PIERCETON, Ind. — Don and Doug Dickerhoff know there’s never a good time for equipment to break down. Whether it happens to a farmer rushing to harvest his crop before the weather changes or a long-haul trucker with a deadline, engine failure means delay and loss of income.

Owners of TTP, Inc., located at the corner of U.S. 30 and S.R. 13 in Pierceton, the brothers accept the fact that customers are in a bad mood when they arrive. Their goal is to send them on their way with a like-new diesel engine and a feeling of satisfaction.

“No one likes leaving an establishment feeling they got less than what they paid for,” Don said. “We intend for them to have value added.”

“We grew up with a father who was a farmer and long-distance livestock hauler,” Don said. “We can empathize with our customers because we understand what they’re going through when they have a breakdown. We want to get them back to work as quickly as possible.”

In order to do that, TTP, a division of Diesel Power and Machine specializing in remanufactured diesel engines and drive trains, offers immediate exchange units or custom rebuilding with the fastest turnarounds in the industry.

“We’re the only people remanufacturing and stocking diesel engines in the 200-800 horsepower range,” Don said.

These include Caterpillar, Cummins, Detroit, John Deere and Case IH. Transmissions and differentials include Rockwell, Eaton, Spicer and Fuller.

“Our goal is to custom build the highest quality engines, transmissions and differentials at affordable prices for today’s discerning end user,” the brothers said. “We like to say we work harder so our customers can work smarter.”

Established in 1981 in nearby Warsaw as Tractor and Trailer Parts by Don Dickerhoff and his father, the late Richard Dickerhoff, the company quickly became known as TTP and just as quickly outgrew its original building in spite of two major expansions. The firm relocated to a site on U.S. 30 before, nine expansions later, moving to its present 68,000 square-foot building at 7 Matchett Drive, Pierceton. Along the way, Doug Dickerhoff joined the family business and now shares management responsibilities with his brother.

“Our employees are all major players,” Don said. “When one is missing, it affects the whole company. We have difficulty finding diesel technicians; we hand pick all our rebuilders.”

“We don’t have any corporate jets or upper or middle management,” Doug added. “We’re all a team. There are no weak sticks. Everyone pulls his own weight.”

Both brothers are Purdue graduates and all of their employees are ASE master certified technicians. “We have skilled craftsmen at every position,” Don said.

“Since no one else is doing it, the reman diesel engine business must be the toughest there is,” he said. “It takes a greater quantity of quality new parts and a higher level of expertise to work on custom engines than it does to work on production engines. There weren’t a lot of engines built in our horsepower range - for every John Deere 619 agricultural engine in a 4-wheel-drive tractor, there were probably a thousand 7.3 engines made for Ford pickups. That’s the difference between production and custom work.”

“TTP is strictly a custom shop. There is no assembly line. It is imperative that engines this size undergo major machine work. That’s something that doesn’t happen by simply adding an overhaul kit. Our standards are high and the quality of our machining is far better than production standards. We use new parts - no welded crankshafts, no reground camshafts, no sandblasted pistons, no rehoned liners.”

“Because we consider the head the brains of an engine, we want only skilled technicians working on it and putting it through the battery of tests we demand to ensure a quality product.”

Working in a shop where precision and cleanliness are everything (a clean floor makes it easy to spot an oil leak), these technicians reman 10 to 15 complete engines in a typical week and can turn out seven or more short block or long block rebuilds a day.

“Our inventory is tremendous,” Don said.

TTP sells to the Bahamas, Africa and the U.S. Army; its remanufactured engines run power generation stations in New York City and handle massive irrigation projects, but overall the firm’s business is fairly equally divided between agriculture, industrial and transportation.

“We have to establish several things when someone calls about an engine,” Doug said. “If it has low hours, another overhaul may be all he needs, but if he’s had a major failure or the engine has lots of hours on it, we recommend he purchase a remanufactured engine.”

TTP technicians tear the engines down to integral pieces and put the block through a five-step cleaning process. Every part in the engine is either new or remanufactured. Critical parts are magnifluxed, the engines are pressure tested and block tops are decked to get a flat surface. “We aim to make them as good as new,” Doug said. “In some cases, the technological advances make them better than new.”

“A rebuild job may be feasible if a tractor’s engine has an intact block, head, and crankshaft with low hours,” he added. “With high hours, appropriate machining and testing must be done. A rebuild is a good choice only if the owner is a good mechanic who can do his own work with appropriate shop equipment. Otherwise, it’s better to go with a reman engine. And if he’s in the middle of harvest or planting, it’s faster to replace the engine.”

“We could build engines at a third of the cost if we only overhauled them like many places do,” Don said. “Our engines are totally remanufactured and brought back within original specifications.”

Because their remanufacturing process is very precise, both brothers stress the importance of owner follow through. “We could write a book on how customers screw up engines,” Don said. “We’ve had dozens of situations in which an engine came back but tested okay. The problem was with their equipment.” In one situation, the brothers learned the customer had taken his engine to an automotive machine shop. “They use different machines and procedures and his bore came out .005 inch too small,” Doug said. “We talked him through the whole thing and put him in touch with Perfect Circle experts. He left shaking my hand. He’ll be back.”

The Dickerhoffs remember the Christmas Doug spent helping two brothers on their way to Chicago with a remanufactured engine and the time a new customer from Costa Rica asked them to pick him up in Fort Wayne, a three-hour round trip. Once at TTP, he purchased $5,000 worth of parts and then needed a way to get them back home. Doug called a local car dealer who sold the Costa Rican a car that he drove to Miami where he would have both car and purchases shipped home. Before he left, Doug gave him his atlas so he wouldn’t get lost.

While that is customer service above and beyond the normal call of duty, it exemplifies the strong work ethic the brothers learned from their parents and gives credence to their conviction that TTP’s reputation speaks for itself.

“It takes so much effort for a place like this to thrive,” Don said. “We have to have all cylinders firing.”