Started on dads JD 45 high low. Only good feature was the rice tires, well it was a harvester.Drove his MM mule with a bean unit and a picker unit a few times, but hardly remember it. He bought it for the ear corn but hated that, something about the belt for a clutch and freewheeling down a hill with a wagon of corn behind. He actually liked the bean unit better then the JD 45. I got a Gleaner F as my first combine. Gas, 1968 model, it had a cab! First corn combining we did, was all ear corn before that. Seemed like a monster compared to the previous machines. Wore the thing out; well it was kinda worn when I bought it, and I took it down to wore out, sheaves and sprockets were just done all the way around. Friend traded in his F2 diesel, I bought that from the dealer. Was sure nice not to use 1/2 as much fuel, was filling the tanks with 5 gallon buckets. Wore it out again.... Friend of mine out of the blue said he knew of a widow with a F3 would I be interested? Went to look at it and it was a green strip, hyd fold auger, hydro! I didn't even consider they made hydro drive in the F series..... well I bough that right up! Was getting hard to keep up with such a small combine, as a one person operation, with tile and better fertility and got a bit more land, got old unloading both ends of the field, wanted to move to 30 inch rows. Couldn't find anything, finally found another F3 at auction, at least could have a bean and a corn machine, breakdowns were starting to really cramp my time, etc. got it home and the fuel was dirty, plugged up. Hardly ran this machine. Couple weeks later an M3 showed up on line, only 10 miles away. Dang it! Wife said go look at it, makes life easier. I'm not sure if she meant the bigger combine would make life easier, or not having to listen to my whimpering about it made life easier, but anyhow.... bought it. Hey, a monster, 6 row head to match the planter, big grain tank, could use bigger (taller) wagons, etc. cool! And then more tile, the grid sampling and fertilizerimg and yields got better, and I couldn't make a round in corn, unload on both ends.... and we fell into a little more land.... Saw a L3 on an auction, mentioned it in passing to my wife, she didn't have anything bad to say.... I thought it went cheap with the bean head, three guys were bidding when they quit I bid once and they all turned and walked away. Holy buckets is that thing wide, straddles the corn rows so now they chop up nicer, bigger grain tank, it really eats soybeans. Ran it two years, very little into it, this off season it's time to do some new sprockets and chain and so forth. That should bore everyone to tears. Paul
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