What was the easiest harvester combine to work on ?

Just for fun I thought it would be interesting to see the answers to this question. My father said his jd 45 round back was his. Have fun!
 
Much of the conventional Gleaner line was pretty simple, they stopped at 2 or so belts on a shaft, etc. the bearings are in simple holders, not
pressed into cast....

We had a JD 45 early on, and it wasn't hard to work on, but the Gleaners were a little easier.

Paul
 
(quoted from post at 08:27:49 12/12/17) Much of the conventional Gleaner line was pretty simple, they stopped at 2 or so belts on a shaft, etc. the bearings are in simple holders, not
pressed into cast....

We had a JD 45 early on, and it wasn't hard to work on, but the Gleaners were a little easier.

Paul
I've looed at some old cleaners and they do look like a dream compared to the million belts on one shaft jd out on their 00 combines lol! I've read massey is a nightmare to work on!!!
 
Any of the self propelled Gleaners, hands down.
I've always been around Gleaners, so I couldn't say anything for other brands, until I helped a guy at harvest once who had a 6600. When I got up close and looked
behind the shields, I about passed out from shock. I couldn't believe how many belts and chains there were, and how many were stacked on each shaft.
 
I've read that part of the reason the Gleaners are so simple (bearings, drives, etc) is because they were designed initially for custom cutters, and knew excessive down time wouldn't be welcome on the big harvest runs.
 
Gleaner R2 series and newer hand down. All drives on the outside of the machine. Can pull rotor very quickly.
 
I have deere combines so never have to work
on them! I would say the old cleaners were
simple. The worse I ever touched was a
claas,the old green style.
 
(quoted from post at 14:59:53 12/12/17) Any JI Case combine is easy to work on. Very few belts and chains to complicate the machine.
his is good to know! I'm currently looking to buy a very nice ji casr case 600 combine in illionis. I was wondering about the number of belts and access to things on them!
 
I have no complaints working on my Deere 95 and 105 machines but most people say the older Gleaners were the easiest to work on. One neighbor says they are that way because you need to work on them often. Dad had an E, F and an E-III and never had any major problems with them. My vote for the hardest is many of the Massey's. Tom
 
This JI Case combine....
a250213.jpg
 
The J I Case combines, Then the M and L series Gleaners. Once any color machine gets over 4000 hours on they all need attention and constant repairs. Sealed bearings only last the life of the bearing.
 
Well all Ive worked on is Gleaners and All-Crops so I cant say much. I will say the SP100 is a bear to work on.

Jim
 
Everyone will definitely disagree with this one, but I thought our Massey Super 92 was easy to work on. We got it when I was young and I was
in charge or replacing any bearings inside the machine that needed service. It was easy to work on, but I was a scrawny 10 year old who could
lay on the straw walkers all day long on a chenille bath mat. We had originally bought it at an auction (for $300!) to use as a parts machine but it
turned out the tin was better than the sheet metal on ours. So suddenly we had a month to get a foreign machine ready for the field.

We were always sticklers for preventive maintenance and had a parts machine do down time was minimal. The one repair I remember taking a
whole day was the cylinder bearing on the cab side. We had to take off the grain table and feeder house with two pins. We weren't prepared for
what lay ahead. We only did small grains so we had never changed out a combine head, and surely never done it with the feederhouse
attached and lifting it with the loader tractor to get it lined up just right. There was a lot of cussing that day.
 
I definitely disagree. They are miserable SOBS to work on. Did you ever do anything related to the engine? Just checking the oil was a chore. It took me and my old man all morning one day to replace the separator drive belt on my 90. I did the same thing on my JD 55 by myself in half a hour.
 
I will tell you that engine under there was a chore. I hear horror stories now about fires, but I can't recall ever having buildup on ours. It must have been that dummy fan that was at the engine (where there was no radiator!) that kept her blown off. It was just a four blade as I recall.

I recall one time we had a suspect battery in our super 92. I can't remember what the deal was exactly (or why we didn't just replace it if we thought it was headed south), but it shorted out in the middle of harvest one day. There wasn't even enough warning before the engine died to raise the header. With their design that meant we couldn't get the battery out. I recall removing the cables and hooking up two sets of jumper cables to the new battery to get it started and raise the table to get the old battery out of the tray and put the new one in.

Other than that, we never really had any engine issues. That Chrysler was a good engine although it seemed to flood really easy. We had two of those combines and with both of them you had to shut off the gas before you turned off the key and turn it on just right before you fired it up. This was back when the machines weren't very old. Come to think of it, it was also handy to need to add gas to them in the midddle of the day. I was tasked with filling old metal oil cans on the tailgate of the pickup and then backing up to the combine because you needed that additional three feet of height to get them hoisted up onto that back platform.

I wonder where all of these fond memories come from? I haven't even talked about the busted final drives and replacing those in the field.
 
Years ago I had an F2, was looking at a JD 6600. Exactly twice as many belts on the JD, and usually a shaft had 2 or 3 of them on. So replacing any bearing was more involved in what had to be taken off to get to it. Yeah, JD and IH look nice going down the field, with everything covered up, but I"ll take a Gleaner any day with everything easily accessible, instead of all the fancy sheet metal covering it up.
 
I worked on a lot of them in the 70's. The easiest were Gleaners. Almost Everything is out in the open unlike
MF and Deere where a lot of the stuff that breaks is under the cab. Today's machines may be a whole different
story.
 
of the combines i have had 6600 jd hardest, 82 massey hard, 850 massey hard, 7700 jd hard, 760, 860, 8820 not as hard, N5 gleaner least hard but still had its tough spots. the combines i can afford need a fair
amount of work as well.
 
this has been very educational! I'm a fairly new rookie combine owner and started with my 3300! And having earned two college degrees ive obtained more "learning" turning a wrench on this old beast lol! Thanks to everyone who has responded to this posting .
 
I vote for the A and C Gleaner, They used 4 diffarant bearging's thru out the entire combine,and a 9/16 and 3/4 wrench to adjust the belts and chains. The only thing that was chessy on them, was that Raddle chain, the sooner you threw the Allis chain away, and got one from that place in Manchester Kansas,the better off you were.
 
the old F gleaners were considered the easiest to work
All i have ever owned is massey they can be a pain in the rear. depending on what you need to do
 
i had a Gleaner F ,. I cant agree with that myth totally,,. Bottomline , I Like setting up a combine and enjoy making repairs a week before the crop is ready ,,. I HATE fixing one pesky thing after another , or the same dum thing over and over again on the durn combines when i should a been done 2 monthes ago . gleaner has a lot of pulleys and wheels ,chains and gizmos that dont do much more than complicate the worx,. kinda like a new idea piker ,,.i have run masseys, too long and understand the method to their madness ,.. one thing for sure ,,. there is alot of room to get to stuff on a 750 as opposed to a 510 or a 300 ,.. far less moving parts on a mf compared to gleaner ,. fewer than 20 grease points on a massey m,,. gleaners have a hundred,,.. but you wont need to be pounding on bearings when they wear out like on a massey ,..
 
I just bought a running working gleaner c! It is in really good shape but I don't know a lot about them. What should I look for?
 

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