We have some late 90's Bell haul trucks that we are no longer using and at this point are taking up valuable yard space. They served the purpose they were bought for; taking the abuse of a rock job we had at the time in 2016-17, but now they've become to maintenance intensive and parts too few to be worth holding on to. At least this is how I look at it. So the question is now what to do with them; scrap them or sell them to someone who wants to spend the time and effort to keep them going? With the little interest I've seen in them for resale, I am curious to know what have others used as the barometer to say scrap it or sell it?
posting up an ad is where I would go. Let the market tell you. If they start run and move, put 2x scrap on it and see where it goes.
Marketing costs money. Look for a broker near you who lists other peoples stuff. Most now days don't own anything. They just have a deal with the people at My Little Salesman or Machinery Trader to put their ads in. If you just want to liquidate them, and aren't real picky about the money you get, talk to the auction people. No muss no fuss and they are gone.
I've seen the rear dump bodies/ axles of those repurposed. They fab up a hitch and then just use the back end pulled behind a 4wd tractor or dozer. Holmes MFG: http://www.holmeswelding.com/dumpwagons1.htm
I actually looked at this same company with the same thought even ventured to call them to see if they’d buy them for donors. Too far I think to make $ since on the haul.
We’re working with 2 iron peddlers to see what they can do. So far no bites. I’ve even tried to sell the 5 as a group, runners and donors so they have everything they’d need to keep a 40 and a 30 running solid. The 25 runs but needs a service man familiar with ZF trans to sort out why when it takes gear it shifts up to 6 and then back down to the selected gear. Who knows…
That’s about what I’ve got them listed for or what we’re trying for with the iron peddlers we’re working with. Scrap is paying $10/100lbs here in Atlanta. Looks like I wasn’t too far off for a starting point. I just wish these trucks could get put back together reasonably enough to get another year or two out of them. In their day these trucks were tough and good runners.
I ran bells from that era. They got it done OK, I don't recall a bunch of problems with those. The really early ones yes, from the late 80's. We had one of those freakazoids at the dam job, and the teamster was bombing back down the grade and ran afoul of a dump lever position issue. Damn near killed him, when it came to rest it was up on some alders about 20' up over the steep bank to the river.
Do you need to get a certain return on the trucks or just looking to get rid of them with residual return? Similar price here on scrap, I hauled 12,000 lbs of shred Friday for $1,200.
If you scrap them your self remember that some how you have to get rid of alot of tires,oils and other stuff that may cost you money. Then it will have to be cut up into small pieces .
Run them out on a large consignment auction then the buyer can decide to scrap or reuse You get as much as the market will bear and management will be happy
I called the scrap yard and they made the exact same point. There are fairly heavy deducts for the tires and any oils and other fluids left in them
I had not thought about running at it that way. I suppose my fear is that I drag them to the auction and no one wants them and have to turn around and drag them back. Maybe there are online auctioneers that run them based on pictures with no physical presence at the machine I could look to on this?
Iron planet