|
|
ND | We bought a new MF 510 Combine in maybe in a year hard to get machinery-1975? Bought from a dealer in Ada, MN. I think they sold 40 combines that year & this one was #39. Came from a MF 410 gas but this one was a diesel. Combine came with no air conditioning so we put a water cooler in & in rough ground you got wet, cab was very cramped but with diesel it ran 5 times cooler. This was a very good machine & in seven years only replaced one bearing in the chopper & had a dsl pump overhaul. It only burned 3 gallons of dsl/hour. Nothing gets that economy now but it was pretty small in capacity. The next combine was a big mistake a MF 550 & three years of this we became JD combine owners & have been happy ever since. |
|
| |
|
Elizabethtown,KY | Drove it 1 day a nd then worked on it for 2 days, continually! |
|
| |
|
Southwest Wisconsin | Still have 2 of them. One is a late model diesel hydro with under 2000 hours and an 1144 corn head. The other is a late model with a 327 Chevy gas and gear/variable speed drive and a 13' rigid platform header for oats. Both still get used every year and have been pretty faithful for us. The gas model has factory a/c which is nice on a hot summer day
 (image.jpg)
Attachments
----------------
 image.jpg (146KB - 137 downloads)
|
|
| |
|
west central illinois | I just remember our 760. Sitting on a bucket as a kid watching my dad and uncle invent curse words and swear they were never buying one ever again. This seemed to be a weekend event. They went to IH in about 1988 and have been that way ever since. If one thing those combines could do was sell other brands of combines. Surprised they didn't have a support group for Massey combine owners.
Hi my name is ( enter name here) and I bought a Massey combine! |
|
| |
|
S.E. Sask. | jdbob8100 - 7/20/2014 11:41 We bought a new MF 510 Combine in maybe in a year hard to get machinery-1975? Bought from a dealer in Ada, MN. I think they sold 40 combines that year & this one was #39. Came from a MF 410 gas but this one was a diesel. Combine came with no air conditioning so we put a water cooler in & in rough ground you got wet, cab was very cramped but with diesel it ran 5 times cooler. This was a very good machine & in seven years only replaced one bearing in the chopper & had a dsl pump overhaul. It only burned 3 gallons of dsl/hour. Nothing gets that economy now but it was pretty small in capacity. The next combine was a big mistake a MF 550 & three years of this we became JD combine owners & have been happy ever since.
Pretty much the same for me. 1976 Western special with the 350 GM and thankfully, AC. Mostly good memories. No catastrophic breakdowns or nagging daily maintenance. The 550 I replaced it with was basically the same combine internally but I had problems with several things including the AC. Think I spent more harvests without AC as with. Stepping up to the CIH 1660 was a giant leap forward that I never regretted. Still miss the sound of that straight pipe 350 sometimes.
Got some grainy, out of focus vhs video of it back in 1990 on youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twR8fU4T8fI |
|
| |
|
SE Iowa | The Massey 300, 410, and 510 were the best combines made at the time. Cornhead could not be beat for getting under down corn. After those models MF went downhill |
|
| |
|
South Dakota | My custom harverster had two 410s and a 510. They did a wonderful job, I did not know what volunteer wheat was until after he retired! |
|
| |
|
| 410&510s were good they I believe we're the first to have quick attack heads. Good machine with 4 row corn heads diesel motors was good, bottoms of bins would wear thin
750/760 not as good and Deere took over |
|
| |
|
| I remember having two 300's with aftermarket cabs. It was a pain with choke-ups and changing out headers (not quick attach). We then moved up to a 550, 13' table w/ floating cutter bar and a 5 row 30" head with three lift cylinders on the feederhouse. Talk about being in tall cotton! We never had any major issues or problems with the 550, it was a solid combine for us. The 354 Perkins was always my favorite part, talk about a bullet proof engine - weakest spot being the fuel pump. You have to become one with the machine :-) |
|
| |
|
ND | Ya I remember them, worked on the a/c one time looking for power at compressor with key on and engine off , couldn't get no power at compressor, fired up engine and compressor engaged. Something about a relay activates. Am I correct.? And always thought the radiator in the middle of the machine was weird! |
|
| |
|
| emtbd1979 - 7/20/2014 12:59
I just remember our 760. Sitting on a bucket as a kid watching my dad and uncle invent curse words and swear they were never buying one ever again. This seemed to be a weekend event. They went to IH in about 1988 and have been that way ever since. If one thing those combines could do was sell other brands of combines. Surprised they didn't have a support group for Massey combine owners.
Hi my name is ( enter name here) and I bought a Massey combine!
Haaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!! My poor departed neighbor ran a 510 and later a 550. I can remember him re-engineering the 550 at times since he himself was a factory engineer/part time farmer. What a POS. The 510 was still running around long after he retired in 89'. It's almost amazing in comparison how an AF will half destructed parts and keep going. |
|
| |
|
| Dad and uncle bought a new 410 the year milo went down terrible. They also bought the ONLY roller cone head in area. They started in fall and didnt shut it off till after Christmas sometime. Think they paid for it the first year. Didnt come with a cab but the milo dust made them get one added real quick..Think it was about 64 when they bought it. and they ran it till mid 80's and it was many times wore out.
Cuss words were used regular in the repairs made. MOST of the trouble was the double bevel gear running the 44 cornhead. Never ran more than a few days in a row and a real pain to fix. No quick tach here. I still maintain it was partly the fault of never replacing the stripping plates on the snapping rollers and rolled up too much weeds and foxtail and corn trash and over loaded the gear. Couldnt tell them that tho. I had a narrow row head I replaced those strippers and never had a problem. Lot of patched up tin tho but that is age related.
Heater was a corn cob stuck in the inside tin so fan pushed motor air thru,,,AC was was a fan blowing when it worked,,,mostly not (at last)
Had the chevy engine in one and mopar flat head in another and had no probs much with either. The machine engage clutch was a problem tho. At the end they bought another 410 and ran 2 so one might work. Some times got 2 to run at once,,,some times none.
IF combines were traded off every 20-25 years it would have helped the cuss words. The next one(which was green) after that stayed for 25 years and was well used when it came. |
|
| |
|
SWMN | It did an extremely beautiful job of cleaning grain and the Perkins diesel was very efficient. But what a PITA. Finally traded with another farmer/mechanic for an older JD HI-LO 95. I"m afraid he will be waiting for me at the Pearly Gates with a picket sign. |
|
| |
|
Cherokee County, Northwest Iowa | Dad went from a MF 300 with 2 row corn head to a 510 gas with 4 row head. bought a new I believe 13' bean head, even added auto height control later. No air conditioning. Bean dust used to settle into the console to the right of your feet, more than once you could even smell it starting to get hot down there, stop and clean out the bean dust before it caught fire. Then poor father, was about 2-3 days from being done with his last harvest, some wiring shorted out in the cab, caught fire, fire squad put out the fire. Hurt his pride so much that he spent the winter buying a used cab, re-wired everything that burnt up, and then proceeded to tell me, who was taking over the family farm that next year: "You can borrow this 510 as long as you want, but I am not spending any more money on it". I ran that ol' girl 3 years, didn't spend much money, then went out and bought a used 7720. I never really thanked my Dad enough for loaning me that combine for 3 harvest, wasn't worth much anyway, but sure saved me a lot of money. First fall with the 7720, put Dad in the cab to run it with a hydrostatic drive, so controlled motion with hydro lever-More than once I would be waiting for him to come to the end to unload, and would catch him raising is left foot to "push in the clutch"-we would both smile and then move on. Memories.................... |
|
| |
|
s.c. minn. | Bad memories. Didn't stop harvesting at the end of the day, we had already broke down and were fixing evenings. On the positive side I learned how to braze, weld, replace bearings shafts, chains & belts. Hated that machine, hope to never see one again. It got traded for a 6620 that ran great, what a difference. |
|
| |
|
Sort of Central to North Central Iowa | Dad had a 510 gas, 327 with two straight pipes out the right side. He got it about 1969, traded in an IH 303, great move! Ran it until it was traded for a 1976 750. Kept the 750 until 1992 when traded for a CIH 1660. Of the first three combines, Dad always liked the 510 the best. It didn't have hydro or A/C, he added a truck heater to it. The 750 had hydro and A/C and was much easier to work on, but never had as good a sample as the 510. Got the 1660, thought we had heaven on earth! |
|
| |
|
deep SW On. | jdbob8100 - 7/20/2014 14:41
We bought a new MF 510 Combine in maybe in a year hard to get machinery-1975? Bought from a dealer in Ada, MN. I think they sold 40 combines that year & this one was #39. Came from a MF 410 gas but this one was a diesel. Combine came with no air conditioning so we put a water cooler in & in rough ground you got wet, cab was very cramped but with diesel it ran 5 times cooler. This was a very good machine & in seven years only replaced one bearing in the chopper & had a dsl pump overhaul. It only burned 3 gallons of dsl/hour. Nothing gets that economy now but it was pretty small in capacity. The next combine was a big mistake a MF 550 & three years of this we became JD combine owners & have been happy ever since.
Dad had an old 510 gas that was great and then we bought a new 550 and like you we soon owned a deere |
|
| |
|
Schlegel Farms, Hagerstown Indiana | I had one. 1976 510D
Could put a very clean sample in the grain tank, the Perkins engine was very fuel efficient and the AC kept me cool while the dust swirled around my head and piled up on the floor.
That covers the good.....................this site probably doesn't have enough band with to cover the bad.
It was, with out a doubt, the worse machine I ever owned. |
|
| |
|
Oregon | 510 diesel A/C was the combine I learned on. we bought it new. Ran it 6 years or so. Never had any significant downtime. AC condenser leaked in cab so your hands were wet each time you crossed a grassed waterway. But I loved that combine. Seemed like it was ahead of its time for quite a while. Then one day you heard about an the Axial Flow in the country, then nothing else mattered anymore.
I can still feel how that engine cowl opened and closed. Kinda miss it. And that arm rest in front of those three hydraulic levers- yessir, that was big time.
And I miss thrashing sunflowers through the night- I missed weeks of school at a time and spent every minute in that combine cab.
Everyone seems to complain about that generation of Massey combines- but we never had any trouble. The Old Man would plug it up all the time, but he was a gunner- never seemed to me like it was the combine's fault.
Seems to me that the separate returns thrasher on the new S-Series Deere is a lot like the returns thresher on the Massey in the 1970s. But what do I know.
-Mike |
|
| |
|
Sunburst Montana | We bought our first 510 in 1964. Traded in a Massey 90 special. Full price of the 510 was $12,594.35. Dealer allowed us $3,462.95. Overall it was a decent combine. But we spent a considerable amount of money each year keeping it going. We always had cutters take part of our crop of back in those days so most of the time we never used much beyond a week or two worth of cutting. Reason I am saying all of this is because our cousins farm right next to us and they bought a new JD 105 a few years after we bought our 510. They used only that combine to take their entire crop off which was over 1,000 acres about the same as us. And that thing ran year after year after year. And they didn't spend near the amount of maintenance and money to keep it going. It was finally retired in the late 90s. My opinion of them even though the 510 was fancier and more stylish they cost more to run over the long haul with all the work it took to keep them going. BTW, we still have a 510. 1977 model with a diesel that our neighbor gave us. |
|
| |
|
| mschultz - 7/20/2014 19:49
Seems to me that the separate returns thrasher on the new S-Series Deere is a lot like the returns thresher on the Massey in the 1970s. But what do I know.
-Mike
Ah yes, Deere's active tailings return. Let's take a step back in time to the rethreasher. Rethreashers were a great idea, you know what else was a great idea? Agent orange. You see where that got us. |
|
| |
|
Elizabethtown,KY | We had a 410 Diesel before the 510 that was an excellent machine and didn't give much trouble at all, it was backed in a barn on a rented farm and some kids burned the barn is why we wound up with the 510. |
|
| |
|
Sunburst Montana | The rethresher was a weak spot on the masseys. In my part of the world windrowing wheat and picking it up off the ground was common. Never failed to get a small rock in the rethresher and tear everything up plus dirt just wearing it out. It was common to see patches welded onto them. The old man joked JD must have hired a Massey engineer when we saw the active tailings return upon introduction of the S series. One of the reasons we stuck with S670s and not the 680s. |
|
| |
|
| I bought a new 550 in Jan of '79. I knew the day I bought it I had made a mistake though it hadn't even been built yet. Went to get it out of the shed for wheat that summer & it had broke down sitting in the shed. Things only got worse from that point on. Didn't take long to learn what the big "MF" stood for on the front of the engine cover. It caught fire a couple times, pretty common occurrence for the 540 / 550s. Got the fire put out with a fire extinguisher. When I went to the dealer about having it fixed he said "You should have walked home & called the fire dept. He was right even though I was a mile from home. Finally was able to trade it for a new 1440 in '82 and have owned AF combines every since. |
|
| |
|
swohio | Had a 510. Did a great job when running. Never have I had a worst machine to work on. Went to IH 915 which was better, but still too many moving parts. Then went to a 1460 which is still going strong. Boy I wish I had bought the 1460 before the 510. |
|
| |
|
| All bad |
|
| |
|
Little Dixie missouri | Dads 410
 (image.jpg)
Attachments
----------------
image.jpg (20KB - 129 downloads)
|
|
| |
|
Missouri | I've mowed around one for the better part of 20 years. I've gathered that it is a "ran when parked" victim of the 80's. Must be hanging on to it as some kind of reminder. |
|
| |
|
ND | The 510 did have as well as the '67 410 that swing out turret unload auger that Deere never had till 1979 & not sure with IH 815-915 when they came out but always thought it was a great idea & the Perkins 354, that engine should have been the only engine offered, still remember that gas Chevy in the 410-never missed a beat but hot hot hot. Neighbors had a test farm for a IH axial flow the year before they came out, they used a 715 & traded for a 1440, we had a bad taste of a former IH 560 & went to a JD 7720, quite a change from a 510, still have walker JD's but now when harvesting non-gmo beans & seed plant says that this 9500 has a better sample of beans then red, green & yellow rotors too is something but maybe once thro instead of wrap it around 2.5 times is where the hairline cracking is present. Want a eventual rotor but for now still walker. |
|
| |
MF 510 good or bad memories?
