Originally posted by stevesr:
While on this subject........
How come no one is making a repro bed side for the AD 1 tons.
I Know they would be costly,But if anything,they would probably sell if for nothing else,the originals were worked to death
Steve:
This question comes up from time to time. It is really a matter of supply and demand, and whether or not an investment in tools will be justified. After reading your post I had my tool supplier quote a tool that makes the top bed curl on a 1-ton. $7000 just for the basic tool to curl that edge. Plus shipping and any modification we have to do when it gets here. Figure at least that much again for the flange that goes on the bottom to do it right. There would be maybe $20000 in the tools to make these parts and how many realistically would be sold? I would be surprised (pleasantly) if more than 20 per year were sold, 100 in 5 years. That's $200 burden per bed side just for the specialized tools to make them and simple payback in 5 years. Likely price of a part would be $650 to $750. To me and apparently to others in this business the risk is not worth the investment.
I don't mean to bore you with these numbers and they were rather quickly figured without much deep thought or analysis. But you see where it is going. It is truly hard to justify the investment for a new product that is such low volume. That is what has to be done for every new product. No matter how much we might want to do it, it has to make economic sense.
Mar-Ktech
