Dad and Grandpa *almost* bought a Gleaner G back in the early 70's, but they got a better deal and bought a Ford 640 built by Claas, sold as their "Senator" model in Europe. Good thing they did too, because they were counting on a "handshake agreement" they had with a big time operator who they attended church with-- Dad had been cutting for him with his old rusted out Case 660 combine and he told them, "Yall buy a combine and you can cut my grain EVERY year"... this BTO wouldn't cut his own grain back in those days-- grain sorghum (maize) was always covered in a fine powdery mildew dust that would itch like crazy-- and the cabs in those days (IF you even had one) are NOT like cabs today that are nearly airtight and dustproof-- and with an air conditioner that will nearly frost the windows if you desire even in 100 degree heat, but not back then... usually you'd be soaked in sweat by 9 am and then the dust stuck to you like glue, and you just itched like crazy the rest of the day. SO this guy always hired his combining done so he didn't have to get hot and dirty and itchy. He did buy a "Big 12" auger cart to pull with his cabbed John Deere 20 series tractor so he could stay in the air conditioning out of the dust. Course that agreement only lasted about two weeks until a neighbor who was an idiot and oversold his crop (contracted too much grain and couldn't deliver, and faced ruin having to buy back the contract) came to him and offered to combine his crop for free and buy it out of the field at the going rate to fill his contract so he didn't lose his @ss... at which point he abrogated his agreement and just basically told Dad and Grandpa to go p!ss up a rope, and if they lost their combine to the bank, oh well, it's only business... (guy had a reputation lower than crocodile p!ss in his community in later years anyway, no character). Anyway, Dad and Grandpa were really stressed out, but luckily at that point in the 70's grains were at about the highest point they'd be for over the next ten years, and everybody and their dog was eager to get in on the action. Another BTO over north of the county seat had rented a couple thousand acres of rich river bottom ground and planted it all in grain sorghum. Thing was, it was a very hot, very wet June when the grain was filling and starting to ripen, and the morningglory vines came on like gangbusters. Back then there wasn't good chemical control of morning glories (still isn't really) and by mid-July when the grain was dry and ready to cut, most of the fields were simply ate up with morningglory vines... running down the rows and between (across) the rows sewing it all up into a huge blanket of vines with the grain heads embedded in it. He put out the word to every custom combining cutter wanting some work to come and start cutting. Dad and Grandpa drove the combine 18 miles over to where they everybody was supposed to come in and try out one morning. There was every type and kind of combine available there that day in '74 or '75, from Case, International Harvester, Deere, Massey Ferguson, Allis Chalmers, White, Oliver, Gleaner, you name it. Everybody pulled into the field and within minutes were back on the turning row under a nearby grove of pecan trees, trying to unplug their combines which were hopelessly plugged with vines the point they locked up or stalled out in the field. Combines back then didn't have reversers, they didn't have 300 horsepower engines and huge power reserves, etc. Most of them only adjusted the cylinder speed by replacing sprockets, or didn't have rapid or easy adjustments for concave clearance, or special provisions for unplugging the machine. Most also used large diameter cylinders with 8 threshing bars. The Ford/Claas machine uses a wide thresher, but only six bars on the smaller diameter cylinder, powered by a pair of variable speed drive belts operating in tandem and direct driving off the engine-driven main power cross shaft. The two heavy cast iron telescoping variable speed pulleys gave the cylinder a lot of momentum. The smaller diameter cylinder is also easier to turn than a larger diameter one, due to less moment of inertia, meaning it spins up faster (and slows down faster as well) due to it's smaller diameter) The German engineers who designed the Claas also did a brilliant thing-- they extended the cylinder shaft out the right side of the combine and put a large cast iron spool on the end of it, with four holes in it, into which a bar could be easily inserted and the entire machine turned backwards as needed to roll plugs out of the cylinder and concave and, if the header were left engaged with the engine off and thresher disengaged from the power shaft, roll the plug right back down the feeder house and out from under the auger where it could be pulled out onto the ground. None of the other combines had anything like this. Plus, the extra weight of the cast iron block spinning on the end of the shaft gave the cylinder more inertia or momentum to help it power plugs on through without choking, despite its smaller diameter and lighter weight. Most of the other combines, if they plugged you spent hours with a knife and pliers, trying to cut and rip the mess of compressed green vines and grain heads and stalks out of the cylinder to free it. Dad and Grandpa had their share of plugs at first too, but Dad soon figured out a "trick". Unlike the Deere's and a lot of other combines at the time, that put the concave adjustment on a tiny little crank wheel that probably took you about a minute to crank fully open and closed again, or some of the combines the concave clearance was pre-set with bolt and wrenches BEFORE the combine ever went to the field... The Ford/Claas machine used a "quadrant lever" under the seat to adjust the concave "on the go" as well as the hydraulic operated variator pulleys to speed up or slow down the cylinder speed on the go as well. Dad figured out that by watching the 18 foot header carefully, and when he saw a big ball of vines heading into the feederhouse, he could reach down and throw the concave lever "all the way open" by pushing it down to the floor, which allowed the slug to hit the cylinder and it would simply grind it around and pound it on through the cylinder and concave, and then the beater would toss it right onto the straw walkers as it came out the back of the cylinder/concave... then he could pull the lever back up to the third notch, where it was usually set for threshing grain sorghum, and just continue combining... the slug of vines would get tossed off the back of the straw walkers back onto the field, with whatever partially threshed grain was still embedded in it. BUT he could just keep right on going and keep combining without costly downtime unplugging. Other machines that couldn't do this were just ending up hopelessly clogged time and time again regardless of how slow they tried to go or what they tried to do. By early afternoon, everybody else had had enough and were gone. Dad and Grandpa ended up combining that entire job, and paid off the combine in a single year from the money they made combining all that hopelessly viney sorghum that would have been lost otherwise... Dad did custom work for a couple more years til he got on at the nuclear plant and was making more money than he'd ever seen, and decided to let his rent ground go and quit farming, other than helping Grandpa on the home place. Grandpa put in his last maize crop in about '80 or '81. By then the price had collapsed, mostly due to that moron Jimmy Carter's Soviet grain embargo of the late 70's, which collapsed the grain markets and ended up precipitating the farm crisis of the 80's, which would see depressed grain and farm product prices for over a decade... At that point grain sorghum was basically too worthless to grow, so we went back to farming all cotton for the next 10-15 years... Later! OL J R :)
