953 and 963 wagons

tomstractorsandtoys

Well-known Member
There have been some posts on here about 953 and 963 wagons. What was the last year they were built? The newest material handling brochure I have is dated 1972 and it still has them listed. Anyone have an answer? Tom
 
The best I can do is cite a 1977-78 John Deere Forage Equipment Guide which does not show the 953 or 963 wagon under the wagon gear section. Further the JD price list I have from 1971 shows the 963, 1065A, and no price but listed 1075 gears. So the 963 outlasted the 953 and they were both gone by the late 1970's. If I had to guess I would say 1973 for the 963 as one of the budget minded neighbors probably would have bought a 963 as they would have been cheaper than the others when he was looking in 1974-75 for new wagon gears for his thrower rack. Maybe somebody here will know for sure.
 
My bad. The 953 is in the 1971 price book but not where it should be with the other gears. 246 dollars for the base price on the 953 before wheels and tires along with bolster and stake options. 280 dollars for the 963 base price before wheels, tires, bolster options and stake options. The 1074 was 511 dollars base price. Of course no freight or setup charges figured in.
 
I know that the 1065 wagons where out in 1975 as we bought four that year. Complete wagons with 11Lx15 tires where $750 each at the farm.
 

Another question would be - When did Deere quit building the 953/963 gears, and when did they and their dealers finally run out of old stock? I'll bet some dealers were still selling 953s as new 10 years after they went out of production.

MacMillons book only says that they were redesigned in the early 70's, but it also talked about the square reach, so it must be referring to the change between the 1065 and 1065a. One of the captions mentioned the 1065 being sold in the 60's. Admittedly, the book fails to be clear.
 
There was a Deere dealer here back in the 1970's that had quite a bit of NOS on whole goods and parts. I wish I had gone to the auction they had when they closed out during the late 1980's. Also, during the 1980's you would see crated goods at places that closed or were down to a parts only contract.
 
We bought two 1065 gears in 1965 under silage boxes.
Their problem was automotive style tie rods would
bend and round coupling poles would break. We replaced
them with 1065A gears that had flat tie rods and square
poles. A little machining and installed flat tie rods
on the 1065 gears, shortened the poles and added gravity
boxes.
 
It is really unclear when the sweitch was made from the round reach 1065 wagons to the square ones... I have square reach wagon that the tag says 1065. The rest of mine say 1065A. The parts catalog does not
show a square reach 1065, but does show that the old style extendable hitch pole was available until 1974.

Back to the 953 question, it would seem there was a pretty significant re-design at about the time that newer extendable hitch was designed. Perhaps that is about the time 953 left production??
 
Low profile was great for loading hay and bags of grain.
Tracked like no other also.
 
My 1971 price book shows Welland as the builder for all running gears/wagons. 214 and 216 forage boxes came from Ottumwa.
 
Really? I thought the later boxes 716a, etc also came from Welland. I was under the impression the Chuck wagons did too. Does you list show the 115 or 125 chuck wagons?
 
The 122 and 125 show Ottumwa as well. I think that you are right in that the 716A came from Welland. It seems to me that in looking on Tractorhouse when they show the serial number tag that it says made in Canada. A fair amount of IH forage was made in Canada during the later 1970's as well. Inflation got pretty bad during the 1970's so going north of the border was probably one way to counter that as long as the product in question did not require complex facilities.
 
I did find a 1974 dealer sales manual and the 963 is not in it. It does list a 965 which I assure is the 963's replacement.My 1971 dealer price book also list the 1065 as a non current item which I guess means they were out of production but Deere still had some in stock? My 1961 price books show the wagon gears built at Moline at the John Deere Industrial Equipment works. It also list the 110,112 and 115 chuck wagons as being built at the Spreader works in East Moline. I have a price bullitin in my price book that shows the 1074 as being available on March 31 1961. The price then for a 953 was $200.75 and a 963 cost $226.75. In 1966 the Spreader works were still building the 112,115 and the 214 and 216 forage boxes. I always thought the 122,125 and the 214,216 wagons came out at the same time but apparently not.In 1966 the Welland works is shown as building all wagon gears. So the 963 was dropped between 1972 and 1974. Tom
 
The wagon you have with 1065 and a square reach what kind of tie rods does it have? Flat like the 1065A or round like the 1065? My books also show a 1040 and that is one that I never heard of before. Tom
 
Tom, very interesting. It would seem that then there were 953s built in Moline AND Welland. Perhaps the late ones with serial number tags were Canadian??
 

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