John Deere 750 Drill - Advice...

Good day!

We have recently acquired a 750 no-till drill (S/N 009393) & have just finished inspecting it for wear / issues.

Major items we noticed:

1/ Quadrant & lever spline wear - with the castle nut a bit more than hand tight we've measured up to 3/4" of up & down movement at the guage wheel bolt hole on certain openers. This is only the play in the splines & doesn't take into account the play that is in the spring loaded pins that adjust the gauge wheels / seeding depth. A visual inspection of the splines shows significant wear with the crest of some of the splines actually being sharp. Re-adjusting the bearing to specs seems like it would only be the most temporary of band-aids...... Looking at TM159219 there is no specification / tolerance for these components so I was curious what people use as a benchmark for replacement?

2/ Opener arm seed boot mounting holes worn - The center set of holes on almost all of the opener arms are quite elongated / egged-out(the seed boot themselves are relatively new & have little wear in their mounting holes). This allows for close to 1" of up and down movement of the seed boot. Seems a few of the after market companies make bushing kits to repair these but just wanted to get some feedback on their efficacy?


Any other suggestions or tips on what to look for on these drills would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks in advance!

The rebuild kits for the boot bolt work well, but it is a significant job. I've done a couple drills; I usually take the whole row unit off and rework it in a vice. The boot kit involves drilling out the
cast and then welding in a small tube. When complete, it will be better than new.

In regards to the spline stuff, I can't say that has been an issue for me. I think you will be replacing those parts, however.

The closing wheel bearings can be high maintenance unless its been changed over to an aftermarket system. If it has been changed over the bearings are no longer in the cast wheel. The Deere system was bad as the rubber seal always let dust in and wrecked the bearings.I changed mine over a few years ago and it was well worth it.

Thanks for the info. gents.

Some feedback I'd received earlier is that the spline wear occurs when the machine is operated without sufficient ballast or on too hard of ground. Apparently the guage wheels get to chattering causing the premature wear because they're not firmly planted on the ground.

Think I'll try the Drillfix bushing tool for the worn holes. Looks like a good fix to me.

The closing wheel bearings had just been replaced on this machine before we got it but I can certainly see the deficiency in the design.

call Ben Needham at Needham Ag.there is two types of fixes for boots. One requires no drilling and works well. We rebuilt three 750 drills one winter be ready for hard work. We mounted the units on a 4x4
frame to secure them and have room to work. They were chest high witch saved a lot if strain on our back.

Anyone have any experience with the aftermarket quadrants & lever arms sold by Shoup, Kooima, etc?

Those cost of those parts through JD is nothing short of shocking.......