I had the privilege of buying the parts inventory from some A-C dealers when the were cut off from Allis Chalmers. Mr. Don Walter of Rio Creek, Wis. gave me the opportunity to pretty much start my own Allis Dealership (which has been a dream of mine). A big huge THANK YOU to Don for this opportunity! Before Walters of Rio Creek, Wis was dropped by Allis, he bought the parts inventory from Garrite, Duck Creek Wis; Butch Levy Garage, Kewaunee Wis; Knospe Bros, Algoma Wis; Alden Lang Imp, Denmark Wis; and Tauchek & Debauche, New Franken Wis. when they were discontinued by Allis. This is so awesome! I was also able to get a parts counter with gasket drawers, the index card inventory system (before the fish system), A-C Manuals and 6 pallet crates of bigger A-C implement parts. I found it difficult to sleep last night with all this stuff in my shop!

Don(MO) wrote: Good job!! Just a FYI. keep the index card inventory system up to-date as you sale off parts and if you can reproduce how he had his parts department setup so you can find the parts as you get all them calls for that one part they need. lol

Yes, we talked about how it was setup. I have numbered my shelves the same way so I can use his system, which is already on the cards. I am transferring the parts to the shelves one at a time so I know exactly what I have and on what shelf it is located.

Thanks Guys! Don (Walters) told me that the dealers that got cut off before him were all smaller and within 30min drive from his A-C dealer in Rio Creek. A couple years later, Allis dropped him as a dealer because there was a very large A-C dealer 30 min north in Sturgeon Bay. They are still in business as AGCO.

Yes, the pictures are from my shop, and I am willing to sell any parts you may need. Let me get it all organized this week and then Ill respond to any parts inquiries after I know what I have.

   Howdy Alex,

   You stuck orange, your rich! Now your just having way too much fun!

    Kurzy

 Wouldnt mind seeing a photo of the parts counter either LOL

Man, I wish I could have bought out the dealership I worked at when they quit. They had pallets and pallets of stuff on their auction but me, being a new dad, didn't think I should bid on anything I didn't need too bad. It all went for little or nothing and a junk man got just about everything. The Peterson brothers had bought that dealership in 1951 IIRC. They had parts from the previous owners going back to the 1920's like head gasket kit for an E tractor and the y had the big gear that goes in the WC cultivator lift.... several of them. New augers for All crops and wood bats for the reel, the list goes on and on. Some stuff went to collectors but most of the parts on pallets went to the junk man. When the junk man was loading he had his children helping and I'm sure they took stuff they didn't buy. I watched as they loaded into an old grain truck. Anything near a pallet went into the truck as fast as they could throw it. Two of the kids were talking among themselves saying they didn't think certain things were theirs but it went anyhow.

I got a little off track..... Looks like you done good Alex. It has been a dream of mine to do the same.

It sure has been exciting so far going through these parts! I feel like I'm on the American Picker's TV Show!!

This card file is 8"x5" They are very complete except most of them don't say what tractor/implement they fit. By the dates on the cards, it seems he was dropped as a dealer about 1975. So nothing for the 6/7/8000 series. The part counter I bought has numbered drawers where all the gaskets were kept and inventoried. Some drawers still had gaskets in!!

Thanks for posting the picture of the index cards.  That brought back memories from my Dad and Uncles dealership.  I remember about once a year we would do a physical inventory count of all the parts bins.  I remember that sometimes the card would say we had 2 or 3 of some part but in reality we had 6 or 7.  It rarely happened the other way; seems Dad always like to have plenty of inventory.  People would come from miles away and/or call cause they knew Dad used to keep a lot of inventory in parts.

Maybe not the best financial move, but it brought in business.

Keep the pictures coming and thanks again.

Brian

Well I've been busy all year with my repair shop, but somehow I inventoried all the NOS parts with the old dealers index card system on lettered and numbered shelves. I have been adding cards when I do a repair for a customer and have to order parts for the tractor. I have the service counter situated and the gasket counter organized. There are still a lot of Allis's in use on farms and for yard chores here in Wisconsin (and other states that I ship parts to) and I'd like to provide the service and parts to those people to keep there Allis's operational. And eventually design and produce new tractors bearing the A-C name.

So my service counter looks like this when you walk in the door, the gasket counter with parts catalogs, shop manuals and the inventory cards sits behind the service counter.

Say a customer is looking for a D17 governor spring and a Knifehead for a 80R mower. If they don't know the part numbers, I go to my parts catalogs or the Agco website.

Now that I found the part numbers, I go to the Index card inventory system to find the bin location and the price of the part.

I see the mower knifehead is located on shelf A114 and is $20.50.  The D17 governor spring is located on shelf A5 and cost $25.75. If the customer is okay with the price, I go ahead and get the parts from the shelves.

Anyway that's how I have my system set up. I would like to know from the guys who used to be dealers or who remember those days, how did you get a sales slip? Was it written out with carbon paper or was it typed out with a calculator that spit out a receipt?

chaskaduo wrote: Your gonna be buried in orders before your even unpacked. Now your definitely gonna have sleepless nights.

Yeah I was answering PM's and returning phone calls all day today, I think i'm caught up now. I only wish I could have new A-C tractors sitting on the lot

I know this is an old thread now but thought I'd respond to a couple things.  Don Walter is my grandpa.  I found this post when I googled the name of the business back then.  Over the years, it was Walter's Garage, then Walter's Agri-Center, and finally Walter's of Rio Creek.

He was also very excited to have found someone to buy the parts who wanted to keep the old Allis' running...rather than someone buying them for scrap price.

I got a little more background from him tonight on the phone.  He couldn't remember some of the dates exactly but has a calendar with all of them on.

In the early to mid-1960's, he already had the business when a New Holland dealer in Algoma closed and a farmer friend convinced him to get into the implement business so they'd have a local place to buy parts.  When the dealer who sold Allis-Chalmers and Minneapolis Moline retired, he picked up those lines.

The cards that you reference actually originally came from the Allis dealer in Kewaunee when my grandpa bought their stock.  That was about 1975.  He's thinking that it was 1978 when he was dropped as a dealer.  The dealer up in Sturgeon Bay was the biggest in the area and they kept the Allis contract.  Fortunately for us, the owner of that dealership up in Sturgeon Bay is a great guy and we could continue to buy parts through him and do shop work in Rio Creek for quite some time.

Justin