to preserve the main herd.What doesn't sell goes to the scrap yard.

Vito

I am unsure of ebay, but most that I have dealt with in the past do not "knock one in the head" and part one out unless it is too far gone to save, If a complete tractor is advertised for quite a while and can't be sold at a fair price, the best way to make your money is to part it out.
I hate to see a "good" one parted out also, but with the price of scrap on the rise, a lot of old fashioned bone yards are liquidating what's left of their inventory, that is going to make it really hard to find good used parts one day, they will be out there, but prices will continue to go much higher.

Something is only worth what someone else is willing to pay for it. So if you have a tractor that you want $3000 for it,but somebody is only willing to pay you $1000 for it and its been for sale for awhile,guess what its only worth $1000.Know matter what you or anyone else thinks.One of lifes lessons.

A completely worn out tractor is hardly worth parting out. The parts most people need are already too far worn out to be used on something else. I did that once with an 806 Diesel. The front axle was all junk. Both rear wheels were run loose and ruined. Crankshaft was cracked. Flywheel was junk. Very few gears were salvageable from the transmission. I was lucky to get my cost back. Sure didn't get paid for my time.

You're talking about Marty 2374 from Bad Axe, MI. He has destroyed hundreds of tractors. In the past year and a half, that includes six 400-450. Old tractors in the thumb of MI should be getting rare soon. There will come a point where he won't be able to buy and destroy.

He knows nothing about the stuff he sells. Many of his auctions are mislabeled. Many more don't get bids. All those failed auctions must certainly go into the scrap dumpster because he will not post good pictures. I've written him several times but he "don't give a sh!t" and won't respond.

I think back to the '60's and '70's when everybody was destroying older Harley-Davidsons by turning them into choppers. Those re-manufactured motorcyles have little value today when compared to originals in any condition. Many of the discarded parts are now being reproduced. In fact, you can build a complete Knucklehead Harley from new parts including the engine. Some of the parts are crap but many are damn good. It seems unlikely anyone will reproduce a 400.

"Too far gone" is kind of missleading. It's up to
the individual what he or she wants. I saved a John
Deere A a year ago because it was a nice ORIGINAL
(never had been repainted and that has value to me)
I had to do some engine work on it and the whole
time I was putting it back together I kept thinking,
"This is stupid, it's worth way more in pieces than
it will be worth when I'm done"

The guy on ebay has been doing this for years. Bring it in, piece it out, posesses little or no knowledge of what he's selling, he gets crummy, blurry pictures from bad angles, and puts it up for sale on ebay. When people quit bidding, it becomes unprofitable, or he can't find anymore tractors, he'll quit dismantling them.

Aside from ebay, but still somewhat on topic, many salvage yards learned a long time ago that paying more for a half-way decent tractor and selling it piece by piece makes more money than paying for junk with few usable parts. Parts off of an abused, worn out, salvage tractor that may or may not have been sitting in a woods for 50 years with or without pieces missing and open to the elements usually don't carry the value that parts from a running, drivable version of the same tractor would have. Tractors that are all beat to heck on the outside are usually just as abused on the inside, or at least suffered from a lack of maintenance.

I've seen people fight for the $3-500 Farmall H's and M's that have been drug out of fencrows at auctions, and the salvage yard buys the $800-$1200 one with fairly straight metal and usable tires that probably could have went right to work. The people were so happy with their $500 purchase (the "Look at the good deal I got!" crowd), and then were mad when they find out that they need $2500+ worth of parts and labor ("But, that's more than I've got in the whole tractor! I could have bought the good one for $1000.") to make it usable again. Salvage yards would rather you buy the one with the loose wheels, smashed sheet metal and hole in the block, and come to them and buy good parts off of a tractor that wasn't all that bad in the first place.

AG

Marty from Bad Axe has a bad reputation. He goes to sales, buys tractors, parts them, and scraps most of it. Most auction services wont sell to him around here because his checks bounce. But he has the tractor parted, and sold before they can get it back.

This drives me nuts. Parting out a perfectly running tractor is asinine. The latest offender is the one from Bloomer, Wisconsin. Apparently he knows nothing about tractors either because he's currently trying to part out an Oliver 880 LP. Moron.