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My misses can't complain about what it costs...


Cheap_Dave

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This Should be fun… I’m gonna get a little bit long winded in this (sorry). I read the ads (wanted, for sale etc. I read what everyone’s chatting about and that’s all cool, I like this site. This may be a little off the normal subject but it may spark some interesting discussion and quite possibly improvements in my experiment. It may even spark someone else to experiment themselves… Here goes. Last spring I decided to conduct a little experiment, this may sound simple but here is what the experiment consisted of: placing an advertisement in a local free weekly shopper type paper. Basically the ad read Wanted: Garden tractor and or attachments riding mower, snow blower, log splitter, generator, chipper shredder etc. In need of repairs preferred will haul away free please call with what you have (XXX) XXX-XXXX. This ad has generated the following: 14 hp magnatrac bulldozer w/loader 10 hp sears suburban w/mower 14 hp agway with mower 2- 12.5 hp mtd w/mower/bagger 12.5 hp craftsmen w/mower 16 hp yt ford with mower 16 hp simplicity 7016h with mower 12 hp Pennsylvania Meteor with mower, plow, snow blower, Haban 48 inch sickle bar, and a planet junior 32 inch rear tiller 3 garden carts 2 rototillers 1 front tine 1 troy bilt #1 12 snow blowers all but 1 running, up to 32 inch 1 boat trailer 1 utility trailer 2 generators 3 cement mixers 1 lawn sweeper 2 chipper shredders 1 log splitter A dozen push mowers 3 husky brush cutters 14 hp welder/generator Approximately 10 other garden tractors (toro, ariens, craftsmen, agway etc) scrapped. Not to mention table saws, various shop equipment etc. If someone called I went to pick it up. If it was junk than it was junk, I still picked it up and scrapped it. I took what I wanted (parts) and hauled the rest to the scrapper. Couple of points that I noticed: every one said "thank you" to me and the majority asked what I charged for this service, only once did someone misunderstand my ad (they thought I bought this stuff). There were weeks when I wouldn’t get any calls and there were days when I would get ten. And when I say I looked at everything I looked at everything. Needless to say you can run out of room pretty fast (several neighbors and family members now have snow blowers and or garden tractors). Best stuff was found in the spring and early summer. I do this with fire wood also (heated my house for free for 4 years now, folks just hate bug infested wood) 5 cords this year. My dad told me long ago that if you wait long enough and if you do not mind not having a shinny new one, that eventually some one will upgrade and not know what to do with the old one. Translation they will throw away a perfectly good simplicity and replace it with craftsmen. By the way everything needed some kind of work, maybe a new belt or a carb kit or air in the tires? (The suburban just needed air in the front tires). But then again thats the fun. Well this was a fun year I really don’t have a need for any more TOYS I just need TIME to play with them. Happy Hunting I can’t wait to read some of the feedback from this. Cheap Dave PS I just found this site a few weeks ago and will be sending a few photos for circulation in the near future.
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Pretty nice haul Dave. We have another member here who does something similar and re-sells the stuff. I thought about doing it too only limiting the ad to AC and Sim. stuff. Probably miss out on a lot by doing that but I don't have the time nor inclination to run after a bunch of MTD and Crapsman junk. Don't have the room for it either as the wife gets really angry when it starts to look like a junk yard around the house so I have to try to keep things stored. I would like to come across a non-running chipper/shedder though to try to convert it to belt drive off the rear of one of my tractors. Anyone else out there tried this? Brent
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Brent, The idea of the chipper is good, as I have done this just this past spring/summer. I picked up a hammer/shredder/chipper made by Makissic with a 5 hp B&S for 30.00 at a spring antique show. I took it apart, welded some brackets on, got the right length belt and hooked it up to my Landlord. It works pretty good for branches under an 1 1/2 thick, anything over that and it bogs the engine down. It really was a fun project!! John
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A little update: The magna-track is a smallish type dozer manufactured by struck corp, they sell a KIT today for around 10 grand. another kit is the front end loader and they sell another kit for a bolt on back hoe (I just have the dozer, 14 hp(ohv) tech. engine with front end loader that includes bucket, dozer blade, snow plow, and brush forks for the dozer blade). when I was asked to take it away (this is the only piece i had to hire out to have it moved) I was given all books and plans. the tracks were off (broken front axles) the engine did not run and it had a few broken drive chains. Complaints about this free machine, lots of power but a weak transmission (broke two axle shafts, in order to get at the trans the machine must be literaly taken apart like a sandwich) machine is exttremely light and does not work well if at all in snow, dry ground or wet ground but it will rip your lawn to shredds with one turn. I am assuming that they make these hydrostatic now. One of my free chippers is a macissic which is good for leaves only when hooked to a 5 hp brigs but when i get around to mating it with my simplicity 16 hp it sould do better. as for sellin stuff well than i hafta warrantee it and nothing ever strarts when you show it to a prospective buyer and ther always beat you down on the price, so i like to give them away (its easier and i don't have to stay home waiting for someone to show up or for the phone to ring. Though i do have a Haban sickle cutter that should mate to an older tractor, I know I'll never use.... latest find a gentlemen gave me a suzuki rm 250 dirt bike that i passed on to my brother well with about 60 bucks in parts my nephews can now maim themselves no Thank You... Happy hunting. Cheap Dave P.S i live in the New england area.
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