The Ford Plant in Atlanta is closing very soon, and sometime in the near future, the Doraville Chevy plant is going to close. These factories have huge machine shops with all kinds of equipment--sheers, press brakes, milling machines, etc. etc. etc. Does anyone know what happens to all this stuff? You always hear about people getting these things at auction when a plant of some kind closes. What's the procedure? Has anyone every gotten equipment from a factory replacing it or going out of business? Anyone familiar with what The Big Three do with their stuff when they close a plant? Move it to other plants or sell it? Brad
Just a guess, but I bet a large used machine dealer will bid to buy it all for resale. Or it may be an insiders only kind of auction.
Check on dovebid.com and sites like it. Don't be suprised if a lot of it heads to the local scrap yards, big business makes big waste.
Most big companies will relocate the stuff they can still use, or they may "loan" the equipment to a subsupplier to use for their parts production. The rest will probably get scrapped. They simply cannot take a chance of any posibale liability that may even remotely exist should someone get hurt on the machine. Imagin the thrill some lawyer would have if he would find out his client got hurt on a machine that used to belong to Ford? You can bet your ass Ford would be included in that law suite. There may also be a tax libality problem with selling the old used equipment. It was probably costed out years ago on the tax end and any income from a sale would be a complete profit. Now, should someone know the scrap dealer that probably has a "cradel to grave" contract with the company scraping out the machinery, one can't tell how some things get missplaced. BTW, "cradel to grave" means the scrape yard has to have a paper trail of all the machine's parts from the time they recieve it until the time it is completely gone. UPS used to do that when they were done with their trucks. They gave the trucks to a junker and that guy had to have paper to prove were everything on the truck was disposed of. That included the motor oil, antifreeze, gear lube, tires, and every single part. None of it could be sold to be put back on the street, all had to be distroyed. One of our local scrap dealers got into a bunch of trouble because they sold some of the aluminum sheeting off a UPS truck to some racers. Big companies are serious about the things they scrap out. Gene
I worked for many years for a Tool and Die Corporation in Grand Rapids, MI (Autodie). We had several presses that came from different GM plants that were upgrading their facilities. And as we were a Tier one supplier to the Big Three, they wanted us to have their presses, as to use the same types of machinery that the dies that we built would be eventually be used in. (My understanding is that Autodie is probably going to close up at the end of this year.) So there will be even more used machinery out there for sale. The used machinery companies get first dibs on the stuff. And most of the equipment isn't very useable in the small shops we hobbiests have. (things like 3 phase electricity make a lot of the equipment unusuable for the little guy....) I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the equipment goes on a slow boat to China.....
I hit several auctions and the only one with good deals was one on a street no one could locate. It took the fire department 20 minutes to find it for me. I got a 12,000# forklift for $6K. Most auctions the equipment goes for about 3/4 new! I could use a good 500T press, though.
That's a common misconception that helps keep the price of 3 phase equipment down, BUT any resourceful hot rodder will have his 3 phase equipment running at home in no time. With a series of capacitors you can fool your 3 pase motor to run on siingle phase/ Guys do it ALL the time. I've gotten some killer deals over the years that way. For instance a 4,000 (New) drill press I got for 99 bucks (used but near perfect)_ becasue it was 440V 3 Phase, I rewired it to 220 V three phase and run it off a phase converter I built for near free. Grab those three phase deals up!!!
this is true. We see it here first hand at my job. They wont even allow the deer hunters to scavange the old chairs for their deer stands for fear of it injuring them at some point. We have a commercial grade oven in one of our shelters that is destined to be scraped soon. some of the guys are trying to figure out how to get it out of here...
I have worked at ford for 31 years, when we stopped making the small bronco II, they threw everything in open railcars going to the scrap. When we quit making the big over the road tractors they also threw everything in the trash and I mean every thing. They put a dumpster on the line behind the last truck and started pitching. It was a shame to see what they throw away and they wonder why they are going broke. Good luck with atlanta but I have seen two plants do the same thing every thing to the scrap.
do you know anybody who works there? maybe they could get you the inside info on whats gonna happen to the equipment
i'm a used machinery dealer (ex) . theres a web site www.surplusrecord.com thats kind of a secret site they use to sell each others machinery. automatic less 10% for resale. do not tell anybody you are an end user. a lot of guys will take stupid offers for metal working machinery they dont have nothing in.
My dad worked at the Lakewood GM plant.when she closed in 81 they had newell metals come in and cut bend scrap the entire plant.I worked at GM parts warehouse at Doraville when it closed we sent every useable part to a larger warehouse and what was left...well ..a landfill caught the remains.Sad fact of our times.....Cdan
I guess I should keep in mind the Ford Ranger plant in St. Paul is gonna close soon...I'll have to start wandering around out there when it closes to see what I can pick up...I love scrap stuff...I gotta find some scrapyards locally, they can be just as fun as junkyards...
"Well I never considered myself a theif, but GM wouldn't miss just one little peice, especially if I strung it out over a couple years..." -Johnny Cash Anything that says Bridgeport on it. You need that.
There are ways to get this stuff. Here in Detroit, I do a lot of work in auto plants, and they're constantly getting rid of shit. They rarely sell it to the private citizen though, for legal reasons. By the time the plant closes, almost everything of value will have been moved out, scrapped or sold. They used to sell all kinds of stuff, but after being sued repeatedly, they said to hell with it. I was at the GM Wixom Engine Facility and Special Vehicles plant about 6 months ago installing dyno's so they could test IRL engines. This is the plant where they hand make the new 427's for the Z06, and the big block crate engines. They also do the test and development for Indy car engines there. Needless to say, there's TONS and TONS of complete, turn key aluminum 427's lying around waiting to be ran on the dyno. I talked to a few engineers about what kind of chances the average hot rodder had of getting one of these before they cut it up on the band saw. After every single run on a dyno, they take a band saw and completely cut up the block, heads, crank...everything that's even remotely useable, so nobody can get a hold of them. The engineer said its virtually impossible to get one. I know this doesn't have anything to do with getting a hold of equipment, but their reasoning is: they used to sell all kinds of stuff. They would sell parts, tires, engines, file cabinets, drinking fountains....everything. A guy in the 80's bought a set of Goodyear Eagle tires that had been put on a test car at the Milford Proving Grounds. They were essentially brand new tires...except for a few runs on the track. He ran the SHIT out of these tires until they were as bald as my head. He was travelling down I-75 and had a blowout. His wife was seriously hurt in the accident, so he sued GM for selling him faulty tires. The tires weren't faulty, he just put probably 80,000 miles on them. Well, he won the case and recieved millions. This engineer went on and on with stories like that of people buying shit, abusing it, then suing when it brakes and hurts someone. I mentioned the file cabinet and the drinking fountain because they sold these too, and whoever bought them misused them and got hurt, sued, and won. This is why they no longer sell things. Its cheaper for them to scrap it, and buy something new than it is for them to sell it to somebody, have them get hurt not using it properly, then sue them for millions. He did, though, say that nothing is impossible to get out of an auto plant. You just have to grease the right Hi-lo driver! With that said, on Woodward this coming spring, be on the lookout for a 34 Chevy 5 window, chopped 4 inches, black with white scallops running a brand new Z06 drivetrain!
I used to work GM Lakewood. We would cut everything up and spray paint a tracing color before it went in a rail car, even if you could see the fix. As to the Ford plant, they have a UAW agreement not to close before contract ends late in 2007. So while they can idle the plant, they can't sell off the equipment.
A friend of mine who use to work in a GM test facility tells the story about several dozen Z06 engines that were going to be scrapped out. The boss said he was going out for lunch and made it a point to say that he was going to take inventory of the engines AFTER he returned. He left the gate open and went to lunch. Needless to say he had fewer engines to inventory when he returned.
Is it any wonder why this country is so screwed up? We can't do ANYthing without opportunistic lawyers screwing the pooch.
One of my job responsibilities is to get rid of old equipment for our plant. This is done when new stuff comes in or sometimes just to release some unproductive machines. I can't speak for all manufacturing plants but at ours it is too much of a hassle to get individule bids on every piece of equipment. The other issue is when it's sold to the workers if someone dosen't get what they want there is often a dispute on why, or they didn't get it but so and so did cause he knows somebody. The accounting folks don't want to have to post dollar values on every item and there are problems in rigging equipment out to the dock and offloading a 2,000 pound lathe on someones trailer.That is an expense the for the company so it's like not only do we get pennies on the dollar but we have to pay our own folks to load it up. We tend to bring in several used equipment dealers and get a lot price and be one with it. They provide the rigging and transportion, have insurance and we are able to write off the loss if any and provide a path of disposal for future accounting activities. I know I have wanted to get some of the equipment myself and being in my position you might think it's easy but I rarley get to grab anything.
Try searching google or other search engines for used machinery. There are literally dozens if not hundreds of used machinery dealers and brokers around the country. Many specialize in certain types or size ranges of equipment. It's also a good idea to call the plant you are interested in, be persistant and maybe they will give you some information regarding their plans for auction or otherwise. Tombat
this is a good resource: www.surplusrecord.com only probably is that most used machinery dealers want a lot of $$$ for what they have. has anyone actually bought a used machine from a used machinery dealer - and can you make offer's on the stuff - or is what they want for it, what you have to pay??? wyatt - are you basically say that you can offer them $100 for something and they might take it? (like an old Vertical Metal Bandsaw?) and what do you tell them if you can't say that you are an end user - when you go to pick up the machine or they go to bill you they are going to find out. alot of them seem to want to know you business before giving a quote anyway (if you aren't a machine re-seller, and say you're business is "wyatt metalworking" that is the same as being an end-user isn't it?)
The way they are going all the ford plants will be closed soon. It would be cool if a hot rodder got some of their machines and equipment tho!
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