Combine buying time - help requested

[ChampagneNBeer]

Hi All,

Time for me to start looking into purchasing a combine.

Any models to look into? Avoid?
What to watch out for?

Ideally like a vintage unit (think maybe 70's most likely 80's).

2-4 row, head options for grains and corn, self-propelled and easy to work on with good parts availability.

Based on what seen, JD 3300 and up seems to be most available.

Starting acreage 20 +/- per crop - mostly wheat, corn, oats etc.

Budget: open depending on unit, but seems should be able to get a nice combine with the needed platforms for a reasonable price.

Last goal, with the different head types, undecided on auger vs draper (as goal is usable unit that cleans well, adjusts easily and is effecient with minimal loss) etc but unlikely to need pick-up.

Any other info needed, let me know.

 

[paul]

Gleaner F2/ F3.

Where I live, thr JD dealerships all combined and is owned by one mega dealership covering 3 states. They are into selling multi unit lease arrangements and no one knows anything about a 4400/7700 combine any more,

I have theee Agco dealers all about an hour away from me that know the older machines, stock parts for the older machines, one has a bone yard of salvage machines I can pick over to get parts from, the bigger cast and no longer made stuff.

So, here, a Gleaner of that era would be much easier to work on, and much more supported with parts and knowledge.

Paul

 

[rrlund]

I second the Gleaner. Either a K2 or F2. I just bought this one two weeks ago. I've wanted a Gleaner all my life. For all these years, I settled for the rest, now I have the best.

 

[Aaron SEIA]

Gleaner F2 would be good. If you want to go a little bigger, but probably much better parts availability look at a 1420 or 1440 IH. Deere 4420 would be an option as well.
AaronSEIA

 

[TNFARMKID]

Id vote gleaner all the way!

 

[centash]

X2!

Ben

 

[Dean in iowa]

I have a John Deere 3300 for sale. Clean low hour machine with 10 ft. grainhead and #244 two row cornhead. Always shedded. E-mail if interested.

 

[rrlund]

You've hit the nail squarely on the head with the whole dealer situation Paul. Buy an old Deere and you'll get one heck of a lesson in total frustration.

The Baldwin brothers who developed the Gleaner combine were custom cutters and built those combines for rugged simplicity. Allis never wandered very far from the original design and simplicity until they went to the rotary.

 

[NY 986]

Sharp looking combine.

 

[rrlund]

I just realized from another one of your posts, you're here in Michigan aren't you? Call on the Gleaner in this ad. It looks pretty clean.
CL ad

 

[rrlund]

I need to get a new picture of it. I put the grain head back on it and the rain cleaned the dust and bird droppings off of it.

 

[NY 986]

Look at JD, Gleaner, or IH. As far as parts and service go I doubt any dealer has stock on parts for a 1970's machine nor a mechanic who is familiar with it. JD XX00 and XX20 are good machines. If possible in Gleaner get a series 2 (K2, F2, M2) and in IH 715 but avoid the 815 or 915. IH 1440 would be good to get but will not make as good as quality straw as the others without a lot of fiddling around that you may not want to do.

 

[paul]

I’ve heard the 1420 is less supported any more, little harder to find parts as it was a different size than it’s big brothers, different set of parts? But the 1440 and so forth
is a good machine with good support Still, I’d go that direction pretty easily. Those Red rotaries are also good easy to work on machines.

I’ve heard the JD 3300 is also kind of an orphan, very few were actually sold so parts are a little tough to find. There were a lot of 4400 around, but a lot of them went to
the recycle heap the past 10 years. 6600 and 6620 were and still are in use around here and would have some support.

10 years ago the cleaning fan went out on my F2, the one dealer had a new one in stock. Looking for sprockets and stuff last year, thry had 3/4 of my order in stock,
and the rest was there in less than a week on a cheap parts order, could have been there the next day.

But it does depend on your local dealer support. A combine is one item you need good support for, it brings in the harvest and timeliness becomes critical in a hurry.

Planters, I can get great support for my 7000 JD from Shoup, quicker than the mega dealer 15 miles away can find and ship their inventory to my location.

My McCormick/ IHC drill is pretty simple I can keep it running from the shop, with a few extra blades and parts around. Actually I bought an old steel wheel narrower
one at auction for $300 a couple years ago to have extra parts supply, both are working for me at this time.

Tractors, if I have 2 I can swap them and get through some down time. (I have 5 I use, 27 to 210 hp, the 60 and 85 hop and then the 145 and 210 hp ones can back
each other up for most tasks.)

Hay making I got an old small square and an old round blazer, I got a cheap 3pt wheel rake aside my NH roll a bar rake. So I can get the hay put up somehow.

Combines are a little more sensitive on the place, all the money and time invested in the crop, anyhow here in a cold climate need to keep up with harvest or your
whole year is in peril.

Paul

 

[ChampagneNBeer]

Wow, thanks for all the great replies.

Never woukd have looked into a Gleaner as the majority of semi-local combines are either older IH/AC pull-types or JD3300, 4400 etc.

After some brief reading on vintage Gleaner combines, really impressed.

Some addition questions with additional info - not sure if necessary but...

My land is basically flat, slight roll contour across most fields (think baby mound).

Rocks can be a problem if not managed - those turds come back over and over again.

Largest fields are 80 and 120 acres and smallest is a 40. Do have a couple 10-20 acre sections tied in between the 80's and 120's. 40's are seperated into 4 blocks (totalling 160) with a 20 tied on one. All next to farm so road travel is basically zero to 1/8 mile.

Weather is unpredicable - snow doesn't typically leave until May, sometimes still patches in early June and can return by September but often Oct it is a sure bet. Rain and wet ground can make planting a pain and harvest of high HP crops a nightmare in the fall. Humidity runs 60-90% + often in summer with temps swinging from 90 plus to near frost levels at night, depends on the system that comes in (yesterday was near 90 out and today in the 50's). First frost is listed as Oct 1 for our area, but reality is can expect a mid-September frost and late spring from up to mid June.


For grains, would you look into flex or rigid heads? And why?

Auger or draper head?

Narrow or standard corn head? Is this just based on crop spacing?

Chopper and/or spreader? Necessary? Would like to do straw if marketable.

 

[rrlund]

For just grain, rigid head just because they're simpler. Auger head. The size you're looking at I don't even know if you can buy a draper head. I never saw one under 25 feet or so. 30 inch rows are about standard these days. If you need to hire a sprayer, rent an anhydrous or 28% nitrogen applicator, that's what they'll likely be. If you want to bale straw, no chopper. They're removable so you can put it on if you want to or think you need it.

If you have stones and want to run corn, buy a Gleaner for sure. If you pick up a stone with the corn head while trying to pick up down corn, when the stone hits the cylinder, it kicks the rock door open. All you do is slide under it with the rock trap tool, push the door shut and latch it. Pick up a stone with any other combine and your combine search starts all over again because you just totally destroyed the cylinder and concaves.

Are you in the UP or northern lower? Summerix Equipment in Lachine is a big time unauthorized Gleaner dealer. There's a guy in Pinconning who parts them out too.

 

[paul]

Soybeans you want a flex head. You didn’t mention them, but that is what a flex head is for. They can usually be locked into a rigid head but you know, everything is a compromise.....

For small grains a rigid is preferred because it’s simpler. In my area with green weeds and high summer humidity I like a swather and a dummy header to pick up the swath 3-5 days later. Less and less people do swathing any more, if you want to stuff green wet weeds through a combine with direct cutting get a big combine green weeds really grumble through a combine slowly.......

Draper heads are kind of a new thing, I’m surprised you are asking about them on an older combine. They cost a bundle and I’m not sure they are even available for the combines you are asking about? Maybe I don’t understand the question or situation.

Corn head needs to match the planter. Most places have gone to 30 inch rows for multiple reasons. It’s the best compromise between even narrower rows offering a slight bump in yield, vs the wider rows that don’t canopy so fast and allow late weeds to grow. Let’s put it this way, if you can’t come up with a reason to be different, 30 inch is gonna work out best. Oh, and if you are planting with an 8 row planter in corn, you want to follow with a 4 or 8 row corn head. It works otherwise, but not nearly as well. You want the head to be evenly divisible by the planter width.

A chopper is very nice in soybean stubble. And in small grains unless you are baling the straw. You can usually take off the chopper pretty easy and drop the straw. Spreaders just spin a little, I guess they help. In corn you might want to remove the chopper, they beat themselves up without accomplishing very much in corn cobs.. This I guess depends.

In ok corn and soybean country I ran 200-250 acres by myself with a 4 row rated Gleaner F. When I got to 250, and now a few more acres, that was a real struggle to get done all by myself. It sounds like you are starting smaller, but can ramp up to a many 100 acre farm. I would think about planning the planter size and the combine size for where you will be in 5 years. Small grains are easier to keep up with, but still you cross over from a plot farm of a few dozen acres to a 400+ acre spread back and forth...... a Gleaner K or a 3300 or 4400 is not going to keep up with the bigger operation in today’s yields. I assume you will do well and try for good yields..... Back in 1980 when these machines were built, 100-120 bu corn was kind of normal. Now 150-200 bu corn is normal, you have to dearer the combines a little bit because yields creep up.

I need to take a break from answering your threads and let people who know something reply to you!

Paul

 

[ChampagneNBeer]

Hahah, if you take a break from replying then I would likely have ended up buying something like a Massey Harris 35 cuz it was a few bucks and pull-type - then something would break and I be like $%#@#$##$ 😀

I have started looking up Gleaner combines and what about a M or M2? How do they compare to an F2 or F3? Is a K2 or K still the way to go?

Seems, price wise, can get around the same $ amount an M2 or M or F2 etc.

I like idea of a light, nimble combine (so getting stuck in wet spring or wet fall fields is minimized) and can use for 10-20 acres, but large enough to be running 50+ acres per crop (200 acres total, as example) should I get there.

Also ease of cleaning and adjustment from crop to crop is a plus as moving from say oats to wheat, would like to clean before field change amd adjust easily.

Don't think soybeans are in my future (but never know) - on the draper head, likely my terminology is off. I call a conveyor fed combine a draper, probably incorrectly.

Weed management is something to consider.

How do guys doing intercropping avoid this?

Lastly, prolly a dumb question - but if have weed seeds mixed in with wheat or oats or corn, how do you seperate as it seems most send straight from combine to truck to bin...

 

[ChampagneNBeer]

In da UP 😀

For down corn, is there a reason you down it?

I see guys in WI do both, standing stocks for feed corn ans then combine as winter hits or down and combine as winter hits but never understood why or difference...

Ohh, also, we are talking feed corn right? Corn that is hard at time of combining? How to guys harvest cobbed feed corn?

What about sweet corn? Can these combines be changed over to harvest whole cob sweet corn?

 

[ChampagneNBeer]

Forgot to add - for the nitrogen (or any fert combination application) I have a miller/lilliston row cultivator with side dresser.

My thought was to utilize this for row weed reduction and fert application after planting to ensure I can apply at the best time.

Currently it is set-up for granular application but I don't see why I couldn't change the boxes and make it multi-purpose with both granular and low-pressure or non-pressure application in row after planting, specific for the crop or application type.

Or, I was also thinking of taking my standard row cultivator and attach extra liquid tanks I have to the beam with pumps and direct nozzle heads, wired off of battery and run to a switch so I can apply direct spray side-dressing to the rows.

Thoughts?

 

[rrlund]

You'd need a corn picker for ear corn. Corn goes down because of wind or bad weather causing you to have to leave it after it's ripe. A heavy fall snow for example, or even wildlife damage.

 

[rrlund]

An M is a good machine, but way over sized for what you're wanting to do. It'd be like using a cannon to kill a fly. Gleaner had two basic machines, the K/F and the L/M. The K and F shared a lot of parts, belts, pulleys, sprockets etc, the L and M were substantially larger and shared belts, sprockets etc too. The K/F were three and four row machines, generally 11 to 15 foot grain heads. The L and M were 6 and 8 row machines, 15 to 20 foot grain heads, the difference was the width. The F was wider than the K and had more threshing area, same with the L and M, one was wider and had more threshing area than the other one. I've seen 4 row heads on Ls, but it looked kind of odd. It's your choice, I just hate to see somebody that over equipped.

 

[paul]

Dad had a JD 45 combine I drove a while, he got a MM Mule too for a couple years.

Ive owned 4 Gleaner F to F3 combines, an M3, and an L3. They are all similar machines, just bigger. The M and L handle grain off the cylinder a tad differently giving a bit more capacity in some crops but still basically the same.

The trouble I ran into with the F series was my corn got good enough yield I couldn’t make a full round in corn, had to unload at both ends. That really slowed me down unloading everything 4 rows plus hauling wagons away from both ends of the field got inefficient. The combine bin was too small. Got the M3 but then on 6 rows, it was almost the same, but at least I was unloading every 6 rows. Got the L3 with an extra 30 bu room in the tank, and now can often make a full round before unloading, that speeds up harvest unload every 12 rows. (Big farms use the grain carts and combine never stops harvesting because of this, but I’m too small for the extra person and equipment...)

Corn is king here, my high ph and heavy wet clay soils grows corn pretty easy, soybeans are a struggle in the higher ph stuff, small grains don’t like the wet bottom clay dips. So I end up 2/3 corn and I need to deal with the big volume of bushels. It’s nice the year every now and then I can see some 200bu corn, but it’s a lot of volume to handle.

If you do more small grains, and or have a lower corn yield, then your harvest time is going to be more spread out, less of a concentrated pinch like I have.

Back in the late 70s when farming was done by a family unit dad and the kid and mom helped too thry figured 2 row equipment could handle up to 300 acres, 4 row equipment could do 700 acres.

Now, my friend with 200 acres has an 8 row planter and combine, and says he wishes he had a bigger planter to keep up. Dad had a 200bu truck and 2 100 bu wagons on my farm back in the day. I’ve got a 300bu truck and 6 wagons totaling 1400bu and I need to find bigger wagons mine are too small I can’t haul away fast enough these days.

It’s funny how things change over time.

Paul

Paul

 

[NY 986]

They all dislike the mud including Gleaner's. Also, Gleaner's dislike weeds and it is terrible to pull weeds out from under the beater. We had a L many years ago so I have plenty of experience in those departments. My JD 6620 has reverse feeder house function and now I wonder how we got along without it. Gleaner is still the easiest to work on.

 

[centash]

If you are by yourself, I would get a bigger machine...you will never regret the extra capacity. I was told this when looking to upgrade, and got an M3. Bigger bin with a four row head means I can dump on the road end of the field and keep the wagons close to the road. An M series will give you at least 25 percent more capacity than an F series, and will have the hydraulic fold auger plus electric controls. Either way, go Gleaner.

Ben

 

[ss55]

Check the size of the grain tank on a 3300 or other small combine and compare that to how much row length it takes to fill the tank. Dad had a 3300 with either a 60 or 80 bushel grain tank. On most fields we could not make a complete round without needing to unload the grain tank. On larger contour rowed fields we could not make it the length of the field before the gain tank was full. A 13 foot header width in 60 bushel beans or a two row corn head in 120 bushel corn were about the same row length to fill the tank. That makes opening a field more difficult and requires an extra person in the field to pull a wagon along side the combine. If you must work alone that can add a lot of down time to repeatedly drive a full combine to the pre-positioned wagons for unloading.

If you raise corn in Michigan, do you have a grain drier or will you have to wait in line to unload at a co-op elevator?

 

[RayP(MI)]

My father-in-law had a combine he hated, finally sent it on. If I remember it had a three row header, and that made wheels ride on the row ridges. constantly sliding back and forth, sideways. Check the carriage to see if it matches your row widths.