Well, I can't say I've seen any more occurrence of fire with any one make than another. In 6 years, I've seen my share of Gleaner L, L2's go up in flames. It's always been determined on the older Gleaners that it was electrical. I know one in particular, a local combine, was purely from neglect. Never run any combine out of its shed or barn and just expect to run it like normal, without first going thoroughly through all the electrical stuff! Rodents are the No. 1 cause of wiring problems in older combines.
I agree with you about Massey-Ferguson being the largest global farm machinery company. However, if you read back on history and not just examine what sold locally, you will see clearly, that the M-H and M-F combines were the biggest-selling by volume in North America. Now I am going to specify self-propelled combines. Allis-Chalmers [not Baldwin or the A-C Gleaner line] did sell more combines than ALL of the others' SPC's combined. The reason was because they were the All-Crop PTO-powered machines, and very small. 8-10 of them could be built/sold for every SPC made, and that was about the ratio at one time.
However, I am talking about our SPC's, not pull-types. Many people believe Massey-Harris invented or developed the first SPC, too. Not at all. There were several who made them. However, Massey-Harris DID make the first commercially-successful self-propelled combine, and that is also qite historically significant. It was for this very reason, M-H [and later M-F] led the North American market in SPC's for just over 3 and a half decades!
Yes, it was around 1975 that Deere finally pulled ahead of Massey-Ferguson in combine sales. I mentioned this earlier. There are several factors, but one more memorable one, was the fact that massey's darling of their trade--the mighty and very large Model 760, was good enough as far as its combine duties went, but for user-friendliness, the 760 was NOT! It was hard to operate with its complicated controls. The cab was no wider than those on the former 10 Series, which allowed no room for any two occupants to train each other and such. I was there. I know. The 760 was a mess of something to run! I gave up and went with an outfit that had the 00 Series Deeres!
Okay, I do know many others still stuck it out with the big 700 Series Masseys. Fine for them, because the company still had excellent dealer support, on-harvest support and everything that any farmer or CH needed, period. However, after only a few more years, Massey's already ill financial structure, began to take even a faster turn for the worse. I'm sure you know that story, too, by now. It was a terminal illness, too.
I am really surprised you were not aware of the early L's problems. The L arrived first, with the M following the second year. The M simply inherited the same congenital disorder that took 2 more years to clean up. The early L and M disasters put some CH's out of business, too. Also the corporation was as bad with them as they were with the early N's, not allowing the dealers to recall them. One north central Oklahoma dealer took matters into his own hands. ALL 1972-1973 L's and M's traded back in--were taken out of commission--salvaged only, but none ever allowed to go back to a farm or CH work intact. I am not sure what he did about the 1974 models, which were not a great deal better, but still showed some improvements. 1975 seemed to work okay, but the 1976 ones were what I knew to be free of all previous inherited malfunction and disorder. The first L2 and M2 debuted in 1977, though. The rest is history. Good combines!
