The Rural Voice, 1991-04, Page 27t,r.
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nect him to dealers worldwide.
Radford's firm is also a member of
the National Tractor Parts Associa-
tion. Once a year the NTPA gets
together in the U.S. to talk about —
what else — their parts. The busi-
ness is a family affair, and Brenda,
his wife of 26 years, has become in-
creasingly involved in the business
during the past ten years.
Radford also has a string of 380
farm equipment dealers — mostly in
Ontario — who handle his new
replacement parts. Radford even has
his own catalogue listing over
100,000 different parts.
The idea of buying an old tractor,
taking it apart, and hoping to sell its
parts sometime in the future, is not
for the faint at heart. A tour of his
Londesboro buildings reveals what is
for the uninitiated, a bewildering
display of tens of thousands of parts.
All are carefully arranged in sheds by
make and model. There are rows
upon rows of crankshafts, heads for
motors, transmission gears, and
carefully labelled bins full of parts
for individual tractor models. Some
parts may sell quickly, while Radford
may have to wait years to recover his
investment on others.
Despite his shrewd eye and many
years of experience, Radford has a
humble philosophy about buying and
wrecking old tractors. "You never
win on them all and never lose on
them all either," he says. "And
having all that parts inventory around
— and much of it not turning over
quickly — can be spooky to a banker
who doesn't understand the
business." So he keeps the operation
on a "pay as you go basis" with just a
small operating line of credit.
As a White -New Idea dealer,
Radford also sells new and used
equipment, which makes up about 40
per cent of his business. If he takes in
a trade worth less than $2,000, he
automatically tears it down for parts.
He says there are signs of renewed
optimism in the agricultural sector
since the sales in the first two months
this year were the best in years.
As well, Radford's shop spec-
ializes in the reconditioning of many
parts, and they are particularly proud
of their ability to "stitch" heads and
blocks, a procedure that rescues the
expensive cast parts of a motor. "It
keeps one man busy full time fixing
and testing blocks," says Radford.
Although, to an outsider, it looks
like a nightmare to remember where
all those hundreds of thousands of
parts are located in the buildings,
Radford and his employees can
quickly recover a part for any of his
customers.
Radford computerized his oper-
ation last year, getting most of the
new and replacement parts catalogued
on a data base. Putting all the other
hun-dreds of thousands of used parts
from nearly three decades of wrecking
into the system is "somewhere down
the road — maybe impossible," says
Radford.
Even on new replacement pans,
Radford is able to beat the major
manufacturers' prices by substantial
margins, which he passes along to his
customers. "No matter how low a
price I paid for the part, I always take
the same markup," says Radford.
He does it by buying parts in large
lots, and by contracting out to smaller
manufacturers and machine shops,
mostly in the Cambridge area. He
would like to get parts made closer to
Crankshafts for every make and model.
RobRadford takes apart a tractor motor.
home in Huron County, but "there's
just no one interested," he says.
He's currently considering hooking
up with Sparex of Great Britain, a
giant manufacturer and wholesaler of
high quality replacement parts.
Radford considers his business to
be one of the smaller players in the
wrecking business. "There's one guy
in the U.S. who has 300 acres of
wrecked combines. And another in
Michigan with 10 yards where each of
his workers has his own radio equip-
ped truck, with cutting torches and
other tools, that roam the lots looking
for the right part.
Radford says the farm equipment
business is continuing to evolve. He
predicts that with "minimum till here
to stay" sales of big horsepower
tractors of 150 hp will never recover
to previous levels, because it takes a
lot less power to pull the no -till
equipment around.
"Where there were once two or
three farm equipment dealers in each
town, most of them are gone as the
consolidation in the past 20 years has
forced many out of business. Even
those who are left will stock fewer
parts because of the high cost,"
Radford says. Instead they will rely
on instant service from parts
speaalists like him.
He sees the future success of his
company in a growing parts business.
"I don't get too excited about selling
(new) tractors," says Radford, "there's
not much room between me and the
lake (Huron)."0
APRIL 1991 23