John Deere 220 disc, are they good or bad???

[Cruz]

I am looking at getting a new disc for my farm and was wondering if a John Deere 220 disc is any good and what you experiences are with them, I've heard about weak frames and ridging problems, I'm not to worried about the ridging I would just take a drag over it to smooth it out, how bad are the frames could it still work fine if I don't overload the disc or abuse it? The disc I am currently looking at has no welds or cracks in the frame and looks really good always stored inside little if any wear plus new scrapers for the discs, I plan on using for disking corn fields and alfalfa fields.

Most of my fields are hilly only a few fields have some rocks not terrible though and I plan on using my 1586 to pull it or my grandpa's 7140 fwa if I have to both have ballast on inner tires with dry duals no added wheel weights weight currently. 

[Drysleeves]

You won't remove any ridges created by that disc pulling a drag or spike tooth harrow. If you want a quality disc buy a 490 or 496. 

[Cruz]

Is there any way to fix the ridging?

[Drysleeves]

Don't use the disk....

Seriously. If you want a quality disc buy a 490 or 496 instead of one of those things.

[Kevin in ky]

It will take a lot of work with a good disk to fix the field you work with one of those. I used one once behind a 4020 with duals it pulled it but not very fast. I don’t mean to sound negative but heed the warnings you’re getting on this one please.

[bkorth]

Run, don't walk.

[marty966]

We had one of them, gang bolts are to light ,spools are welded steel, gang bolts tend to work loose, got rid of that piece of junk and bought a 3900 Case IH. 

[Eason]

I've never seen one level worth a poot!  475,485, 496, or 3900 much better disk.

[junkandcattle]

Nooooooo

[Drysleeves]

The single wing version with cone blades had to be the worst disk ever built. Just like the 510/512 disk rippers if they weren't painted Green and Yellow nobody would ever have owned one.

[Cruz]

I guess i’m going to have go look at a Ih disc if y’all say jd 220’s are that bad! I would not have guessed they were such big piles of scrap metal, they don’t look to terrible just a little interesting 

[bitty]

We bought a new 18' JD 220 in the early 80's and it was pulled by a 1066 and the frame had lots of welds added before we sold it in 1989 when we moved farms 180 miles 

[Lars (midessa)]

Disk’s that ‘ridge’ are from traveling at too fast of a ground speed, generally what happens is the front gangs toss the soil farther outward than the rear gangs can pull the soil back in.

Generally speaking, you have better results pulling a wider disk, and traveling slower, than pulling a narrow disk traveling faster.

[tractorholic]

Honest John Deere people even admit a IH disc is superior to any Deere disk. 
The problem is finding one honest enough to admit it.

in my area there are several diehard JD guys with a red disk

[Jacka]

Neighbor had one,borrowed my 24ft,CIH disc when his was broke and said there was no comparison. He wanted to buy mine but things didn't work out.He was also raised with JD is the best mentality. 

[Drysleeves]

55 minutes ago, tractorholic said:

in my area there are several diehard JD guys with a red disk

Almost all of them are that way. If it was somehow a method of keeping time you could set your watch by it.

[Dirt_Floor_Poor]

We never had any 220 disks, but we ran two 235 single fold disks. One my dad bought brand new in 1982, which we still have. There is a lot of hate for them, but I never understood it. We had cone blades on them and they cut very well. The tongues were too light, but ours have been reinforced a few times. I’m sure that 220 would work just fine for you. For what we did, Deere cone blades were far superior to what anyone else had at the time. I have seen plenty of 490 and 496 disks that the frames have lots of repairs on. Those IH models were popular here as well, and if still in good shape would suit you fine too. 

[Mark (EC,IN)]

I had a 220 years ago,  and as has been said, it ridged badly,  in the middle was the worst.

I didn't have too much mechanical trouble other than some trouble breaking the bolts that attached the gangs to the frame

The older 220's had yellow gangs, and the newer ones had black gangs.

That all said,  the disk is not heavy enough to cut stalks very well,  it will just knock them down more like a roller.

The one I had had the regular blades, not the deep cone ones,  so that might make a difference.

[766 Man]

  The 220 while at best a mediocre disk is not as bad as some describe it as being.  The disk requires some adjustment even changing some spacing from being set up at the dealer as new.  A bit more prone to ridging of soil when operating at high ground speed due to the cone shaped disks. The neighbor ran his at 4 MPH or less and had few problems in terms of ridging.  1 1/8 gang bolts and bearings are light but IH used the same setup along with White and other brands.  The best reason for buying a 220 is that it can be bought for less versus other brands.  If it were me and budget was not too restrictive I would look for a Sunflower.  

[Drysleeves]

2 hours ago, Dirt_Floor_Poor said:

I have seen plenty of 490 and 496 disks that the frames have lots of repairs

We have a 490 that has been over thousands of acres since it arrived new in 1977. It mostly sits in the back of a shed now but the frame has never been welded.

[Dirt_Floor_Poor]

11 minutes ago, Drysleeves said:

We have a 490 that has been over thousands of acres since it arrived new in 1977. It mostly sits in the back of a shed now but the frame has never been welded.

I have no doubt that there are plenty of those disks still around in very good condition and one could be found that would do what he needs. Just like we disked thousands and thousands of acres with centerfold John Deere disks and got along just fine as well. There were also Allis Chalmers and Krause centerfold discs around here too, but I don’t know how good or bad they were. I don’t use ours much anymore, not because it won’t work, but because it’s just too small for what we need now. I could hook onto it this afternoon and work down a field of overgrown CRP with small trees on it without much trouble at all. I have done it many times when renting new farms. I have a much larger Deere disk now with cone blades and it will absolutely plow. 

[rustred]

i use a 14 ft 110 disc and thought it did a pretty decent job. i make sure the outside disc is throwing the dirt in the previous ditch. i would not say its a problem

[Jeff-C-IL]

Back in the 80s every farm near me had either a IH disk, or a Kewanee.  Still got dad's 20' Kewanee out back.   Only problem it had was the wings bouncing if you went too fast - I fixed that by modding the wing wheels to be tandem.

[12_Guy]

I have to disagree with the comments about running too fast unless our ideas about speed are different. We ran our 475 as deep as it wanted to go at around 6mph. 1086 1H TA ahead. Neighbor had a Deere centerfold and would run 4mph or less. Our disc was 18'. His was 24'. The 1086 played with our disc whereas his 4020 with the screw turned in labored. We quite literally ran circles around him and the field looked so much better. I think a lot of the perfomance or not-ridging has to do with setup of the disc gangs. 

[Jeff-C-IL]

It has to do with the setup of the disk - everything from design, to blade size, to having smaller blades on the ends, to the angle you disk at over the rows. 

The Kewanee I mentioned had a weird threaded fold linkage on the wing lift assembly, that when worn, would allow more digging and bouncing....you had to keep them greased and in good shape.   Even if those were good, it would leave a nice finish at 5mph, the wings would bounce at 6mph leaving "wave ridges", and at 7mph it would leave a real ridge in the field.   Adding the dual wheels on the wings really cut down on the wing bounce, but it would still ridge bad at 7mph. 

A properly setup disk run at 6 mph would absolutely do a better job then a badly designed or misadjusted one at 4.   I can remember my dad playing with the settings a lot depending on the ground conditions - he hated ridging.   I got seriously chewed out when dumb-ass 12yo me thought I could get it done faster....