Vintage Ads

[dale560]

1 hour ago, 65806 said:

I spent thousands of hours on one of those. Good reliable machine but like any non cab swather, it was a hot, dusty, buggy miserable thing to run. 

Dad actually bought a used cab for his but we never put it on. After he got rid of the versatile , he advertised it and about 5 months later a guy drove up 600 miles from around Rochester Mn and bought it. We now use pull type swathers when we rarely swath and dad has a 4000 IHC self propelled.

[db1486]

3 hours ago, Loadstar said:

That is surprising to see they build something for the smaller operators. Here it seems there is nothing new for the small farmer. Its either big time farming with huge equipment or else lawn and acreage equipment. 

Back in 72 this was one of the most popular swathers (windrowers if you prefer) in Western Canada. Versatile built them in various header sizes but all with the same reliable and proven power unit. Simple hydro drive and dependable Ford 200 cubic inch six cylinder. They sure sold a lot of them here in Sask. 

 

There's a pile of them around in Manitoba too! Not many used now but you pretty much see them at every old yard along any back road here. We have 2 for parts and 2 running with cabs. I know one neighbour has 2 running ones that don't get used anymore. Another neighbour has 2, another has 1, and so on lol. Actually now that I think about it there's a lot of them still being used every year here. 

Anyway really reliable units, just built a little bit light. I know I can fix the double drive chain with my eyes closed. But boy do they ever cut when they're going. That's the machine I learned to cut with. They don't get used much now since 20' is too small and we got a haybine so the 15' sits now.

[dale560]

14 minutes ago, db1486 said:

There's a pile of them around in Manitoba too! Not many used now but you pretty much see them at every old yard along any back road here. We have 2 for parts and 2 running with cabs. I know one neighbour has 2 running ones that don't get used anymore. Another neighbour has 2, another has 1, and so on lol. Actually now that I think about it there's a lot of them still being used every year here. 

Anyway really reliable units, just built a little bit light. I know I can fix the double drive chain with my eyes closed. But boy do they ever cut when they're going. That's the machine I learned to cut with. They don't get used much now since 20' is too small and we got a haybine so the 15' sits now.

We used to keep a box of parts on hand for the newer one. The shaft that both gears and chains run on would break. Axle and bearings and double drive chain gave problems.The straight mufflers had a direct mount motor drive instead of belt driven and they seemed to be harder on chains. Those ford motors are tough though. And one time the ball joint for the steering connection broke and you start spinning in circles. Dads was a double swath so head gave some trouble at times.

[db1486]

10 minutes ago, dale560 said:

We used to keep a box of parts on hand for the newer one. The shaft that both gears and chains run on would break. Axle and bearings and double drive chain gave problems.The straight mufflers had a direct mount motor drive instead of belt driven and they seemed to be harder on chains. Those ford motors are tough though. And one time the ball joint for the steering connection broke and you start spinning in circles. Dads was a double swath so head gave some trouble at times.

Yes axles were another weak spot. I don't think we ever broke one but many guys did. Had one slide out on a side hills, but never broken. Although dad always told me keep both wheels rolling when you turn.  I do think that helped. Those drive chains used to break on the flat ground, but more often on a side hills or in mud. Side hills was the worst cause we'd have to block everything up to jack up the broken side. Then crawl underneath and put the connector in trying not to drop the center links or the clip. All while wondering if something is going to slide out of place. Ugh. Bringing back memories now lol. 

The direct mount motors you mean the hydro drive motors? Those were '80 and newer I believe. I didnt find it worse than the older ones for breaking chains. Our 77 that we cut hay with used to break them steady. New chain and sprockets didn't help either. But the '81 used to break them just as often, but then it was usually wet and pushing it on the hills. 

Never had any motor or hydro issues with any of our 400s. Had to weld stuff and some pitman trouble but keep things serviced and they cut a pile of acres for us. And lots of weight on the back end for our hills!!! Had a city friend out for harvest one year and he was riding on the 400 with dad. I guess he was looking back and started panicking and telling dad to stop. Dad asked why. He said "your back wheel is about 2' in the air". Dad told him to hold on and don't jump off. It'll be fine. He never rode again after that round lol!

[TroyDairy]

17 hours ago, twostepn2001 said:

   I found this several months ago, not sure if you'd call it a ad, l think more like a press release but anyway......a JD CP20 1 row cotton picker.

 

"emerging markets", "hand picking".  It clearly is aimed at India, China etc.  #1 selling tractor is the world is Manhindra (POS) and #1 size is 23-30hp IIRC

Neat little unit though.  

[65806]

7 hours ago, dale560 said:

Dad actually bought a used cab for his but we never put it on. After he got rid of the versatile , he advertised it and about 5 months later a guy drove up 600 miles from around Rochester Mn and bought it. We now use pull type swathers when we rarely swath and dad has a 4000 IHC self propelled.

Ya we went to a hydroswing and use a 1066 with air conditioning to pull it. 

It's like you died and went to heaven. 

[Big Bud guy]

We had a pair of 400s along with a IH 4000.  My opinion of them is they were cheap, light, under designed, and maybe ok as long as you packed welder with you.  The IH was twice the swather the 400s ever thought of being.  Also, twin swathing or putting two windrows was popular around here for a time.  In order to make room next to the 1st windrow for the end of he header Versatile just put a small shield inside the header so the 2nd windrow would just fall a foot from the other windrow.  That wasn't very much room and you really had to pay attention in order not to "hook" the 1st windrow.  JD on the other hand used a small separate canvas on the right side of the header to drop the 1st windrow 2ft inside the end of the header made lots of room for the 2nd windrow.  Versatile swathers were popular around here too but started falling out of favor in the 80s.  Their refusal to update their lineup to modern standards and come out with a deticated hay swather was their downfall.  The 4400 still was more or less a 400 with a nice cab and 4 wheels.  Still no diesel option.  Far as I know no 25ft header either.  The JD 2360 and 2280 along with Macdon really killed Versatile around here.

[Loadstar]

46 minutes ago, Big Bud guy said:

We had a pair of 400s along with a IH 4000.  My opinion of them is they were cheap, light, under designed,   The JD 2360 and 2280 along with Macdon really killed Versatile around here.

Lots of 4400 Versatiles sold here too. I have the double swath table on the 2360 JD and far as I'm concerned that little canvas at the end is too much space between swaths. The few times I've used it I've had problems fitting 2 swaths onto the combine pickup on a curve. Ok on straight runs maybe in the open country but here we don't drive in a straight line for long and once I start turning with the JD pull type combine I will have swath pushin on each end of the pickup. And it has a wide pickup. So I don't use the double swath unless I have a poor, short or thin crop to swath. And then I'd likely straight cut it. 

Another popular machine here was the JD 800. I don't know that they were all that superior to Versatile but the 4 wheel design came out before Versatile or any other companies offered it. Smoothed out the ride some. They also had steering wheel drive while some others still used "tiller bars". They were not a hydrostatic drive either. This ad from about 1971 I think. 

 

 

 

[dale560]

The 4400 had the Waukesha or rebranded vrd 220 or a very few did. You will see a few 4700 but the McDon and now CIH and JD , Massey all have good windrowers have made the versatile into scrap.

[Loadstar]

5 minutes ago, dale560 said:

The 4400 had the Waukesha or rebranded vrd 220 or a very few did. You will see a few 4700 but the McDon and now CIH and JD , Massey all have good windrowers have made the versatile into scrap.

Waukesha? I would have bet money the 4400 still had the Ford engine. Wonder if my 4400 brochure will show. I'll dig it up later today just out of curiousity. I've been wrong before. 

[dale560]

8 minutes ago, Loadstar said:

Waukesha? I would have bet money the 4400 still had the Ford engine. Wonder if my 4400 brochure will show. I'll dig it up later today just out of curiousity. I've been wrong before. 

Just a few did as the diesel option they ran the ford gas mainly

[Tonyinca]

On ‎3‎/‎7‎/‎2017 at 3:57 AM, twostepn2001 said:

   I found this several months ago, not sure if you'd call it a ad, l think more like a press release but anyway......a JD CP20 1 row cotton picker.

 

     In USA, I would think only market for this would be" research farms"  to keep track of  small plots  yields etc.

        Can't in any situation see a farmer buying that , when ,you can buy used multi row machines all day long.

       imho

      Tony

[Big Bud guy]

You are right about the crooked fields vs straight fields.  We don't have to deal too many pot holes and most fields in our area and MT are farmed straight.  We only have to deal with the corners.  However I have watched your videos and it looks like your header is a 212 on the 7721.  Our headers we used was the 214 and later 914 two feet wider.   Maybe JD didn't offer the 214 on the 7721.  So going around corners with two windrows wasn't a problem for us.  It still got tight but was doable.  

The 800 was a planetary drive swather and replaced the 780.  The 400 was more advanced with the hydro drive but the 800 still had the enclosed sickle drive unlike the Versatile.  The 800 was popular here too but only because it was JDs cheapest economy swather.

[Big Bud guy]

1 hour ago, dale560 said:

Just a few did as the diesel option they ran the ford gas mainly

Only ones I saw were gas and that's what my brochure shows too.  But I'm not surprised a diesel was offered probably special ordered.  There were a few of the 4700s around.  All they did was get Versatile to were most of the competition was a decade earlier.

[dale560]

3 hours ago, Big Bud guy said:

Only ones I saw were gas and that's what my brochure shows too.  But I'm not surprised a diesel was offered probably special ordered.  There were a few of the 4700s around.  All they did was get Versatile to were most of the competition was a decade earlier.

Yea it was the same engine that was in the 160 bidi you see just a few of them. Versatile had what amounted to their own engine they called it a vrd 220

[db1486]

8 hours ago, Big Bud guy said:

We had a pair of 400s along with a IH 4000.  My opinion of them is they were cheap, light, under designed, and maybe ok as long as you packed welder with you.  The IH was twice the swather the 400s ever thought of being.  Also, twin swathing or putting two windrows was popular around here for a time.  In order to make room next to the 1st windrow for the end of he header Versatile just put a small shield inside the header so the 2nd windrow would just fall a foot from the other windrow.  That wasn't very much room and you really had to pay attention in order not to "hook" the 1st windrow.  JD on the other hand used a small separate canvas on the right side of the header to drop the 1st windrow 2ft inside the end of the header made lots of room for the 2nd windrow.  Versatile swathers were popular around here too but started falling out of favor in the 80s.  Their refusal to update their lineup to modern standards and come out with a deticated hay swather was their downfall.  The 4400 still was more or less a 400 with a nice cab and 4 wheels.  Still no diesel option.  Far as I know no 25ft header either.  The JD 2360 and 2280 along with Macdon really killed Versatile around here.

I've seen about a dozen 4400's with the diesel engine. And lots of 4400's with 24' header. The 4700/4750 were actually decent machines but very few of them around. I definitely agree that no hay header for them is a big downfall. I wonder how the versatile 440 sp haybine were? Only seen a couple around. 

We run a 4000 swather and a 4000 haybine now. The swather is nice to run, but the 400 will out cut it on tough crops like flax. The haybine though will darn near keep up with a disc bine.

[twostepn2001]

 I don't have any more cotton equipment related ads but have enjoyed sharing the ones I have.  I have a couple of ads for the "Hi-Trac" undercarriage for the flame cultivators and sprayers. You could use just about any smaller utility type tractor. The one my Dad had used a IH 404 LP.

[twostepn2001]

[Loadstar]

Here is a combine to go along with that JD 800 swather ad I posted a while back. About the same 1970 vintage. JD sold a lot of these 6601 pull type combines in this part of the country. They were comparable to the IH 914 pull type. 

 

[wheatking]

grandpa had a 6601 for a few years after the old 503 died he said it would combine wheat nicely but would not quit throwing barley over it was traded off on our new 1440 axial flow and we've been red ever since

[Big Bud guy]

11 minutes ago, wheatking said:

grandpa had a 6601 for a few years after the old 503 died he said it would combine wheat nicely but would not quit throwing barley over it was traded off on our new 1440 axial flow and we've been red ever since

There has never been a conventional that didn't throw barley over.  Rotaries shine in barley no matter what color.

[Big Bud guy]

7721 from my 20 series brochure

[Loadstar]

11 hours ago, Big Bud guy said:

7721 from my 20 series brochure

 

 

Thats a familiar  sight.  I think I have it or a similar  ad for the 77. Its been a good machine but it met more than it's match last fall in the flax field. Hoping for a re-match this April to see if  I can get the flax  through the combine after a winter's drying. I finally gave up on the axial flow back in 2010 after years of flax straw wrapping on the rock beater. The conventional JD  was a big improvement up til last fall. Something different about last year's straw? weather? 

Here is the red equivalent ad. A 1482. 

[db1486]

On Thursday, March 09, 2017 at 7:32 PM, Loadstar said:

Here is a combine to go along with that JD 800 swather ad I posted a while back. About the same 1970 vintage. JD sold a lot of these 6601 pull type combines in this part of the country. They were comparable to the IH 914 pull type. 

They were common around here too but way more 914's around. And the 914 is more combine then a 6601. I know because we had them both, and we sold the deere. The JD was easy to set and a very simple machine though.

[Big Bud guy]

5 minutes ago, db1486 said:

They were common around here too but way more 914's around. And the 914 is more combine then a 6601. I know because we had them both, and we sold the deere. The JD was easy to set and a very simple machine though.

There is about a 2" difference in the width between the two and 1,300 square difference in separation capacity.  For some reason JD like to make only their 2nd biggest combine into a pull type more often then not.  JD did make a 7701 but only for about a year.  I liked to have a 6601 some day but don't know what I would do with it or how I would get it home.