Driving it home

jmandrze

Member
I bought a JD 6600 edible bean a few weeks ago and the time has come to move it too its new home. Cost to truck it was more than I paid for it so I am driving it home on Saturday 29JUNE. Hope to be rolling around 7:00/7:30AM. The journey starts in Unionville, MI and will finish up in Columbus, MI. If you see a tan dodge diesel following a combine or a tan dodge diesel sitting behind a broke down combine, on one of the road listed below give a honk or point and laugh, whatever the situation dictates.

This is the route I am planning on taking. I ran it on my motorcycle to make sure there are no surprises and it looks do-able.



1. Clark Rd. – South
2. Hoppe Rd.- East
3. McGregory Rd. - South
4. Dutcher Rd. - East
5. Hurds Corner Rd. – South
6. Little Rd. – East
7. Kelitz Rd. – South
8. Severance Rd. – East – Over M53
9. Decker Rd. – South
10. Richards Rd. – East
11. Wood Rd. – South
12. Marlette Rd. – East
13. Gosline Rd. – South
14. Brooks Rd. – West
15. ButterNut Rd. – South
16. M90 – East
17. Kreiner Rd. – South
18. Wilcox Rd. - East
19. Cade Rd. – South
20. Wellman Line Rd. – East – Over M19
21. Bricker Rd. – South
22. Webb Rd. – East
23. Fox Rd. – South
24. Hill Rd. – East
25. Wales Center – South
26. Lambs Rd. – East
27. Palms Rd. - South


Jason
 
You'll be going close by me. I will be baling hay saterday on marlette rd just to the west. I drove a combine home 60 miles couple years ago. Coil failed. Got it off the road and left it for the night. Came back the next day with tune up parts. Take tools with you. A chain or strap to get it off the road. SMV signs. I had 2 on the pickup following an 2 on the combine up high could be seen over the pickup. Good luck.
 
Chase truck is going to be loaded for bear, full tool chest, compressor, heavy duty ratchet straps, chains, clevis, water, and extra fuel. Just about everything except a welder and if we need that we have bigger problems.

Jason
 
Good luck with your trip I would of taught about driving mine home but it was 400miles away so had it trucked and it cost 1300 I knew the guy pretty well. I only paid 1500 for the 4400 and 444 corn head and a 13ft 100series platform
 
I have three combines that need moving can't get a trucking company to call back with a price. I'm getting to do what you are doing.
 
Now would be the perfect time if you lived here. Wheat harvest is about 48 hours away and there will be lots of combines and carts on the road. Folks will be used to seeing them on the road and hopefully a bit more cautious. Notice I said hopefully.
 
Ive done a few things like what your doing before...I learned
early on...take spare hydro or transmission belts....these early
models take a beating in road gear pulling hills, especially if
they have set for a few years....nothing worse than hearing the
unload auger lever start hammering when the belt gives
way....just my two pennies...
 
Reminds me of when my oldest brother got married and started farming on his own 60 miles from home. Dad told me to take the 8N and pull the old G2 steel wheel MM combine to my brother's farm.

I got up and left just before daylight. I couldn't go full speed in 4th gear as it was too rough on the combine. Got to brother's farm mid-afternoon and decided I didn't ever want to do that again.
 
Columbus is half way between St. Clair and Richmond in St. Clair County. We are the tweener county, not part of metro Detroit and not really part of the thumb.

Combine is in really good shape, new belts almost all around always kept in a barn. So things are looking up on that front. Also the area is nice an flat, only 1 railroad crossing that has any type of grade to it. Hopefully I miss all the 4th of july folk heading up north, there are a few short section on paved roads that have my attention. The rest is dirt road where my biggest worry is running into another wide piece of equipment coming the other way.


I called several machine hauler, all were decent to talk too and said the big issue is the over width restriction and the permits and restrictions. When I got a few quotes back, I was a bit shocked at the cost for a short distance. So the choice to drive it home was easy.

Jason
 
My neighbor, a few years ago, did the same thing. He bought a 6602 hillside model that had been sitting for eight years. He loaded up a truck with anything he could think of and went and changed batteries and put in fresh diesel and started it up and drove it seventy five miles through the foothills of Mt. Hood Oregon to his house. He had no problems other than he got it stuck on a logging road once. If your combine is in good shape you should be fine. Your road names bring back a lot of memories, even though I have been gone from that area for forty years.
 
How fast does it go? My old JD 95 hung at 16 to17 on gravel road. I followed new JD with 30 ft. header last fall and he was going right at 25 on gravel. Whether that was wide open I don't know.
 
On the more extreme bought it and drove it home, I got a call on a February morning from a guy needing road service. He said he had a 66x44-25 tire flat along the highway. Turns out these 2 southwest Kansas wheat farmers bought a couple Big A floater spray trucks up near Chicago and decided to drive them back home without a chase vehicle. Well they made it to southeast Iowa before they had trouble. I got them off the road and since a snowstorm was moving in they found a ride home. They called me the next week to fix the tire permanently and hired it hauled the rest of the way but took off in the other one with a chase truck. They had 600 miles to go at 30 mph. I still wonder if it made it the whole way driving and how long it took them.
 
Made it without major incident. Had lots of waves,1 middle finger and a thumbs ups. We were grain head up and rolling by 8:20am, due to extra long chit chat regarding the day befores storm. Arrived home around 6:30pm. 10 hours and around 100 miles, figured I burnt around 40 gallons of fuel, had 3/4 tank when I picked it up, added 10 gallons along the way and arrived with around 1/2 tank. Only issues were other drivers on the road and my lack of patients in the home stretch. An incident with a fast moving truck cost me the rotar side emergency flasher and on the home stretch the shift linkage came out of adjustment and I attempeted to forced the shift lever into fourth and the lever snapped off in my hand, so the last 5 miles was run in third. So now I have a project tomorrow after I get some work done in the morning. Might be able to post a pic or two tomorrow depending on the late night motivation tomorrow.

Jason
 

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