tractorholic Posted August 26 Share Posted August 26 There is a 3950 caseih disc coming up for sale and I’m wondering if there are many differences between them. I actually have new blades for my 496 in my possession but haven’t had time to put them on. I assume these would work on a 3950 as well but need to look into that. My 496 has already had 2 sets of blades. It’s shows a lot of wear in different areas. Just considering upgrading. Thanks for any thoughts in advance Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cool1566 Posted August 26 Share Posted August 26 I’m pretty sure 3950 went to round arbor bolts so I’d double check blade fitment. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
axial_al Posted August 26 Share Posted August 26 I think the 3950 has much heavier arbor bearings than the 496. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tractorholic Posted August 26 Author Share Posted August 26 My 496 is 9 inch spacing and this 3950 is 7 1/2 inch spacing on the blades. I’m not sure if 7 1/2 inch spacing uses 22 inch blades or if they are 20 inch when new. Years ago I had a 490 with 7 1/2inch spacing and I was thinking they were 20. Hopefully someone on here knows the answer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tractorholic Posted August 26 Author Share Posted August 26 48 minutes ago, axial_al said: I think the 3950 has much heavier arbor bearings than the 496. I have not had trouble with the bearings on mine but heavier bearings would be a plus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
axial_al Posted August 26 Share Posted August 26 1 hour ago, tractorholic said: I have not had trouble with the bearings on mine but heavier bearings would be a plus. The cushion gang 496 I once owned gave me no end of bearing grief. They usually broke at the bearing cage. There was a kit offered at one time to upgrade the bearings, but to me it was more cost effective to upgrade to a newer disk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jass1660 Posted August 27 Share Posted August 27 The 3950 I have run seems a lot lighter than my 496 was. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cedar farm Posted August 27 Share Posted August 27 CIH went to 1-1/2" round arbor bolts on the flex 496's in an effort to remedy the bearing problems. It used blade 31000R1. All others used the 1-1/8 square. Blade 482975R1. The exception to the rule is we converted a lot of the flex 496's to standard stands to fix the bearing problem. They would have the 1-1/2" arbor. After the 496 all 3900/3950's got the 1-1/2 round arbor. There was only two ways to cure the bearing issue. Standard stands or the trunnion bearing conversion kits. They allowed the bearing to move in all directions. If the 3950 is a flex I would look for something else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tractorholic Posted August 27 Author Share Posted August 27 7 hours ago, cedar farm said: CIH went to 1-1/2" round arbor bolts on the flex 496's in an effort to remedy the bearing problems. It used blade 31000R1. All others used the 1-1/8 square. Blade 482975R1. The exception to the rule is we converted a lot of the flex 496's to standard stands to fix the bearing problem. They would have the 1-1/2" arbor. After the 496 all 3900/3950's got the 1-1/2 round arbor. There was only two ways to cure the bearing issue. Standard stands or the trunnion bearing conversion kits. They allowed the bearing to move in all directions. If the 3950 is a flex I would look for something else. It’s not a flex gang disc. I plan on looking at it this week. I’m concerned about it having 7 1/2 inch spacing on the blades. Im not sure if I would like that as well as 9. I wonder if it would penetrate the ground as well since there would be more blades. However it should do more cutting 7 hours ago, jass1660 said: The 3950 I have run seems a lot lighter than my 496 was. Lighter in what way? Weight wise? Or built lighter? The frame looks much the same. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jass1660 Posted August 27 Share Posted August 27 Overall weight wise, just doesn’t seem to cut as well as the 496 did but this is what the owner has so I just deal with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve C. Posted August 27 Share Posted August 27 3 hours ago, tractorholic said: It’s not a flex gang disc. I plan on looking at it this week. I’m concerned about it having 7 1/2 inch spacing on the blades. Im not sure if I would like that as well as 9. I wonder if it would penetrate the ground as well since there would be more blades. However it should do more cutting I always understood that the wider the spacing, the better a disk will cut. 7 1/2 inch spacing for a finishing disk, and 9" or more for a cutting disk. I want to say that my TW Deere plowing disk had 11" spacing, but I'm not positive about that. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cedar farm Posted August 27 Share Posted August 27 7-1/2 will pack more/penetrate less. Good on the std gang stands. I always kept a couple ST491A gang bearings on hand for my 490. Until I rebladed it a couple years back and put in all new, I never needed them. But my neighbor would stop by once a year to use one for his 496 flex gang. I talked him into converting it to std stands. He did and never picked up a bearing again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SDman Posted August 27 Share Posted August 27 The disc in between these two models(the 3900) is probably the biggest black eye I have ever witnessed firsthand for CaseIH in all my years of working for them. John Deere couldn't have built a better disc for us to give to our customers to make them mad about. Those things had crap that wouldn't quit. For starters, they went to an updated, heavier bearing design on their Cushion Gang II(rock package) models....that design would prove to be a big mistake. In the mid-1990s, we had a revolving person in the shop every day that was our "3900 disc guy" that got to go out to the country to get the latest 3900 disc bearing failure taken care of. We all took turns at it. First, they said the standards/bearings weren't in alignment, causing the premature bearing failure....so we checked/aligned bearing standards...all to no avail. Then, we installed a third standard in each gang/arbor bolt assy....again, to no avail. After about 2-3 years of fighting this, they introduced a completely redesigned C-Shank/standard that used a much heavier bearing. Over the course of 2 winters, we redid over 2 dozen of those disks under warranty....at great expense to CaseIH warranty. The new C-shank was much more rigid than the older previous design. It did finally take care of the bearing problem. Those discs had other problems, too. They originally had the 496's 6-bolt wheels....we updated them to an 8-bolt wheel with heavier hubs. Wing frames broke on 2-3 of them, the hitch was replaced on a couple under warranty, scrapers had improvements. We had more than one 3900 disc that had warranty costs that exceeded the original cost of the disc itself. After that, you couldn't sell a CaseIH disc around here no matter what. Now, a 3950 disc is supposed to be a 3900 with all the updates....so it should be a good disc. But, many of the updates to a 3950 disc were learned the hard way on the 3900. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cedar farm Posted August 27 Share Posted August 27 My uncle traded a very nice CIH 496 in on a new 3900 What a mistake. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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