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SE MN | One by one according to your numbers:
1) Yes, more maintenance, but mostly in season type of stuff with regular greasing of the rollers and checking the grease in the gearboxes every so often. This grease in the unit gearboxes is the one that I don't care for very much because it is difficult to know if there is enough in them with the dipstick...but I've never lost one yet though. The rest of it you'll get used to after a year or two. The maintenance is not a deal breaker to me.
2) You hear complaining about sticky deck plates, but I guess I've been lucky in that regard. I do check them every so often and they are easy to move in and out with a prybar. It is very easy to see in an instant if they are moving by looking at the piston underneath. I also try very hard to keep it inside at night when rain is in the forecast. The dirt build-up combined with rain is apparently what makes them stick. These deck plates are one of the things that makes this such a good head. I also take time mid-harvest to blow things out pretty good and look it over.
3) There are two lubricants: gear oil and grease. You can get the specialized lubricant at any Drago dealer or Mobile oil dealer, they recommend Mobile brand. I have interchanged the JD combine reverser oil with the Drago gear oil and do not think there is much difference between the two. Maybe someone who knows oils better could clarify this...they're both synthetic gear oil. They recommend the Mobile grease in everything and it is best to do that, you would just dedicate a grease gun to that grease and it's easy. That grease is a lot like JD corn head grease, but I don't know if they are interchangeable.
4) Parts being unavailable is pure myth in my experience, unless you don't have a Drago dealer you can reasonably get to by driving. I am not for sure on this, but I would bet Drago has some kind of requirement for Drago dealers to stock a certain amount of parts because I have never had the dealer not have a part...even a chopper gearbox housing that I broke from my own error...could've gotten a whole new gearbox or just the housing. They also had all the internal parts and seals as well for that gearbox. I've bought other parts and they always have had them.
The primary complaint I have is that the auger is too small. It should be much larger. This one is a bit of a head scratcher, but it does work and it is not a deal breaker. I think you will like how it works in the conditions you mentioned. Just follow the book on the maintenance. They do tend to leak some oil out of the transfer gearboxes after several years of use, it would be best to remove them all in the off-season and reseal them, otherwise you would want to check the oil in them every so often as well during harvest. There is more to do on this head than say a JD 90 series, but I really think that a good share of the complaining about the maintenance is from the learning curve to understand the differences and by people who do not think they are saving more corn with the Drago head. The corn savings is the selling point made by Drago...if you do not believe that then you will think the maintenance is too much. Maybe they're not for everybody, but I think they would be very hard to beat as far as picking corn, especially if you're not chopping the stalks. | |
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