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Why so few NOS parts?

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w30bob
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Why so few NOS parts?

Postby w30bob » Sat May 05, 2018 10:34 am

Hi Guys,

Coming at this tractor thing from the automotive restoration world I'm a bit perplexed why there are so few Farmall/IH NOS parts around these days. Most tractors stay in production for a long time (far longer than car models), and continue to be used long after the model ends. Also, because of this the manufacturers and dealers should have always had parts available to keep their machines running. Yet I look around and see almost no NOS parts for Farmalls, IH, etc. Why is this? There are still lots of NOS parts around for most cars made many many years ago (that are restored in greater numbers than tractors), and car manufacturers usually only claimed to support car parts for 10 years or so. So why the disparity between the quantity of NOS tractor parts available and NOS car parts available? I have a few ideas, but want to hear your opinions.

thanks,
bob

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Jackman
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Re: Why so few NOS parts?

Postby Jackman » Sat May 05, 2018 12:04 pm

Most tractor folk are smart enough to not fall for the NOS nonsense :mrgreen: hah ha , NOS in the automotive world means big money for and old part , the nice thing about tractors is most of the parts are solid cast iron or hard sheet metal, just pick your part from an old farm field tractor with a wire brush and some sanding and presto your parts are NOS like 8) , that said why would a tractor guy pay big for NOS :?:

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Re: Why so few NOS parts?

Postby Eugene » Sat May 05, 2018 1:43 pm

Don't know why you would need NOS parts for a 60 or 70 year old tractor. Engine parts, bearings, seals, gaskets, are available at the tractor dealership or your local auto parts store.

And then if you need a cast iron part, advertisers on this board sell them.

If it's a working tractor, who cares if there are matching parts. It the tractor is a parade queen, the correct police can't see inside the case iron.
I have an excuse. CRS.

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Re: Why so few NOS parts?

Postby ntrenn » Sat May 05, 2018 3:37 pm

Part of the problem might stem from consolidation in the industry....ih goes belly up, becomes case-ih....then gets consumed by fiat...who in this day has no intention of making much of a market on old ih iron....

Usually i have seen nos come from old line dealers exiting the business...in ihs case....that happened 20-30 years ago...

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Re: Why so few NOS parts?

Postby Ben B » Sat May 05, 2018 4:30 pm

Well, I think part of what you mention about the parts being maintained for ten years after production ends could be explained by IH's demise.

(Folks, please correct me if I get it wrong, because I was about eight years old when International Harvester went broke and was sold off so my memory is that of what a child saw on the news.)

But anyway, since IH went bust around 79 and the cub went out of production with it, then that means that the following ten years would have been under Case ownership. And, I have a few Case labeled parts for my cub that my Dad gave me after he sold his cub. So, to me, that would be about as NOS as we could hope to get. And, from what I understand, Case still has some of these parts available. I am certain that they would be packaged either Case or Case/IH.

But, as has been said already by Eugene, most anything we need for a cub is still readily available from a great number of sources, with most of them much more economical than those found in the automotive restoration community. In fact, that very reason is why I came to own a cub. After I'd tried a few times to find and restore an old automobile, it was simply beyond my means. Whereas restoring a cub was well within my means, and I could use as well as restore it!
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Re: Why so few NOS parts?

Postby CharlieK » Sat May 05, 2018 5:25 pm

Ya can restore a cub by going to a case dealer and commuting with this site—-try to restore an old antique Volvo or a 1959 Harley XLCH
get er done; life is good

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Re: Why so few NOS parts?

Postby Super A » Sat May 05, 2018 5:31 pm

Ben B wrote:Well, I think part of what you mention about the parts being maintained for ten years after production ends could be explained by IH's demise.

(Folks, please correct me if I get it wrong, because I was about eight years old when International Harvester went broke and was sold off so my memory is that of what a child saw on the news.)

But anyway, since IH went bust around 79 and the cub went out of production with it, then that means that the following ten years would have been under Case ownership. And, I have a few Case labeled parts for my cub that my Dad gave me after he sold his cub. So, to me, that would be about as NOS as we could hope to get. And, from what I understand, Case still has some of these parts available. I am certain that they would be packaged either Case or Case/IH.


IH never went broke. They sold off the ag division to Tenneco which also owned Case in November of '84, before they could go broke.

To the original question, To me, NOS matters whenever you're trying to replicate a part to make the tractor look like it did when it was new. For example, you can't get original generator cut-outs anymore. You can get something that works, but it won't look the same. Personally as far as internal engine parts, bearings, seals, etc. goes, I don't care what they look like or whether they're IH or not, because you never see them.

Al
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Re: Why so few NOS parts?

Postby Matt Kirsch » Sat May 05, 2018 7:33 pm

If indeed there are few NOS parts, the reason is because tractors are used. Old cars are restored once and spend the rest of their lives as trailer queens or occasional drivers. Tractors are repaired and put right back to work. A part gets used up, gets replaced, and gets used up again. That tends to burn through the parts supply.

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Re: Why so few NOS parts?

Postby Jim Becker » Sat May 05, 2018 8:21 pm

I guess it depends on what sort of parts you are looking for. I guarantee you will have better luck walking into a CaseIH dealer and asking for a Cub part than you will walking into a Ford dealer and asking for a part that fits a '53 Mercury. One of the reasons you find NOS car parts at a swap meet is because the dealers dumped them all when they were ten years old. Another thing is that most farmers weren't all that concerned about cosmetics. You won't (and never would) find a bunch of name plates or stainless emblems on the shelf of a tractor dealer. That type part for a car was more likely to be on hand (or end up in the non-returnable inventory).

The need to keep them running for many years also lead to greater numbers of replacement/superseded parts that didn't look original but worked equally well after the originals were used up. It allowed the companies to come closer to only building enough parts to cover demand without leftovers.

By the way, come to a Red Power Roundup and you will see lots of NOS parts.

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Re: Why so few NOS parts?

Postby LRiddle » Sun May 06, 2018 12:09 am

With all that said, I have heard of dealerships closing up and having shelves upon shelves of old parts that had been sitting there for decades, but there just isn't the market to sell them at a premium like there is with other vehicles. Almost a quarter of a million Cubs were made and only a fraction of those survive to this day so that leads to an abundant supply of parted out tractors. And like has been said, many of the consumable items like bearings, seals, and gaskets are still being made today. No car or truck can come come close to those kinds numbers without major changes and thus losing the interchangablity that the Cub has. Take the Ford F series for example. It's been around almost as long as the Cub, but the Cub went 30 years without major changes to the bare bones of the tractor. Obviously the F series did not.
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Re: Why so few NOS parts?

Postby outdoors4evr » Mon May 07, 2018 7:04 am

I just don't see the demand for it. For cars, some people really like a numbers matching engine, transmission, and chassis VIN. These people really get into NOS. Others will take a solid 1930's model A, chop it and drop a vette engine in it. The chop and drop guys couldn't care less about NOS parts.
For tractors, there are a few correct police, but for the most part, people would rather have a running, functioning tractor than a matching VIN.
A running tractor will fetch more $$ than a numbers matching non-running tractor.
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Re: Why so few NOS parts?

Postby Ben B » Tue May 08, 2018 5:08 am

Super A wrote:IH never went broke. They sold off the ag division to Tenneco which also owned Case in November of '84, before they could go broke.



Thanks for clearing that up for me Al!
Ben
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Re: Why so few NOS parts?

Postby Matt Kirsch » Tue May 08, 2018 8:04 am

IIRC there is some sort of parts "depot" that buys up the NOS stocks from old dealerships and keeps them warehoused. Dealers can supposedly access this depot to find NOS parts that are NLA directly from CNH (TLA overload yet?).

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Re: Why so few NOS parts?

Postby Jim Becker » Tue May 08, 2018 10:49 am

Yes, the Parts Depot gets surplus/obsolete inventory from dealers then resells to dealers. It started as IH only and has since expanded to other brands. Although they only sell to dealers, anyone can check their online inventory. You need to contact a participating dealer for pricing. I have located some really oddball stuff there.
http://www.depotparts.com/


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