Picking Corn (couple pics)

Hey guys,

Thought I'd share a few pictures of today's adventure: Picking corn. I picked up this Massey Harris self propelled picker about a year ago at a friends auction.

When I bought it, the engine was froze up, the gas tank had holes in it, and it had lots of other problems. I got it freed up and running and working, but it still needs a lot of work to make it work as it should.

Hopefully by next fall I'll have the engine overhauled (it only seems to run on 5 of 6 cylinders, and a couple have little compression) and new gathering chains on the head, and the air screen area fixed (notice the duct tape on the bottom LOL)

This was the first time I had ever really run this machine, or even picked corn.. Was slow going, but I sure enjoyed myself.

Thanks for looking.. and sorry for the large pictures.. still trying to figure out the resize thing..

Brad

Thanks for the pics all looks good. Whats wrong with the big picts least i can see whats goin on with out a magnifering glass. lol.

very nice pictures It looks like it picked pretty good!

i will tell you what the big combines of todays era may be impressive but it is still awesome to watch older equipment like that picking corn.doesnt get any better than that in my book.
RICK

Looks like it picked pretty clean & no "butt shelling". Good job.

I've always thought the Massey self propelled pickers and balers were cool.

The operator is probably in the worst place in terms of dirt and dust though.

Congratulations! Very nice job.

I'd never seen or even heard of a s/p picker (other than NI Uni's) until I started reading these forums. Nice to see it saved and working... that's a whole lot better than going to china and coming back as some soon-to-be-thrown-out junk. Thanks for posting the pics.

It appears that the previous owner was pretty careful with that machine, looks like it will be a lot of fun to restore and operate.

Now you be careful with it and with yourself. Every year we read about guys getting pulled into pickers and combines trying to clear a plug. I suspect you should be wearing hearing protection too.

Brad congratulation on your saving a piece of history. I have only seen those self propelled pickers in books, other than Uni systems ones. Where are you located??? There are a few harvest days around in different parts of the country. They would love to have such an usual piece there. Plus you would get to have more fun. LOL

What year is your picker? I found one in a 1954 Massey-Harris ad.

Nice job, getting that ol' gal running again.

I generally am not in favor of self-propelled implements that could also be operated by a tractor, on the grounds that its another power train that you have to maintain. But seeing how much of a hassle it is to mount and dismount them, I can sure see the wisdom of it for pickers.

Nice, nice pics as is.

Will take a few acres to shine the snoots and elevator up eh? It will work loads better then.

They weren't real popular here, MM Mules were more so, but New Idea owned the picker market around here.

See a few at shows now & then.

--->Paul

Had an uncle that got one of these pickers brand new. He picked corn for my dad probably 60 years ago. He did a lot of custom picking with that thing. Didn't have to open the fields ahead of time when that machine was coming!

Picking with a two row mounted picker was pretty dirty too, chaff, shucks, dust. By the time the wagon was half full, was usually in low gear, near full throttle to keep the rollers spinning. The popcorn companies kept some of these self propelled machines going for years, as they had to have ear corn.

Neat pics! Keep your hands and other body parts clear of the machinery!

Thanks for the kind words guys..

It does seem to pick pretty well.. At the first, it wasn't doing such a clean job (more operator error than fault of the picker). It was doing a little butt shelling at first, but the first round or so we used it on the corn was "spotty" (I'd guess they ran the last pass to clean out the planter, so it was kinda thin). Every now and then, it'd break some of the stalk off and send that up with the elevator, I'd just try to catch it before it went to the husking rolls.

I'm not so sure if it'll ever get a cosmetic restoration.. but I'd like it to be mechanically restored.. I'm a real big fan of playing with my toys, so I want to be able to play with it.

It's starting to shine up a bit, but the best we can figure, it's sat since probably 1970ish.. It spent most it's time indoors I'd guess to say, but myself, I don't have a shed tall enough to house it (even if I take the elevator down it's still just a little too tall), so I been keeping it covered with a tarp since I picked it up.. Not the best way to store it, but it's the best I got right now.

I'm venturing to guess it's around a 53-54.. I never did check to see if my massey data book has any serial numbers for the picker, but I know it's a later one, as it has the 6 cylinder Continental opposed to the 4 cylinder. I too have a sales advertisement for one, I found it when I was looking for ads for my 33 Massey, and I had to have it. There's one of these old pickers in a barn around the corner from my house, and as a kid the looks of it was fascinating.. Said some day I would have one.. and now I do. Grandpa said there was a few of them in our neighborhood back before my time..

I'm from Maybee, MI (Southeast corner of the lower peninsula of Michigan). Would be pretty neat to take it to a harvest day or something of the like. The machine I now have was on display at Fulton County, Ohio fair a few years back, and at the sale I bought it from, a gentleman asked if I'd let them show it again. I said by next time, it'd drive itself off and on a trailer, so I guess so far I'm keeping my word LOL.

Sorry to be long winded, just wanted to try to answer everyone's questions..

Brad

Great pictures, good to see one in the field, I can't remember ever seeing one actually picking corn around here in MN seen a lot of mounted pickers and of course the tractor drawn types. Did see one the MH self-propelled a the local old tractor show last year.
GB in MN

Thanks for the pictures, when I was a kid we had a neighbor with one of those that opened fields for us.

That's a cool project. I would venture to guess, one of many if you're anything like me. I'm always tinkering on something. I really enjoyed the pics and good luck. It's great to see it still working and not rusting in the North 40 somewhere.