As many industries are adapting to changes in business and the economy, equipment owners are paying special attention to the choice between buying new equipment and rebuilding existing engines and machinery. In response to increased customer need for quality rebuilds, Foley Equipment has opened its new 127,000-square-foot Foley Rebuild Center in Park City, KS — just north of Wichita.
The new facility provides complete services for engine, component and hydraulic rebuilds, along with a machine shop and painting service. Boasting Caterpillar's Five-Star Contamination Control rating, the new facility also offers a particularly powerful precision testing instrument: a new 5,000-horsepower engine dyno-cell, the first of its kind in the nation from a Caterpillar dealer.
The rebuild facility combines all of its services over the span of more than two football fields, and keeps special attention to staffing decisions that help improve customer turnaround times and consistent quality control.
"We are proud to have our group of CAT-trained technicians," says Scott Koehn, rebuild service manager. "They follow the components and engines from inspection through wash, tear down, failure analysis, rebuild, and testing — paying special attention to every detail. Since we have our own hydraulics, machine and track shops, turnaround times are shortened. It's all done right here."
"Quality and reducing cost is our greatest focus for our customers," says Jon Robinson, Foley Rebuild Center vice president. "We want the longest possible life for their second- and third-generation rebuilds."
The facility's pride and joy is the new 5,000-horsepower dyno, says Robert Abney, product support representative. "We definitely went all out with this facility, and the dyno-cells are an exciting addition. Some of our other equipment is custom-designed to service engines weighing up to 60,000 pounds — all rebuilt, tested and tuned at our site."
The tear-down process begins with a high pressure steam wash in one of the wash bays. Engines are aluminum shot-blasted to remove all paint and rust, making the engine clean for disassembly. Disassembled components go to one of four rotating wash cabinets, which sprays 185-degree cleaning solution at 170 psi.
Components are thoroughly cleaned before going to their respective assembly areas. The machine shop uses a Magnaflux magnetic particle inspection system to inspect for invisible cracks in components and offers spray weld capabilities to reduce metal and machine surfaces back to original specifications.
For fuel injection pumps, a specially designed isolation room maintains clean specifications to reduce contaminants. The hydraulics shop rebuilds all brands of hydraulic cylinders. The track press shop rebuilds or replaces undercarriage rails, idlers and rollers. The transmission and hydraulic test benches simulate operating conditions — ensuring components operate properly and are leak-free. Two dyno-cells provide rigorous engine testing and calibrations capable of 1,500 and 5,000 horsepower.
The Foley Rebuild Center shares its 27-acre property with the new Caterpillar Midwest Sales & Distribution Center, which focuses on the sale of used and lease returned equipment from CAT Financial Services.
