MANHATTAN'S 'MR. FIX-IT'

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Jul 25, 2004 by Matt Moline Capital-Journal

MANHATTAN --- For 32 years, Verne Hart spent a lot of on-the-job time fixing up mowers and tractors while working at the agency now known as the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks.

Now in his 14th year of retirement, the 75-year-old is still on the job as a mechanic, but this time around, Hart operates his own repair shop in Manhattan, where coffee breaks and long lunches are frequently the order of the day.

"I'm telling you, there's enough business out there that if I took it all in, I'd be working 10 hours a day, seven days a week," Hart said recently. "But I'm going to have fun on this job, so there's no pressure, no hurry. I see to that."

Hart, who moved to Manhattan in 1962 to manage the new Tuttle Creek State Park, has earned a reputation --- and a business niche -- - as Manhattan's Mr. Fixit: the man to whom farmers routinely turn when ailing tractors and other gasoline-powered machinery need inexpensive repairs.

Many of the tractors Hart takes on would fit the so-called vintage category, although most are still hard at work on area farms.

"The difference between me and a commercial implement dealer is about $50 an hour," Hart said. "I'll charge $12.95 an hour, and they'll be in the range of $60 an hour."

More than a few of the tractors Hart works on are at least 50 years old, frequently dating back to the mid-1940s, including a trio of machines from the mid-1940s that Hart put back in working condition for very little money.

Hart got a mid-1940s Farmall H-model tractor back in working order for just $50. Hart also worked his magic on a disabled Allis- Chalmers WD-model, also dating from the 1940s, and got it back back in the fields for under $100, including repairs to the hydraulics on a front-end loader.

"This man south of town uses that old tractor to plow his driveway in the winter time," Hart said. "When you've got an old tractor that might not be worth more than $500, it doesn't make much sense for a lot of guys to spend a lot of money on repairs."

But Hart warns his customers not to expect next-day turnaround on repair jobs.

"I try to tell everybody that if you're in a hurry, you better take it somewhere else," he said. "But give me a week, and you're in business."

Hart also buys and sells so-called "hobby" tractors for area suburbanites "who think they have to have a tractor," he said.

Earlier this month, Hart had three refurbished tractors dating from the 1950s and early '60s on display at his outdoor sales lot --- ranging in price from $2,500 to $3,800.

"A lot of people might have some suburban acreage, and need something to clean out the barn," he said, "or clean the stables if they've got horses, and plow the driveway in the wintertime."

Hart said he recent visited with a man who said he had been offered $2,500 for a 1941-model Ford tractor originally purchased for $682.

Hart also collects "hobby" tractors himself --- including a refurbished 1959 John Deere 630-model that he uses for informal threshing bee competitions.

"This tractor is worth more today than it was worth in 1959," Hart said "Part of that is because they only made the 630-model for one year, and tractor tend to hold their value longer than, say, automobiles."

The tractor, which Hart describes as the prize of his motor fleet, has benefited from a complete refurbishing, while making use of original equipment and parts wherever possible.

"If you restore something, you take it apart bolt by bolt and put it back together and put in new anything that shows signs of wear," he said. "But in a refurbishing project, you fix the bad spots and basically don't disassemble. That's basically the difference."

Besides tractors, Hart also works on a lot of vintage small gasoline engines, some dating from the 1920s.

"I guess I'm just more comfortable working on the pre-1960 equipment," he said. "That's the era I grew up in and that's what I'm more comfortable with."

Hart is working on a Cushman engine that dates from the 1930s.

"It's got an ignition problem, and a carburetor problem," he said, "and the guy wants to get it running to pump some water. So pretty much all of the repair work I get is from people who still have a real need to get the equipment running. I'm not the owner of an antique shop."

Hart opened his repair business not long after retiring from the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks in 1990.

"I was so wrapped up in my job, I don't know when I ever started thinking about retirement," he said. "All of a sudden, one morning in August, I didn't have to get up and go to work."

Nearly 15 years later, Hart's prospective customers who are looking for the business in the 100 block of Messenger Road may have trouble finding Mr. Fixit. The business is unnamed, and listed in the local phone book only under the name, Verne Hart.

"The phone company wanted another $30 for the word 'shop' after my name, and I said I wasn't going to pay it," Hart said.

Born on a farm near Frederick, Okla., Hart and his family moved in the early 1940s to McPherson, where he graduated from McPherson High School in 1946.