Ok, so I'm a die hard Deere guy, but my old 7700 combine is getting some thin spots. Plus, I'm wanting to upgrade to a rotor style combine. Don't have the money for a 9000 series combine, so I'm looking for a Case IH.
My questions, what are the weak points to look for in a used combine. I know nothing about Case IH. All I know is the 1680 has a C series Cummins in it. The one I'm looking at has 3000 hrs. In the Deere world, that's about half the life of a combine without having to disassemble the entire thing to get to one bearing.
Any info is appreciated.
Thanks,
Rob
They are great! we have owned a 1480, 2 1680's and 1688 and they have all been great combines.
Look at the great big variable speed belt real hard, make sure its good, engage the combine a few times to see how hard or soft it engages, check out the bottom of the elevators etc.
Crawl under the feeder house and check out the bearings for the floor pan augers, those use to be just a wooden piece on the 1480, but our newer 1688 has an upgraded bearing of some sort. Check out the wobble box, those are spendy when they go out every so often.
3000 hours is getting up there, our 1688 has 4200 i believe and its smooooth. You should probably also check out the rasp bars, have the owner crank the concaves as far open as he can and rotate the rotor a bit to see the rasp bars through the gap in the concaves. Those probably need to be replaced if they havent already.
OH, and the hydrostat should be pretty responcive, I guess out in the flat lander area its not a big deal if its worn out. But out here in the mountains of utah we have had issues with worn out hydrostats.
One problem we had with our 1480 that im pretty sure they fixed on the 1680 is we had issues with the main engaging clutch deal.
One more thing is if it hasnt had a upgraded rear axle or it hasnt been beefed up, plan on it breaking if you load it heavy. We broke both the 1680's axles, not hard to beef up and fix, just dont be afraid to add A TON of metal to that baby.
anyways hope that helps.
