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Ossian, IN | I have a couple questions about some MacDon drapers. We don't own one, never used one and haven't seen one run up close. We are fairly flat ground, except for some gulley's here and there and our combine is a level land. From what I've read, apparently a D60 & 973 are rigid, but will pivot some with the ground based on the coil springs near the feederhouse. Is this correct? And some say that some do or don't have automatic header height?
This would be going on a JD 9500, maybe eventually a 9510-9550. Some of the one's I've seen listed on TractorHouse will say set up for JD 50 series. Is that just meaning it's got the telescoping shafts? Or if equipped with header height, it is set up differently? At some point in the past life of our 9500, it had Headsight on it as there was a little control box with a dial & little LED lights in the cab, although we aren't sure about the rest of the wiring. |
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North Central Oklahoma | I put a 974 on my 9600 this last year. Before that I was running a Deere 630. I had installed the headsight to run the 630. Box, wiring, in cab monitor, etc.
The headsight in my combine isn't compatible with the Macdon. I am going to run it manually for this year. Not that it matters much, but with my Deere 630 and headsight it didn't work very well. It was either hunting up and down or would react to slow.
As far as the Macdon........buy the D60. The technical support for putting a 973 on your combine isn't available. My 974 was only 10 years old and you would have thought that I was trying to get help for a Oliver tractor. The company hasn't kept info on that series of heads. The 974/973 is a good head. I love mine. I got lucky and finally found a mechanic who knew his way around them. The D60 will be a lot different than the 973. A lot more user friendly I am told. Hope that helps you. |
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Ossian, IN | I know these are not flex heads and the cutter bar won't completely flex with the ground, but does the whole head float side to side like 'contour master'? |
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| Lots of macdons up in our part of the country. Hope I can clear a few thing up for you. The older ones were built in a few versions, 972 had a different knife angle and were made more to go on swathers than combines but could be used on both. The 973 had a knife angle that was made to work better on combines but could go on a swather. The last one was a 974 which was the flex model was only for the combines. The 972 and 973 were a rigid cutting bar just like a auger header while the 974 had a different set up. It looked like a rigid cutting bar but basically flexed like a old cultivator frame. This video shows the newer version but was basically the same.
http://www.macdon.com/videos/fd75-flexfloat-animation
The d50 and d60 and d70 are the newer versions of each, also the swather version usually came more bare bones than the combine versions. Macdon also made the 9 and d series in case model numbers.
As far as the adapter go they allow the header to follow and tilt like contour master. On the older 9 series they came with 3 different adapters based on the model year. The early ones had 871 then 872 adapters that had leaf springs on each side for flotation, good at he time but not as good as the latter models with the 873 adapter which has the coil spring on each side the same as the d60. As far as the most important change to the d60 in my opinion is the new 6 bat reel, it works amazing in flat crop. With regards to the headsight system, the macdon header was designed to ride the cutting bar on the ground and use the float optimizer to adjust the feeder house up and down to keep the header following the ground. Up here guys put the headsight on when they want to leave more that 6" of stubble. It can be done with units that have guage wheels but does create some problem if there are lodged spots in the crop. I run my d60 wheels in the air, cutting bar on the ground and use the hydraulic tilt to control stubble height. Also they can be converted from one combine to another depending on brand very easily on the d 60 and 873 adapters. The exception if I remember right are the cat/ lexion ones. If I remember right about $4000 worth of parts for the lock mechanism, hydraulic and electrical, and the window as it's call that matches your machine. Have heard on the 900 series some of thing are not available like if you wanted to add a float optimizer kit they are not available, but you would have to talk to them to make sure. If you have any questions call them direct they have always be helpful when ever I have called. Number will be on the video website. Hope this helps
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| agree with budfarmer. we have a 973 with the 873 adapter to run on a 2166 CIH and love it. Biggest thing to pay attention to is getting the spring tension right for the flotation. Not sure what type of ground you are running on, but it doesn't like loose soil with ridges, you will eat dirt. If you are on no-till or rolled no problems at all. We use it on both beans and wheat, and I would never go back to an auger header. |
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Ossian, IN | Do basically you set the feederhouse where you want it and let the head adjust and do the rest on it's own as it follows the ground? |
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| lots of guys do run them manual with good success I just find once you run one with the float optimizer it becomes virtually a drop and drive header. I will try to explain what the float optimizer switch does. it should tie in to the 9500 system without any changes beside some fine tuning of some of the sensor values. I would still check with macdon to be sure. the float optimizer works like a header height control on a normal header, but since the cutting bar is always on the ground it is sensing floatation pressure. it basically monitors the relationship of the adaptor to the header. lets say that with your header just off the ground the adaptor to header value is 0 meaning the adaptor is carrying all the weight of the header and with the header on the ground with the adaptor as low as possible, almost pulling down on the header as a value of 5 meaning the adaptor is just about not carrying the header. so if the header is sitting on the ground and the float number is 1 then the adaptor springs are carrying most of the header weight which may then take about for example 50 lbs to lift the header. now if it was sitting on the ground and the number was 4 it might take 250 lbs to lift the header. so with out the float optimizer and you set it at 2 which might be 150 lbs, as you travel done the level field it will maintain that setting as long as a lot of header travel is not required. as you come up to a rise in the field the header will follow the rise up but you header value may now be 4 meaning less float until the combine climbs the rise to put everything back to the same angles. depending on how drastic the changes are it is not a problem, but it can cause the header to push dirt or as in the case of a gulley have the adaptor carry all the weight and carry it over the gulley and miss some crop. if you manually lift or lower the header it will work fine. what the float optimizer does is when the ratio is set to 2 it tries to keep it there. so as you go into the gulley and the header drops but the adaptor stay in place it senses the adaptor going to a 0 value and will lower the feeder house and when you hit the other edge of the gulley and the header goes up is see the value going to 4 and lifts the feeder house to try to maintain the value of 2. so if your gulley are very gentle you will do fine without it or will just have to run it manually. with the optimizer you will not have to do anything. it also helps prevent corner digging like when crossing a gulley at a angle. the header does have a certain amount of lateral travel before it changes the adaptor header ratio but after that is used up the it lift the feeder house. so I don't know if that makes anything clearer or not. if you watch all the videos on the macdon website I think you will be able to figure out what I mean. |
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| yes, there is an adjustment on the pitch for big adjustment, use the different holes, for minor tweaking use the turnbuckle
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MacDon D60 & 973
