That is pretty much what we do. We try to keep a few parts that we know have a propensity to fail on hand. I think we keep two combine belts - straw chopper and header sicle drive. Probably should keep feederhouse drive belt but in 35 years cant remember being broke down because of one. Smoked one or two and ran with a bad spot in them for a day or two till had time to replace. In-field belt replacement with the aforementioned exceptions - well I can't remember the last time we replaced a belt during season. But then we spend a lot of time in the winter going over them and replacing suspect parts although I can't say that belts are that high of replacement item. We tend to keep good cylinder bars and concaves - keeping the rest of the machine in good shape can make a difference in belt replacement. Then I probably don't push a combine as hard as some also - just my demeanor I guess. We have kept a seal kit for the variable speed feederhouse on the 9610 because of its probability of failure although just upgraded the piston to 50 series and they are not supposed to fail like the older smaller ones on the 9600-10 series. We tend to have a larger parts supply for the 9 year old 9610 than we do for the 3 year old 9760 although it is starting to get enough hours we will start to keep more for it. Maybe we are just lucky but we have very little down time during harvest because of machine breakdowns - it is a rare exception and not the norm.

One thing that is going to differ about stocking on farm parts is the farms overall philosophy on machine replacement. If a person keeps pretty new machinery and trades often with a dealer 5 minutes away that will open for emergencies after hours and keeps a good parts stock is going to have a different attitude about keeping parts on the farm than someone who runs older stuff and keeps them till they die and lives 300 miles from a dealer that stays open 8-5 5 days and keeps no parts. Also makes a difference if you are running one machine or 10 of the same model and series. If you have 10 in the field at the same tiem the likelihood of needing that belt or part in that season goes up about 900% compared with the guy with one combine. Also makes a difference if you are running one combine over 5000 or 500 acres a season. Also makes a difference if you tend to trade to different brands often - not good having $10,000 of parts for a green machine then going to a red or yellow, or sometimes even going from a walker to rotary of the same brand.

Like everything else, one size doesn't fit all. What does help is that we learn what other farmers are doing, evaluate if that practice fits our situation, then adopt the good ideas and marvel at why in the world everyone is not just like us :-)

What we do keep a lot more than other surrounding farms is we have a hose machine with hose, quite a lot of fittings, a large assortment of bolts and other hardware, most kinds of sealant,etc for a minor repair job, etc. I find it a terrible waste of time to send someone to town because we lack a common bolt size or some sealant or other $1 item that keeps us from finishing a repair - either in season or in the winter. We also keep hand and power tools to pretty much do anything that we are capable of doing and have a reasonably equipped shop although we don't go as far as lathes and such.

John