Almost exactly two years ago, I found a 66 on Craigslist. Didn't really need one, didn't have a use for it, but it was real close to my dads place. He used to run one when he was younger. We went and looked at it. Its a big bin with a scour kleen on it. Upper canvas is shot, lower one is gone, rubber is gone from the cylinder bars, those seem to be the big dollar items. Otherwise, it seems to be in good shape. It had been shedded but was moved out to the fencerow to make room in the shed for some other equipment. It kills me to see nice equipment rot away. But, I let it go for the time being, I was building my WC anyways.
Here are some pictures from 2015.
Little surface rust under the concave, nothing major.
Well, I've been slowly gearing up to try a little crop farming. We have all the equipment for tillage and planting food plots, but nothing for harvesting. I have enough tractors, and I am kind of without a project. I have to paint the WC yet, but my outside paint booth needs to stay above 60 degrees at night to paint. So that will be later this summer.
Lucky for me, I always print out Craigslist ads of stuff I'm interested in, cause you just never know.....
I called last fall and struck a deal on it, told her I would be back in spring to get it.
It had flat tires and was sunk in the mud, so we had to start there. I was talking to my retired neighbor about getting this combine, and he was adamant that he would come along to help get it. So, we loaded up the truck with a jack, a pile of blocks, jackstands, a grease gun, and a set of six bolt implement rims.
So, here is how we found it, two years later. It actually looks a little better with all the bird crap washed off.
Got the jack under the tongue, and got that up in the air.
Pulled off the right wheel. Tried to put on my implement rim, but the hole is just a bit smaller and they don't fit! So I set it on a jackstand on some 2X8s.
Moved to the left side. Got that up in the air, and that rim isn't budging! So I pulled the hubcap off and removed the hub and all. Wrapped up the spindle for now and set it on a stand.
So, that's all we could get done on that trip. Brought the rims back to town with me to put some tires on. Tried Ted J's trick of blowing the tube up to fill the tire before mounting, works pretty good!
Made up some new gaskets for the hubcaps and thrust washers, and put on a set of radial tires I had laying around, just had to go get some radial tubes to fit. They have some goofy looking valve stems about 4" long, but they should work to get the thing down here.
So today, the neighbor and junior and I headed back up for attempt #2.
Got the wheels on and fully greased while they were up in the air.
My boy says "How come you take so many pictures of me?"
I told him, "Because this is how good memories are made, doing stuff like this. Did you ever notice how I never take pictures of you playing video games or watching TV?" He just smiled and went back to work.
So, we hooked it up to the receiver hitch to get it out onto the lane.
Now, its time to get skinny. I made this hitch over the winter to offset it all the way to the right. It goes into the receiver hitch, and a support runs up to the spring eye. The only flat surface I could find under there.
Strung a makeshift safety chain, and put a light bar on.
Flipped the straw hood up, put the auger inside. The hitch worked perfect, the right side of the combine lined up exactly with the pickup. Very little tongue weight, and it pulled easy as pie. We took back roads the 20 miles back to town, and I stopped and greased the hubs halfway. The hubs were warm, but not hot. Kept it at about 25 mph, beautiful afternoon for a leisurely cruise through the country.
Got it pulled into my backyard so I can tinker with it in my spare time.
So, I am pretty busy with kids and camping and sports for the rest of the summer, but I wanted to get this home, so I can tinker here and there.
TomYaz and combinechris, you guys are my new best friends as I work on this little endeavor. Gonna be tons of questions as I learn the inner workings of this beast.
Thanks for looking!
Edited by littlemarv - 25 Jul 2017 at 9:54pm
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