Combines Black or Orange corn head

I believe the orange head is older and has multiple roller chains driving individual row components, (snapping rolls, gathering chain drives). Also the front of the snapping rolls will have bushing supports that require frequent greasing (does every four hours sound rightIJ). The black head has inclosed gear boxes for each row, no chains or zerks (except for slip clutches). You must use special grease in gear boxes. Gamaman

The black Hugger heads is what was described,there is als a black A series head,all open gear,some chains but not as many as the orange,and they have a greasable bearing on the snapping rolls.The A seies changed sheet metal in the early 80's,a little lower profile and longer snoots.If I was rating the heads it would be: 1-hugger,2-A series,3-orange.

You could rate the orange a 3, but I would go for a 5 or a 6. Spent way too much of my youth working on orange heads. Sprocket on roll shaft would come loose, taking out splines on shaft. learned a few tricks to fix those buggers, as well as switched to o-ring chain. The chain switch was a huge improvement. Go for a black, or another head. Irv

Stay away from the orange head! They are nothing but junk. We had one, and it was the bigest piece of crap ever produced. It is fine if you want to work on it every 30 min. I bought a black 4-30 last year for $800. It was the best 800 I ever spent. One brake down this year, a chain link came out. look for a black head.

We have ran both an orange and a black head. The black head requires less maintenance because of less n60 roller chain. There are two main drive chains on the orange head. One is tha main shaft drive, and the other ones (2) drive the gear boxes. From the gear boxes are long n60 chains under the head that drive the snap rollers. Carry lots of connecting and offsets plus chain with you. We found it was best to replace the two main and gearbox chains every year before we started. The black head uses two smaller n60 drive chains on each side, but then drives the snap rollers with short n50 chains. No gearboxes. So far have liked it better.