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Two basic types of drills, fluted feed and double run. The double run which was popular on the old drills will have a cover or hinged door inside the seed box which will cover one of the feed wheels while you are utilizing the other one. In other words, each seed tube will have two feed wheels and you should only use one. The fluted feed has has a serrated feed "cylinder" for each seed tube. Generally you have two adjustments: 1) increase the cup opening for each feed cylinder, 2) change the position of each serrated feed cylinder in the feed cups by shifting the entire drive shaft right or left. This will increase or decrease the serrated feed cylinder exposure in each cup. If you are buying a fluted feed, be doubly sure that the shaft can be shifted and these feed cups can be adjusted! Also make sure the seed metering drive shaft in either the double run or fluted feed will turn. The older style double run drills have a large disk with a whole lot of knobs on it. Make sure the knobs are not broken or excessively worn and that the drive mechanism which operates on this disk is not broken. This disk is used to change feed rates. The newer double run drills have a transmission box with gears inside which you can shift externally. The fluted feed will likely have couple of different sprockets that are used in the chain drive mechanism to futher change seeding rates. Usually these remain attached to the drill and one can just slip the chain as needed from one to the other. The double run feed is more accurate than the fluted feed, but since it required a transmission and was more expensive, it has lost favor with both the OEM and the farmer. Two other issues is the lift mechanism and the seed opener type. The drill will either be mechanical trip rope or hydraulic lift. The real old, horse drawn drill used levers. The rope trip mechanism allows the drill openers to be dropped at any time (tripped). However the drill must be moving forward to raise the openers after the rope is again tripped for the lifting function. In other words, don't plan on drilling until you almost hit the fence and have the plan to raise a trip rope drill before backing out. You will be very disappointed. Also remember that drills do not like to go backward with the openers in the ground. The three seed opener types are: 1) single disk, 2) double disk, 3) hoe. The single disk is usually used in more "trashy" conditions. The double disk shines when the ground is "prepared" and has little or no plant residue. However it can also work in more trashy conditions. Hoe openers are usually used in the Far Midwest and North/Northwest US or in Canada and are not commonly found. Personally I would avoid a Hoe opener. Either the single or double disk would work OK. If you want to plant grass seed be sure the drill has a grass seed attachment. This is a totally separate feed mechanism and seed box.
This will be fluted feed type mechanism without feed cup adjustment and the boxes will be relatively small. This is only used for minute seeds such a clover, timothy, alfalfa. Typically this will have seed tubes which just drop/scatter the seed on top of the ground.
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