«Previous    Next»
He Saved Thousands Building Hopper Bottom Trailer From Kit
Steve Reinhardt, a Russell, Kansas grain and cattle farmer, was having trouble moving grain away from his combines with his three old tandem axle straight trucks. Steve plants about 1,100 acres of dryland wheat and milo.
  "My trucks were old and hard to drive, and it was hard to keep them running. I found a used semi-tractor in good shape for a good price, and decided to buy that and pull a hopper bottom trailer behind it," Steve says.
  "Then I priced trailers. Even the used ones I could locate were out of my price range. But I had seen a trailer I liked, built by MCM Co. in Kingman, Kan."
  Steve called Myrna Carson who, with her husband Jim, owns MCM Co. He asked if she'd sell him just the pieces of a trailer not yet welded together. Myrna agreed and Steve got his trailer in pieces, at a savings of several thousand dollars off the price of a finished trailer.
  About the first thing he did then was to get a new wire welder. He found axles from an old oil tanker trailer and rebuilt them. Then he went to work on the trailer. "We worked on it all last winter when we weren't feeding cattle or taking care of new calves. By spring, it was ready to roll."
  "Since selling the trailer in pieces to Steve worked well for MCM, the company has been selling trailer kits for the past three or four months. "All we put into the kit is parts for the box itself - no dolly legs, no axles, nothing but the box. We've had a lot of interest in this. Farmers and truckers who can assemble it themselves can save a lot of money. We're already putting together as many trailers as we can, so this adds to our volume, too," Myrna says.
  Kit prices vary with the size and design of the trailer.
  Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Steve Reinhardt, 18032 Fairfield Road, Russell, Kan. 67665 (E-mail: rreinhardt @hotmail.com). Or contact FARM SHOW Followup, Myrna or Jim Carson, MCM Co., 600 Kansas Ave., Kingman, Kan. 67068 (ph 316 532-5466 or 5209).


  Click here to download page story appeared in.



  Click here to read entire issue




To read the rest of this story, download this issue below or click here to register with your account number.
Order the Issue Containing This Story
2000 - Volume #24, Issue #2