JD 4420 Feeder House Question

AJB-830

Member
I was helping a friend of mine replace the feeder house chain on his 4420. Found out the chain he ordered from the JD dealer was about 16 inches too short. We later determined his 4420 has a long feeder house. Question: Was this an option and why or when would someone have ordered it on a new 4420? I also have a 4420 and mine has the short feeder house. Thanks. Al
 
I think it was done to allow more options for tire sizes. Neighbor has a 4400 short feeder house and is jealous of the room I have to work on my 4420 with long feeder house.
 
I agree with the point about tire size options. Our 4400 had a short feeder house and newer 23.1-26 tires would not allow a flex head to go all the way to the ground without the drives rubbing on the tires. Older 23.1-26s worked fine with it. Our 4420 has the long feeder house and it has much more clearance with the drive shafts and tires.
 
Actually there are 3 different sizes, Mine had the 23" tires and what was called a rice feederhouse. It was the longest, I had to be very careful crossing washouts or I'd hang it up. It worked great in down corn the 444 cornhead would slide right under the stalks.
 
Sorry to hijack the thread, but how do you tell which of the three feeder houses is on the machine?

I have a 4400 bought from the original owner who bought it from a dealer here in piedmont NC. Always thought it had the long feederhouse until I read this thread. When I bought it, it had 18.4-26 RICE tires on it which I believe were the original tires and there is no rice grown within 200 or so miles at the closest (coast of SC maybe), oh and single rib steering tires.

Anyone have any measurements, chain links to count, or some other identifying characteristic?

Thanks in advance for any info.
 
If you can raise and lower the feeder house drum height without swearing or hitting elbows, you probably have long feeder house!
 
From what I found out, there are only 2 feeder houses listed on JD Parts. The short one has 24 cross bars and the long one 28 bars. If you measure from the center of the top bearing shaft to the bottom shaft, the short one measures 53 inches and the long one about 61 inches. This matches the 16 inches extra chain length for the long one. We had them side by side yesterday. My friend ordered the long feeder house chain from Shoup yesterday and it came at 9:00 this morning. We had it up and running by noon but it rained all day so he couldn't try it on the 15 acres of beans he has left. My 4420 has the short one but I only have the 18.4 26 tires. I only use a 213 rigid head. Hope this helps. Thanks for those who responded. Al
 
I took another look at JD parts. It appears there actually are 3 feeder houses. Two long and one short. The long ones seem to be serial number related. One is up to #610100 and the other one is from 610101 to end of production. I cannot determine from parts what would be different. Doesn't seem to be any chain length difference but the later one seems to allow use of a chain with 42 slats. Maybe someone else might know what is different on these two long feeder houses. Al
 
It' been awhile since I owned the 4420, IIRC I counted the slats to make sure I ordered the right 1 and seems like mine numbered in the 50's. The serial number of my 4420 was around 451,000.
 
If you counted all the slates on the short chain you would have 48 (24*2). The long chain would have had 56 (28*2). You probably had the long feeder house. My 4420 is #450982 which is a 1982. They built them for 1980 thru 1986. Al
 

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