Finished harvest

[Big Bud guy]

 

I actually finished sometime ago but left a 5 acre patch of wheat I didn’t get to until now.  Both combine and truck are 1976.

[Tad Wicks]

How can you possibly harvest and haul without brand new multi million dollar equipment ?😀  I am not much up on the flat land machines is that an 815? my 453 is a 74 model, same as a 715 or close I think.

[Big Bud guy]

12 minutes ago, Tad Wicks said:

How can you possibly harvest and haul without brand new multi million dollar equipment ?😀  I am not much up on the flat land machines is that an 815? my 453 is a 74 model, same as a 715 or close I think.

I do cut our crops with a pair of X9s but all honesty I wish I could make a living farming a section of ground with that combine, truck, and a 5020.    It’s a 715 so close to what yours is.  It’s setup like a windrow special.  17.5ft header.

[Chester5732]

I have a single axle truck of the same year but using an older combine.  I always wanted a 715 but you can’t find a good one anywhere close to here. Plus I would have to build a taller shed to put it in. 

[Big Bud guy]

2 minutes ago, Chester5732 said:

I have a single axle truck of the same year but using an older combine.  I always wanted a 715 but you can’t find a good one anywhere close to here. Plus I would have to build a taller shed to put it in. 

I’ve run across 3 others around here in my life and I could have had them all for almost nothing but I wasn’t interested in combines yet. I would have bought them if I would have know I was going to end up with this one.  I could have had a fleet or at least parts source.  And yes one downside to IH conventionals is the made them excessively tall.  

[acem]

Nice pics.

Seems odd to me seeing wheat cut it the fall. It's time to plant wheat here...

[lotsaIHCs]

49 minutes ago, acem said:

Nice pics.

Seems odd to me seeing wheat cut it the fall. It's time to plant wheat here...

There's a guy down the road out baling hay last week. Wheat near me was done a few weeks ago, corn and sunflowers are in full swing now. In ND.

[acem]

715 and Loadstars were common here back in the day.  Lots of farms with a few hundred acres back then. 

The good days of the 70s sold a lot of new equipment.  Then the bad days of the 80s brought it down (low prices, drought and high interest).

 

[from H to 80]

We ran a 715 for a while, it was the only IH combine that we ever had.

We started with Oliver's,a 525 then a 535 and then the 715.

Switched over to Deere machines after that,because we lost all the IH dealers.

[Tad Wicks]

23 hours ago, acem said:

 

Seems odd to me seeing wheat cut it the fall. It's time to plant wheat here...

Here in the land of Fruits and Nuts, and I am not talking about orchard crops. (you guessed it CA) When there was actual farming here, I would start cutting oats in May, move on to Barley then Wheat and I have finished in November on Safflower and Milo. Makes for a long season but not the norm, as I recall I put well over a thousand hours on the machine that year alone.

[Tad Wicks]

On 10/26/2025 at 10:19 AM, Big Bud guy said:

I do cut our crops with a pair of X9s but all honesty I wish I could make a living farming a section of ground with that combine, truck, and a 5020.    It’s a 715 so close to what yours is.  It’s setup like a windrow special.  17.5ft header.

Did the 815s have more separator width, I know the 915 did, like the 503. I think the 453 was a bit of everything, the very first 453 that came out had the D301 just not enough giddy up for the steep hills, it was fine for the 403H but not the 453 so along came the D360 much more power and much more fuel. IH was way behind with their combines, JD had the 6602 in 71 and the 453 in 74 and the MHII Gleaner was soon to follow, the JD outclassed everything till the Axial Flow came along, to late for this area all Farming ceased in 1985 thanks to CRP. We lost all our dealers and support companies, the area withered and died in two years. There were a few hold ons but the last feed and mill suffered a major blow this 4th of July when kids with fireworks deliberately burnt down the old wood warehouse brim full. Such a travesty, it was a real landmark they don't plan on rebuilding.

[Big Bud guy]

1 hour ago, Tad Wicks said:

Did the 815s have more separator width, I know the 915 did, like the 503. I think the 453 was a bit of everything, the very first 453 that came out had the D301 just not enough giddy up for the steep hills, it was fine for the 403H but not the 453 so along came the D360 much more power and much more fuel. IH was way behind with their combines, JD had the 6602 in 71 and the 453 in 74 and the MHII Gleaner was soon to follow, the JD outclassed everything till the Axial Flow came along, to late for this area all Farming ceased in 1985 thanks to CRP. We lost all our dealers and support companies, the area withered and died in two years. There were a few hold ons but the last feed and mill suffered a major blow this 4th of July when kids with fireworks deliberately burnt down the old wood warehouse brim full. Such a travesty, it was a real landmark they don't plan on rebuilding.

The 715 is just a 403 with the newer styling and other small minor upgrades like variable speed cylinder and V belt drive separator.  Think of it as the difference between a round back JD 95 and square back 95.  My 715 has the 310 engine.  I don’t know much about IH hillside combines but it sounds like they were similar to JD as I the JD hillsides seemed like they had about 10 more hp then the level versions 

815 and 715 have the same separator width at just over 37” wide and same as the 403. The 815 gets additional capacity with longer walkers, more hp,  bigger shoe and really has nothin common with the 715/615. The 915 is only 9” wider than a 715/815 at 46” just like the 503 you mentioned.  IH combines kinda fell off compared to the competition in the 70s.  You had the JD 7700 at 55” wide cylinder, Gleaner L at 48” but 53” wide walkers, White 8900 at 52”, MF 750 with 50” and 61” wide walkers and the 760 was in a class of its own.  But to be fair IH knew the Axial Flow was their future by the early to mid 70s and quit putting any RD and effort into their conventionals. 

[Tad Wicks]

2 hours ago, Big Bud guy said:

 
  But to be fair IH knew the Axial Flow was their future by the early to mid 70s and quit putting any RD and effort into their conventionals. 

That is precisely what they did or didn't do, the 71 403 H  had hydrostat for several years until the 453 with a variable speed cylinder and fan and a bit of sheetmetal work, very little difference from that other than the engine later on. And the thing about hillside machines is you gotta kinda lean towards then😀

[766 Man]

  Just was not worth the effort to put in a lot of R & D for a 3 row or light 4 row machine.

[Big Bud guy]

27 minutes ago, Tad Wicks said:

That is precisely what they did or didn't do, the 71 403 H  had hydrostat for several years until the 453 with a variable speed cylinder and fan and a bit of sheetmetal work, very little difference from that other than the engine later on. And the thing about hillside machines is you gotta kinda lean towards then😀

Since we are on the subject of hillside combines I did pick up a 95H recently.

[Big Bud guy]

20 minutes ago, 766 Man said:

  Just was not worth the effort to put in a lot of R & D for a 3 row or light 4 row machine.

I was referring more towards the size.  The separator size of the 915/815/715 went all the way back to the 151 and 181 introduced in the late 50s.  Wasn’t worth RDing bigger conventional combines when the AFs were soon to come down the line. 

[dale560]

1 hour ago, 766 Man said:

  Just was not worth the effort to put in a lot of R & D for a 3 row or light 4 row machine.

The 915 was advertised to handle 8 row heads and 24 foot headers. Where the 915 really showed well was in picking up swaths. A straight head of that era did not feed really well and if straw was damp they really rumbled. But you could pick up a 25 foot swath of 30 bushel wheat at 3 or 3.5 mph. The 915 would run with or surpass a 7700 jd around here. Even hang with the L2 gleaners the 750 Massey was a bit bigger but the 850 really was a bigger machine. Ran a 915 a lot in various crops. Dad had a 815 for a few years.

[jeeper61]

Nice looking pair 

[db1486]

On 10/26/2025 at 2:00 PM, lotsaIHCs said:

There's a guy down the road out baling hay last week. Wheat near me was done a few weeks ago, corn and sunflowers are in full swing now. In ND.

Just finished baling 2nd cut hay and straw yesterday here, western MB. Still some combining happening here but snow in the forecast for end of the week. Was a damp fall here and sure delayed things

[IHandJDman]

My Grandpa had a 715 gas hydro until he retired in the 1990s.  I haven't seen one around in a long time. 

[Tad Wicks]

15 hours ago, dale560 said:

The 915 was advertised to handle 8 row heads and 24 foot headers. Where the 915 really showed well was in picking up swaths. A straight head of that era did not feed really well and if straw was damp they really rumbled. But you could pick up a 25 foot swath of 30 bushel wheat at 3 or 3.5 mph. The 915 would run with or surpass a 7700 jd around here. Even hang with the L2 gleaners the 750 Massey was a bit bigger but the 850 really was a bigger machine. Ran a 915 a lot in various crops. Dad had a 815 for a few years.

The iH machines were very popular in the Northern CA rice area because of the flywheel effect of the large separator drive pulley they could handle slugs of damp stubble better or so I was told. I did see a video on youtube of the early IH self propelled 141, I never realized that they made a hillside machine and the funny thing was it had 4 way leveling just like the Hillside 403 same ram system in the back where the 151, a later machine, was different, it used what they called "grasshopper" leveling in the rear, only one ram, similar to a dump bed on a truck. 

Big Bud Guy what is the vintage of your 95H, was probably the leading machine around here and they had a great dealer. There was story about one salesman and a local character who shall we say imbibed a bit, at any rate the salesman for JD kept at the local farmer about the virtues of the 95H trying to make a sale always touting how the machines would pay for themselves and he went on and on until one day the Farmer, after refreshments, caved and told the salesman to bring him two machines brand spanking new. The salesman all giddy ordered and delivered the machines, put them in the field and away they went, very impressive. The salesman approached the farmer and brought up the subject of payment and asked when they could settle up and the Farmer asked "What do you mean? well the salesman jokingly said how do you want to pay for the machines and the farmer asked I have to pay for the machines? and salesman said well yes what did you think? The farmer looked at him and said "you told me many times that the machines would pay for themselves.  The Farmer let the salesman sweat for a bit and then made good, his word was good as gold.😀

[acem]

The 15 series, especially the 915 were very well liked in rice here as well. Overall the 15 series was well liked until the axial flow came out.  

A cousin's husband had 2 915s in California rice county. He thought they were the cats meow back in the day.

Sadly I can't remember any of their names. Only met them a few times and the last was around 40 years ago. Wife's maiden name was Hobbs. Her father was Carl, my mom's uncle who moved to California back in the dust bowl days. Started working the fields and did well for himself before retiring. Owned a small farm in the irrigated valley if I remember right.