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sw corner Ia | no row crop head produced by deere had any sort of spring tighteners from the factory. If you have them, somebody who got real tired of doing that 2 or 3 times a day put them on before they gave up on it. I did exactly that to the last one I had, and even fabricated spring tighteners for both outside #60 drive chains that run in dirt all the time under the cheesy tin flipper covers which will usually pop off in the field turning them into an ugly pretzel. I also cut a little hole in the top fender over the top of the rot. knive so I could dribble bar oil on it's drive chain.
Only real design difference in the A series over the original was the casting for the cross shaft bearings/vertical drives in the A's which had about a three inch greaseable boss which served as the row unit pivot. These were fine until the fittings would pack with dirt then they wouldn't take grease. pita #1 Rotary knives had a very cheesy fine threaded bolt on top of it for adjustment which would wobble out the threads and now we have no adjustment. pita #2. (I fixed this problem, I cut off the whole threaded bolt, and welded a 5/8" coarse threaded one on there and drilled it out for a cotter key on top so I wouldn't lose the knife some of which run right in front of a 1200 dollar tire. Never had a problem with these after that) Upper hex verticle drive sprokets/shafts run through two stacked sealed bearings with no grease at all and will wear out causeing sprokets to wear on chains, and mostly to destroy the bevel drive gears which also fit over a hex shaft which will be nice and rusty for you to clean before you slip (hammer) them off and replace. major pita #3. This vertical shaft thing needed to be in an enclosed gearbox running in oil like the cornheads, but I think deere thought it was a pita just to have them around and discontinued the heads altoghether. I agreed and sold my last runner in 03 and was very happy it left. I had run a row head since 1976.
Pulling a tree root out of the front of the row unit was always interesting. Pulling a plug of grass out of the rotary knife area was not. Staying on the row at 6+mph in sharp countours was what finally got to me, it seemed as though the thing always wanted to be everywhere else but on the row. You can't pick those beans back up again after that.
I look at the table sitting in the shed and feel good. I used to look at the old row head and think, crap I am going to have to run that thing again.
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Row Heads
