Heavy Equipment Blog

Here at American Crane and Tractor Parts we make it our top priority to serve our ever-expanding customer base. We strive to anticipate our clientele's needs and wants. For that very reason we are proud to stock aftermarket parts for Volvo® construction equipment. We stock a wide range of high quality parts for the most popular machines and applications in the North American population of Volvo®.

To ensure satisfaction we have gone one step further to make the customer's shopping experience more efficent. By offering Volvo® engine rebuild kits we are able to speed the search up and get the products into the hands of our customer's faster. You call us, we find the part number you need, and we have the entire engine kit with everything you need for the rebuild already packaged for you. This will dramatically decrease your wait time and enable us to get your product to you that much quicker,.

 Volvo® trucks have proven their Tier 4 technology reliable and ready for any off-highway performance thrown their way. Volvo® Construction Equipment leverages this expertise providing the performance demanded for the extreme conditions our customer's find themselves in. We are excited to deliver a high quality product to all of the hard-working individuals and businesses who rely on their Volvo® Construction Equipment on a day to day basis.

Sitting inside our Kansas City headquarters, the ACTParts machine shop is where all of our cylinder heads are loaded, components are rebuilt and transmissions are tested on the Dyno bench.  Its reputation in the heavy equipment industry is kept strong by 30+-year ACTParts veteran Jerry Duxbury.  He is vital to the processes described below that allow ACTParts to stock the industry’s finest remanufactured components, ready to ship to customers around the world.

Dealing with fraud is an unfortunately prevalent part of doing business in the aftermarket parts industry. How much it affects your business comes down to how well you are educated on the types of scams in the market and how well prepared you are to identify and stop potential losses from fraud. 

Here is a quick overview of some common scams and how we at ACTParts have been able to reduce our losses.

Stolen Credit Cards

Using information hacked from financial institutions, perpetrators are able to fool sales reps into thinking a sale is legitimate by providing a valid credit card number which authorizes for payment when entered. Once the real card holder disputes the transaction, the seller will be held liable for the total amount in addition to the cost of lost inventory. 

Ways to protect yourself:

• Sales reps should demand a faxed copy of both the front/back of the card as well as a government issued ID
• Credit managers should verify the legitimacy of the card’s use with the card issuer before any transaction is finalized

Winter can be a long and grueling time for contractors and fleet managers. Contractors have to dig in while business slows and working conditions become harsh. Fleet managers must deal with the arduous tasks of winterizing equipment and performing extensive inspections.

Managers who perform scheduled oil samplings, or S.O.S., at regular intervals throughout the year are in a great position to make the most efficient use of their winter downtime and avoid running into costly mechanical issues on job sites in the spring.The samples enable them to identify which machines have abnormal metal or contaminant levels in them and are more likely to require unscheduled maintenance when put back to work.

Water trucks are a staple of many industries including agriculture, construction, and, especially, mining. In some parts of the United States their presence on construction and mine sites is required by dust control regulations.

Dust is an inescapable by-product of the industries we serve at ACTParts. Earth movers are in the dirt all day every day and not keeping the dust under control can be a dangerous and expensive oversight both for the workers nearby and the equipment on site. It can also open contractors up to regulatory fines for non-compliance with local and federal laws. In fact, the EPA has been known to shut down job sites that are contaminating the air with high levels of dust particles.

Maintaining your equipment’s fuel system is a great way to ensure a longer life for your engine. When contaminants get into the engine through the fuel, they have the potential to increase wear on everything they touch. The good news is, there are two simple things you can do to avoid them.

1. Buy your fuel from a reliable supplier with a good reputation.

Since environmental regulations require machines to operate using fuel with low levels of sulfur, diesel is put through a process known as hydro-treatment so it burns cleaner and emits less sulfur.  While lower sulfur levels do not have a negative affect on the fuel, the process also removes many of the compounds that give diesel its lubricity. 

Quality fuel suppliers have the knowledge and ability to increase diesel’s lubricity through the use of additives. This increase reduces the amount of friction in your engine, extending its life as it burns the more eco-friendly fuel. 

2. Check your filters often and replace them regularly.

The fuel filters used in your machine’s engine are your last line of defense against contaminants. Buying high quality filters is an essential preventative measure that will help get the maximum life out of your engine. If foreign particles begin to build up in your fuel injectors, the engine’s cylinders will not get the amount of fuel needed to perform at maximum efficiency.  Remember that using dirty fuel can lead to costs that are substantially higher than the cost of replacing a filter.  

When we asked Jerry Duxbury, ACTP’s rebuild manager and a 30 year veteran of the heavy equipment industry, his opinion on the topic, this is what he offered, “Regularly replacing your filters is the easiest thing you can do to extend the life of your engine. A lot of people overlook it or put it off because they don’t want to spend the cash. But if you get your filters from a reliable aftermarket parts supplier like us it can actually be the least expensive way to extend your engine’s life too.”