White 8800/8900

Were these combines any good? I need something bigger and better than my 7300 and I found these 2 online. They have 2800/3000 engine hours and look good from the pictures but I don't know anything about them.

What are the pros and cons of these combines?

Any chance they would run a 4x30 corn head or are they a 6 row machine?

We had the predecessor to those machines, a 7800, for about 22 years. It was a 52 inch machine like the 8800/8900 only with a gas engine. It did a good job for us, most of the trouble was with the Chrysler V8 - the later machines likely have the 354 Perkins diesel so they'd be a lot cheaper to run. Check to see if they're both hydrostatic drive - the 8800 was available with the variable speed belt drive, which I've been told gave a lot of trouble. The hydro we had was bullet proof.

I replaced the 7800 with a 1460 IH rotary. Capacity-wise they were very close, I'd give the edge to the IH for realiability. I'm not familiar with rating a combine by the number of rows of corn it can handle. The Whites would be similar to the 1460, JD 7700, MF 750, etc.

We're running a 8900,replaced a 7600 Oliver, the perkins with a hydro it way superior to the 318 Chrysler with the belt drive. We're running a6 row 30 corn head, might get away with a 4 36 but I think it would be pushing it on a 4 30 to clear next row,but might depend on tire sizes axle spacers etc. Over all we've been pretty satisfied ,I know with the mudhog on it it will crawl through a lot more mud than the neighbors JDs IHs and Gleaners, good luck with your ventures.

We had an 8900 it was a nice machine to run. Buy the 8900 over the 8800 because it has a nicer cab more updates and the turret auger is a lot nicer! The Perkins never gave us much trouble. It had 5600 hours and started good and never used a drop of oil

Agree with picking the 8900 over the 8800. I don't have an 8900 but am on my 2nd 8700 and have had good luck with them. Main thing I would check is frame cracks in the front of machine above axle especially if it has been run in hills with a bin extension on it. That's what got my 1st one. NO bin extensions on present one! Also be sure to check condition of walkers and keep walker blocks tight.

Friend and neighbor had the 8800 White with hydrostatic ground drive and diesel engine. We did some work together back in the 1980's and ran our 7700 Deere with them. The White treated them well. I cannot recall if they had the 18 foot or 20 foot cutting platform on their combine. We had the 20 foot on the 7700. The 7700 is a 55 inch wide machine, and as someone else noted, the 8800 is a 52 inch wide machine. Not sure how the cleaning area compares, but I do not think the 7700 had a huge edge, if any, in capacity between the two. We had replaced a 545 Oliver with the 7700. This was a huge leap forward in capacity, particularly in corn. If I remember correctly, the 7300 was a new and improved 535 Oliver. I am thinking the 8800 or 8900 are going to be more of a 6 row machine. The drive wheels on these machines are probably straddling 4 30 inch corn rows, with the outside of the drive wheels running too close to the adjacent corn rows. I would suspect these machines are equipped with 28L x 26 or 24.5 x 32 drive tires. This is how our 7700 Deere was set up. Perhaps someone else can chime in on this with better firsthand experience.

I had an 8800, a 74 model. It had the belt VS drive, endless problems with those big VS pulleys, wore them out several times. If you buy an 8800, make sure it has the hydrostatic drive, . It kind of turns on the light bulb when you check all the VS machines in the salvage yard and find only worn out pulleys or that someone got them before I got there, while the hydro machines are all pretty well all complete in the drive dept. Kind of tells a guy that the hydro drive stands up good while the VS belt drive is nothing but trouble.
Other problems with the 8800 were short life of the 2 spd cylinder drive gear box and the straw walkers that would not hold short wheat straw.

I don't think they would go down a 4 30". Our 8900 would straddle the middle two then run down rows 2 and 4 and leave the out side two. We had 24.5s on it

Just looked at my operators manual. Wheel tread on 8900-103" minimum. Width at outside of tires-126" minimum with 23.1x26 tires.