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Got a pic of FT's Oliver 880 through the ether just now:
I was mowing weeds with a Bush Hog mower and the 880 diesel, when I spun a main bearing. The engine is a 6 cylinder but only has 4 main bearings. I got it to hot I guess. That was 10 years ago. It is completely disassembled waiting for me to finish the 1600. If only I had more time and money and less stinking job to take up my days.
First is a 9400 4-wheel drive, 425 hp, used mostly to pull a 45 ft field cultivator in the spring and a 7 shank disc ripper in the fall. The field cultivator is probably small for the size of the tractor some guys pull 55 ft but the idea is to run a little faster and cover the acres at a higher speed. The dics ripper has 7 shanks and two rows of disc blades in front of the ripper. The shanks run about 12 to 14 inches deep, on all the acres that raised corn that year. The corn plant leaves a great deal of residue which the ripper mixes into the soil and buries some of it. A moldboard plow would bury all of ithe residue. By leaving some on the surface this greatly reduces the amount of wind erosion.
Second is an 8400. It is the tractor I probably use the most. It was rated by the factory at 225 hp, but at the first factory service check it was dyno-ed at 255 hp. In the spring it will pull the anhydrous ammonia toolbar 17 shanks, that puts on nitrogen for the corn. As soon as it is unhitched from the toolbar it will be hitched to a 6750 gallon liquid manure tank wagon. It is also used to pull a 750 bushel cattle manure spreader, a job that I will be doing again next week. In the fall it will be on the pit(manure) wagon full time as we need to haul nearly 2 million gallon. Some times it is used to pull a 650 bushel wagon when a field is so close as to make the 42 ft grain tractor trailer rigs cumbersome. I realize that this may sound bizzare but this is the most versatile tractor we have as it has lost of power and yet is easy to drive and handy to do different jobs with.
Next is an 8310 it is the planter tractor. Rated at 205 hp it will be pulling a new 24 row 30" JD planter with central fill hoppers this spring. It is equiped with a GPS system that tracks where each field is and what was planted there. When it is not planting it is the tractor that we use at the second farm for manure hauling, grain hauling, grinding hay in a tub grinder etc. In the fall it is likely to be on the 650 bu grain cart(auger wagon) or on a 20 ft stalk cutter that pulverizes the corn stalks.
The 8100 is the sprayer tractor in the spring. It follows the planter with the weed killer usually the same day so that the spray is on before the field gets a rain on it. Many of the weed killers sprayed at planting would harm the corn if it is sprayed on the growing plant so the chemical MUST be sprayed pre-emergence. In the fall it is used on the stalk chopper or the grain cart. The last few weeks it has been used to power the grain vacumn, picking up the pile of grain we had on the ground an in flat storage. We rarely take the duals off of any of these tractors, but when we have a lot of snow the 8100 is used to power an 8ft snowblower.
The 4240 is used on the auger in the fall. The auger is 70 ft long and has a 12 inch tube, it moved about 7500 bushels an hour. Currently it is pushing snow, and all the other things a loader gets used for. In the spring it wil be used to power the feed wagon on the second farm.
The 6410 is used at the second farm to load manure, load the feed wagon, run the hay windrower, bale hay, dig rocks etc. In the fall it will power the baler to make 500 cornstalk bales. Then the loader is fitted with a spear and it is used to pick up the bales and move them to storage. In my opinion it is underpowered and a 7410 or 7510 but I don't have sayso on tractor purchases.
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