I would say you cant justify it. If the black ones lasted you 9 years. I would put them back in. If you are going to trade it off in 5 years,it wont be worth a dime more with chrome in it on trade. IG
Come on Nick, $7.00 corn $14.00 soybeans, go with the chrome. Without a crystal ball you don't know what things will be like 3 to 5 years from now and you might have to run this machine longer than you want to. ($1.75 corn and $4.75 soybeans) would change alot of things.............Dan
I understand your thinking on the black helicals but I'd like to share a little story on these. When the R50s came out we figured out we had a great edible bean machine. lots of guys upgraded from l2s to R50s. Then in '92 we were out demoing the first 52 in edibles. Everything went great the first day and then the cylinder started grumbling and spliting beans. Within 14 seperator hours we had a couple helicals wore flat. This truely turned me off on black helicals. This is likely a very unique situation but it stoped me from ever even thinking about black helicals. For the little extra Gleaner wanted for factory installed chrome helicals we thought they were crazy to offer machines without. Anyway I thought I should point this out for those of you that are in abrasive dust or dirt situations and or a food crop like edible beans where the straw can be very resistant to slide. I also like chrome for after they have their layer of chrome they stand up about an 1_8" higher. Helicals are an important part of flowing the straw and if they have worn to short or rounded a guy could mistakingly think the machine will not work well in a certain crop when it was just time for some renewing.