new small pull type combine

If you could buy a new small pull type combine and remembering the old ones, what would you go for? People with less than 100 acres of grain are having a tough time keeping old ones going or getting a custom operator. I imagine there will be a ton of votes for A-C 72 and 90.
 
Ya,gotta agree on the 72 or 90. I had a JD 42 but I wouldn't give a plug nickle for another one. Oliver 18 maybe.
 
What small acreage I harvest, a good used (read CHEAP) combine would be welcome. Right now, I bind and shock the oats, and take them to the local steam/old tractor show for thrashing.
 
I have put about 40 acres of soybeans and wheat through my 90 allis pull type and the only thing that has broke was a rock guard yesterday. Plus very easy to get parts through Yaz all crop. It purred right through 55 bushel soybeans.
 
Are custom operators really that hard to find??
I'd probably quit before I tried cutting grain with a PT combine.

Rod
 
Id buy a new JD #30. She did a great job again this year in the beans.
a83718.jpg
 
(quoted from post at 22:03:31 09/28/12) Are custom operators really that hard to find??
I'd probably quit before I tried cutting grain with a PT combine.

Rod

Well Rod, Some of us find it quite enjoyable to use equipment from the past......no I'm not going to do 3000 acres with my All-Crop 66 but it sure is fun to operate. And I bet I can get as clean if not a cleaner sample than any new combine on the market today.
 
If you enjoy tinkering with an old combine... that's one thing. I can think of things I'd rather do having spent a fair amount of time having tinkered with an old combine... when I needed it to work.
It's not a road I'd care to follow as a means to an end. To fool around... that's another thing.

Rod
 
In some places they are. Can't hire anyone around here. Big farmers just want to worry about their own, and not enough potential customers for somebody to just do custom harvesting. I'd gladly hire a big, new combine to do my soybeans in a couple days, but I'm forced to fight that cantankerous Gleaner K2 for however long it takes.
 
You bet, an Oliver 18 combine. Neighbors had one when I was a teenager. I helped and don"t remember ANY breakdowns, although I"m sure they had a few. That thing just kept going and going. I just saw one in the Wi. Farmer paper about a month ago for sale by an equip. dealer. Advertised it to USE! Asking was $800.00 I believe.
Larry NEIL
 
Don't forget the popular Minneapolis Moline G-4 and it's variations there of

I still have my Grandpa's G-144 he bought new the year I was born. It's only been on 2 farms it's working life my brother and mine
 
I would say you are right, AC's made the best cleaning combine of it's time. Problem is as they age, the rubber separates from the cyl bars, and finding those rubber coated bars, at a reasonable price. There are some micro combines, out there, seen a few on youtube and google.
 
ANYTHING BUT AN ALLIS 60 or 66. I spent way too much time riding one and TYING SACKS to ever want one. That straw chute right by the bagging platform = dust city.
 
The only problem with yours was being a bagger and those should only have been used for crops as red clover or timothy that you would only run perhaps a half dozen bushels in a day. Never was a bagger in normall grain country around here.
 
I would also say the Allis 72 or 90 depending on if a 6' or 7 1/2' cut machine as they have the power run real instead of the ground drive real and an auger instead of the canvas like the 60-66 series but they used the same type of cleaning system and they would clean as good as the seed from the others was after being run thru a windmill for cleaning. The big problem was the back cut where you had to pickup the straw and run it thru again where the straight thru types you did not have that. AC had the straight thru machine with the 40 and if they could have kept the same thoughts in design for the 60-66-72-90 and selfpropelled 9' model 100 machines. Biggest problem with the selfpropelled they did not have a good varible speed setup. Never seen an oliver combine around, mostly AC followed by McCormick, JD with MM and Case following.
 

We occasionally put grain in now, but used to every year and we had a self propelled combine. Only did anywhere from 10 to 30 acres a year, so small amounts.

The combine was to the point where you spent as much time fixing it or unplugging it as you did combining. The last several grain crops we paid a custom operator to do the job despite having a combine in the shed that worked. The custom guys with their larger, newer machines, still had the breakdowns and problems...but their peril, not our.

For what the custom combine bill was it was hard to justify owning a machine by the time you subtracted parts, repairs, fuel etc.

I did look at getting a small pull type, like an IH 80 or similar with the plan on doing no more than 10 acres a year with it. Those small pull types are 40 years old or older and I'd HATE the thought of trying to combine with one of those in the wet falls we normally had. At least a SP you could go, PT no weight on the tractor, be as worse as lugging a baler on soft ground!

If a new smaller pull type was available, I'd look at it, the problem is I could probably buy a LOT of grain & straw for what the machine would cost or buy a decent 30 year old diesel powered SP with 13 to 15 foot cut.
 
(quoted from post at 20:03:31 09/28/12) Are custom operators really that hard to find??
I'd probably quit before I tried cutting grain with a PT combine.

Rod

There's no one in my area custom combining- zilch. I couldn't afford a new rig even if they were still made, so I'm still using a 100 year old Adriance-Platt binder and IHC thresher. I'm going to try to get a 72 AC together if I can find a few more parts machines.
 
If someone is serious about doing smaller acreages (by today's standards)... then I think they could get along OK with something like an old Deere 4400 or 6600 or even 20 series of those machine... or an old IH 1460. All of those were decent machines, rebuildable and fairly reliable when you do rebuild them.
If someone wants to go farther back in time then that... I think that's best classified as someone looking for an amusement.
I ran an IH 615 for several years... and it was a constant battle trying to keep ahead of repairs and dealing with stupid little problems never mind trying to keep gas in the tank. Then go trying to make the parts you could no longer buy... constantly devising solutions to problems that the parts department had no answers for.
Quite honestly... if I was buying a machine today it would be new enough to have a turret unloading auger so it can at least unload into a truck without digging a hole in every field. Most of the problems I had with the 615 were in some way related to either the head or the unloading auger...

Rod
 
When I bought my K2 used, it was still a very serviceable machine parts-wise . . . but I've had it for so long, I've probably drained Agco's NOS parts supply . . . .
 

Any of the old ones will handle 100 Ac..it all depends on how fast you want to get done..
It is pretty hard to get more than 10 Ac/Day with an AC 60 in "Good Conditions"...that was all we had and Dad and my Grandad did some Custom cutting as well..
They had our last name written in the Dust, across the rear..#1 and #2...but then, when you went to the field, "Time" was not any consideration...you ran as long as the conditions allowed..AND..those old Canvases..MAN, were they Heavy, covering the machines..!!!
Ron.
 
I don't know if it's so much that.... or the fact that the design itself is so far behind in gleaner's past that they don't make anything for ti today.
The funny thing with Deere... and to some degree IH... the parts are still available for a lot of this older stuff because the basic design behind the facade is still the same and still uses a lot of the same parts, or did for long periods of time. With a lot of machines using those parts there is a demand for them... and the parts are still produced and stocked. It's the short run machines of differing designs that lack support today... no matter how good the machine was in it's day.

Rod
 
Deere isn't so good with 3300, 4400 or 4420 parts anymore, either . . . the K2 uses a lot of common parts with the bigger combines that are still available from AGCO. . . but there are certain things that are made from unobtainium.
 
That picture brings back memories. Our's were Oliver for the tractor and combine and a Chevy that size for the truck. I was just old enough to do the bagging the last few years Dad used that equipment. That was about 1960.
 

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