Very nice Tad!! I hope that you guys down there keep digging into
the old photos; I sure would like to see some shots of a 36B or a 51 behind
one of those big Cats. Got a chance to see a wooden combine back in the
Henry Ford Museum near Detroit. A dead ringer for a 51, only made of wood
& ground powered. Hope to see some more farming pictures from your area
soon.

"Casey wrote:

98J....In the first photo I noticed the right headlight is turned back to shine on the header:D, Cool idea!

Your black and white photo is a great shot. Really impressive. Do you know any more about it? From the looks of the clean grain elevators I would guess that it is a fleet of IH 51's.

We also had the extremes on the tractor vs combine in our area. The TD9 was better than the D4 for traction but had other problems. One of the neighbors had a fleet of JD 36's and used a D6 9U for everything. 70% of the land was suitable but that last 30% was a struggle. One of the neighbors that farmed the goat hills just east of San Miguel felt he needed more, so he used a 13A D8 on an IH 51. I remember driving by his place as a kid and seeing the D8 and the 51 down over the disc berm and struggling.

NIF.... That looks like 36 feet of JD 8300 series drills behind the D6B. We pulled 30 feet of 8350 drills with a 74A D6C and on those afore mentioned goat hills I followed the same path that was blazed 30 years earlier by the D8. Needless to say it became unworthy of planting.

Casey

No, Casey I don't know anything more about that B&W of all the 51's, other
than it was up in Washington. I found it while trying to find some more shots
of the old pull types & stumbled on to it. A very cool shot indeed. Found this
one at the same time. An All Cornbinder harvest:



Here is one that is NOT in Washington. Another All Red outfit. If I remember
right, this is over in Wyoming:



Hey! I wouldn't trust me either. Swore on a stack of Bibles that Cat pull
type was from down in California; turned out to be NC. Only off by a whole
continent for crying out loud.

Ref picture at: A very cool shot indeed. Found this
one at the same time. An All Cornbinder harvest:


The combine is a 51 and the cat is either a TD35 or TD40. The truck is a 1951 either a L160 or a 170 but probably a 160.

Also to comment on some discussion earlier, a D69U would handle a 51 with no problem. Many 9Us were in front of 36B's. It took somewhat more of a tractor to handle the 36A as it was quite a bit heaver.

A note on the 36A, it leveled with both wheels.

I pulled a 51 over steep soft hills with a TD35. it was all that tractor wanted to handle. Thats when a cat skinner learned to make uphill turns either by turning the cat downhill first then swinging around until the track would barely miss the tongue to get the combine straight downhill behind the cat. On many of these steep soft turns the combine when it was directly below the cat it would drag the cat around to straight up and down the hill.

Another way to make an uphill turn was to head as much uphill at an angle as you could, then back around quickly with the machine pre-leveled to get it headed toward the cut.

I hardly ever had a problem with the 9U 36B combination but with the TD35 51 combination it made a catskinner out of me for sure.

Also we had the grousers built up an extra inch on the TD35, I think that helped a lot as power was never an issue with either a TD35 or TD40.

Hi North Idaho Farmer. Seeing all the very steep terain you boys plant and harvest on ?. The wear and tear on the rollers and tracks must be quite high. How many hours will the tracks last betwean overhall also rubbertracks.thank for your fantastic pics Atlas

Hi Atlas.

I'm not sure a about the abrasiveness of the soil in the Palouse but the hills we farmed in central CA which were probably as steep. We seemed to get 3,000 to 4,000 hours out of a pin and bushing turn and quite often at 7,000 hours the rails got a new set of pins and bushings as they were not worn past 50%. Rollers seemed to go an awful long time. We had the most trouble with the back roller. Probably from standing on the sprockets on a real steep hillside. The hills were pretty smooth so the side load was pretty evenly distributed across all the roller flanges.

Casey

Interesting pull type pics would love to see more if anyone can come up with more.

Here is the scenery from today, seed drill is in the way of putting the cripple under a shed so she got snowed on.

Atlas- the hills that we farm dont have much effect on the undercarriage wear, maybe some of those really steep hills of the palouse and 98Js country would but I am not sure. The main thing that makes ours wear out faster I would think is the high speeds that we run at, with the D4D and D6C its about 5mph usually.

North Idaho Farmer

No rock guards????? almost unheard of around here, but boy they can be a PITA. Thanks Tad

After these old harvesters was the straw spread behind harvester and then disced into soil for breakdown or ploughed or burnt. thanks Atlas

Boys, I gotta say thanks. This is some thread. I farm 350 acres in NY's St Lawrence Valley, only about 80 is tillable, the rest is woods, swamp and rough pasture. Seeing that land out in Idaho, I know where I'm moving if I ever leave this place! I think just being able to see that far would take aobut a year to get used to. And you probably don't get too many college educated liberals from NYC trying to run your life either, eh? Sweet.

Hey Cuz Tad.

I'ze lookin at your photos:confused: . That Harris must have been one of the last wood machines. The earlier one (1924) that Jim Neilson ran had the engine up top and amid ship. Ernie's/Ian's is on the draw-bar and when they installed the bulk tank they moved the header tender back behind the bin. Might be a cleaner spot but the biggest disadvantage was you had to have a better arm and aim when you needed to bean the tractor driver with a rock to get his attention. Also, whoever bought that Harris went to the expense of getting all the options, including the factory stenciled curtains on the straw dump. Hummm, I wonder if they also got it wifi and ipod compatiable????? LOL!!

Casey