Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The extent of Chinese manufacturing

I had to replace the sediment bowl/petcock assembly on my 66 year old tractor. It's not a hugely complex gadget,..but it's something that might cost 50 or 60 dollars if it was American made. But from what I can determine, none of them are American made. I paid $15 for one that I found online. Every one I found was between 15 and 25 dollars and they all looked identical. I assumed that they were all made in China,..and I was correct.

It's no surprise that China is doing a lot of manufacturing these days. But it seemed fairly odd to me that somewhere in China, there's a factory manufacturing fairly obscure parts for a 66 year old tractor. If they're making parts for antique tractors,..what *aren't* they making?

Well I had to buy a carb for my home life generator, cheaper from China eBay than buying parts to fix my own

They make a lot of things that we don't. They have taken over a lot of our manufacturing base a little at a time. The various government agencies regulations and union sweetheart deals with democrat administrations have made it more economical to import. China has taken over a lot of our heavy machine tooling and rebuilt it to use themselves. Stuff we can't easily re[lace. They copy anything and send the copies back here to undercut our manufacturing. Being communist they support their industry and manipulate their currency. They are taking a lions share of the stock market and many unions and people wake up eventually to find out their stock portfolios are heavily Chinese.

People like Justin Amish that have manufacturing interests in china push hard against Trump for fighting back but like it or not we're going to have to do it soon or they will overtake us. We've basically done this to ourselves and no republican president that I'm aware of has tried to do anything about it. The democrats are happy to help it along. Anything to destroy the country.

My family was making those for Ford tractors up until 8 years ago. I assure you they didnt cost even $10 to make.

History repeats itself on a fairly regular basis. Japan bought up untold hundreds of tons of American scrap metal in the 1930's, and sent it back to us one artillery shell at a time in the 1940's.
Jerry

Same here. I needed the plastic cap to the windshield washer reservoir for a 1992 Toyota pickup. Ebay for about $3 plus a little shipping. Their little chart shows that it fit my truck, so Ordered it. Whoops! China. Oh crap I thought. Well three months goes by the wrong size shows up. Fuggit. Threw it away and write it off as a loss. Never again. Bastards anyhow. They know most people won't chase them considering how long it takes and how little it costs, but it sure pisses a guy off on principle.

Only other time I ordered something from out of county it never showed up, $66.

And people want to talk about living outside the US. WTF is wrong with people?

I wish someone in China would start making brake drums for my 1989 JD 950 - JD say they no longer make them, but they will sell you one (of 4) brake shoes for this tractor for about $220.

If that is the compact JD 950, it was actually made by Yanmar. You might check with a Yanmar dealer for parts.

its a gud damn shame.

I bought this gadget off of "Yesterday's Tractors". It hooked up just like it's supposed to. It's not that complicated of a part,..but whoever made it did a good job on the pipe threads that screw into the tank and the threads for the fuel line receptacle. There's not much else to it except for the valve that shuts the fuel off.

After draining the fuel tank (which was a bit of a nuisance) it was about a 10 minute job to remove the old piece and install the new.

You might a bit surprised how much stuff in and around your house, garage and vehicle are made in China[or elsewhere].
Don't look too close, you may freak a bit.

Oh I know. I just am not going out of my way to buy anything from China. If I see it's made in China I figure it will work twice or less and probably won't work well or last at all. It's garbage.

Standing in front of a Bridgeport mill one day making chips & boss walks up & ask me what the part I was making cost. I told him, about $35.

He then ask; how can machinist in China make it for $5

I said; cause he works for 50 cents a day & can be introduced to an AK47 if he back talks. Me; I have my own AK.

A crude analogy, sure, but the point was made.

Should be a conflict of interest for that useless POS.

Don't get me started on all of the problems we had at the plant where I worked with the junk chink plumbing hardware and pipe purchasing was buying for us. We had to force them to source stuff from U.S. manufacturers only regardless of cost.

Do you have socks on?

Most prescription medicines.

Why would anyone be surprised "things" can be made anywhere? They likely can read, write and do rithmatic too.

Uhh, I draw the line at socks. Mine are all made in Vermont USA! Darn Tough. I don't ever blink at the price anymore, they're that darn good.

its good to have standards.

We all agree it is out of hand. Bring back the jobs.