385 Planter Advice Needed

I really appreciate all the technical help everyone has generously given on the forum.  With that in mind, I probably will be testing everyone's patience as I finally try to get the 385 4 row planter ready to use.  I picked it up late last fall from an auction, and this is the first time I spent any time getting it cleaned up.  It appears to be in good shape, and was used prior to being put away.  Everything is intact and in good condition.  So it is not a junker I have to restore.

I will be using our D17IV on it.  I had asked this question before, but I kept the D17IV with the generator and + ground.  I'm not worried about it operating the fans, but the seed monitor I'm pretty sure will need a negative ground, as it contains solid state electronics.  I'd like to keep the generator, as it was new last summer and I finally have the charging system working great, after 3 bad aftermarket regulators.  I found a NOS regulator, put it on and everything charges like it should.  So the first question is, can I switch the generator/regulator over to neg ground without a problem, using the stock Delco regulator?  The alternative is that I can live without the seed monitor, and avoid the hassle.  I'll only be doing 10-15 acres at a time, and it seems as long as I check things frequently for blockage, the seed monitor may be overkill.

I've also never used an air planter before - we always used seed plates.  Anything in particular I need to look out for when using this planter?  As I start to do some test runs, I'm sure I'll have more questions.

We had snow last week, and deep frost at 21 deg this morning, so at this rate I'll have until about June before we get to plant, so plenty of time to grease the planter up!  Should have planted back in March when it was 70 deg Gotta love upstate NY - never a dull moment weatherwise at least.

Ted,

Thanks.  Good idea to just run the monitor itself separately off a battery.  Is it even worth bothering with monitor?  Do these planters tend to plug up often?

If you run chains off going around corners you have a worn out machine because they drive from front.   MACK

We ran a 78 series with blowers for years - just have to reverse the polarity.  On a 385 there were two versions of monitors, one had single box with the blower switch inside and the later ones had an extra soleniod box. Do not use the internal proir box to power the blowers on a pos ground , just hook pos to pos and neg to neg batt post and mon will work fine - it is isolated. (Late models boxes can be used but do not connect to the seed monitor - use a separate switch).  Hook the blower wires up to the battery and put a heavy duty switch in line and plant.  Make SURE the rotation of the fans is correct. It is just like a baseball pitching machine it turns to 'throw' the air out of the snail shaped housing.  Good motors only pull 6 amps approx. So unless you have halogen super lights, you gen will be fine.  NAPA sells a motor SP1291 or PM357 that will sub. for much less $ than oem 70583068 blower motor if needed.   After seeds are in the discs and rotated one  turn - with blowers on - listen for the 'whistle' coming from each box.  That tells you you have correct air pressure -2 - 2.5 water column inches of pressure.  Make SURE seed discs seal.  Early models have plastic plate  to plastic hopper seal, late updates had a metal wear ring glued onto housing -grrr a bear to keep up. Check the seed pads for wear or cracks. Landol offers a great aluminum hoppper replacement - worth every penny.  When the hopper is set down on/ in the frame the clutch driver shaft should fit perfectly into the seed disc retainer, if not adjust the hopper for fit - it is the hopper nut that serves as the locator and stabilizer for the shaft - if the hopper moves or is not lined up - bad things happen.  As to chain run off , there was an update to add a heavy plate -71509786 to prevent frame flex.  We always added extra idlers, added extra chain and wraped the drive and driven sprockets as much as possible.  There are two sprockets on the driven clutch sprocket.  On many planters we ran a chain rearward to a dummy pre loaded idler to pull back and relieve forward stress on the bearing. Make sure unit parallel linkage bushings are good and tight to prevent frame walk as the leading coulter will pull the unit sideways in hard ground.  There is a floating scraper between the discs and in front of the seed tube - there was a update to weld a short 3/8" keystock to this to protect the boot and scrape the insides better .  It needs to just touch the bottom of the seed trench or be just shorter than the opener s at the bottom - it is called  a floating scraper.  Grab one disc - with gloves on- and pull while holding the other opener touching it still.  Should take a few pounds pull to acconplish - if you cant pull one with the other stationary - they are too close - add shims between the brg and frame on the brg bolt - if they do not touch remove shims.  This is important.    

A medium seed disk will plant ungraded medium seed no problem if you have small seed use small disk and large for large,very forgiving, you will notice a slight change in population if you get to far out of range, but much better than trying yo deal with the old plate planter.

What city are you near?  Upstate covers a lot of territory!  I was in Watertown, Syracuse and Cobelskill last week.  Have been using a 385 for 22 years and it still beats most of the new planters for seed placement and reliability.

Edited by Russ-neia - 06 May 2012 at 9:11pm

Shoot!  I should have looked you up!  Wasn't very far from you as we made stops in Cobleskill, Middleburgh, and Fort Plain.  I was impressed to see so much orange in the area.  Must have had some good dealers in the past.

The 3M product sounds right.  I bit the bullet and upgraded to the aluminum "Landoll" housings without the wear rings.  They were always giving me fits and getting rusty.  The wear rings might be O.K. if they had been made out of stainless instead of galvanized.

The 385 planter is almost ready to go.  Now I am down to a trivial problem of finding 2 new air hoses to connect from the blower to the shoe, as two of the old ones are reallly shot.  The hoses are 2 1/2" ID.  The smallest flexible dryer hose I can find is 3".  Just for fun, I checked on the Agco part, and there are some in stock around the country, for $189 per hose!!  I figured I would take a pass on them.  So far, I have not had any luck finding any similar hoses at local equipment dealers.  I can get a dealer to order some from Landoll that has them in stock at $4.50 per foot, but they say it will take probably 10 days or so.

If I have to, I will try to crimp some dryer hose shut around the pipe and seal it, but I was just wondering if anyone has some clever source for this size hose?  I even tried swimming pool dealers, but their hoses are either too small or too big. Plumbing supply houses also don't seem to have anything flexible at 2 1/2". 

Thanks.

Shop vac hose should also work, and it's available in 2 1/2 inch.

For the dust collector hose you could check your local home depot, lowes, menards or fleet farm or whatever you have close by.

you might also try old fire hose...your local fire dept may have some laying around!