Preventive Maintenance Keeps Old Combine Looking Like New

Preventive Maintenance Keeps Old Combine Looking Like New COMBINES Miscellaneous 24-3-17 It's far from new, but Ray and James Haddinger's 1966 model 45 Deere self-propelled combine looks close to it. Haddinger bought the combine the year it came out. It came with a 10-ft. grain platform and 2-row corn head. He figures it's one of the best machinery investments he ever made. It was big enough for us at the time," says the Monroe, Wisconsin farmer. His son, James, has since taken over the business and even though he expanded the cropping side of their diversified farm, the old 45 served as the only bean and corn harvest machine they needed until just last year. We decided we needed to go to 4 rows to harvest corn, so we bought a used combine to replace the old 45," Ray says. I always liked the way the 45 worked. It does a good job of threshing both corn and beans," he continues. "We put it over 200 to 300 acres a year every year we ran it. It never let us down, but we took good care of it, too. The worst that ever happened while we were running was breaking and having to repair sickle sections. We kept it greased, kept the oil changed, and replaced the filters regularly. It was always shedded when it wasn't being used." The original 4-cylinder Deere gasoline engine still puts out plenty of horses. Ray figures in total, it has a couple of thousand hours on it. The tires on it are the ones it came with, both front and back. Ray doesn't like the idea of the old machine just sitting in the shed, especially since it's still in good working order. "It's a great combine for a small farm. You can't buy one this size any more," he says. He'd sell the machine for $3,500. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Ray Haddinger, 917 4th Street, Monroe, Wis. 53566 (ph 608 325-4886).

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