Well Goober Touchy subject here now. I'm no expert by any means so take this as what you paid for it....simply opinion. Replacing the fuel cell and some of the exterior cosmetic parts are not what's going to get expensive. What bothers me is structure stress. The tin work on these maximizers is light. Nothing at all like the old 20 series or T2's as some call them. If the fire got fairly intense in that 15 minutes what does the walkers underneath the engine compartment look likeIJ The engine has a load of light metal and aluminum parts that would melt under extreme heat and cause impurities to enter so that would more than likely cost an you an engine as well. Warped tin on the backside of the grain tank and in other areas are going to make it living he11 to get bolt holes to line up and not to mention if you do get it going and start harvesting, eventually down the road the small vibrations are going to start cracks from the heat stress and I'm just afraid it's a nightmare waiting. Do yourself a favor and do a little research on this. Find out who did the estimate on this combine and how many hours they totaled up for it to be completed back to useable. Take the hours times thier shop rate and see how many dollars in labor you are looking at saving yourself. If there's 10,000 dollars in labor to do on your own it might be worth tackling. But, in the same sense, if your local deere dealership was asked to make an estimate and told the insurance company no way in he11 because it would never be right and thier name was on it that might clue you in to leave it alone. I see and know what you are doing. Same boat I was in a few years ago. Try and find a piece of machinery that has potential but yet looks like scrap to the rest of the world and fix it yourself and save a load. It's a good theory but has cost me a load in the long run for after-the-fact parts and breakdowns not anticipated. My advice would probably be to just leave it alone. Honest! This is a deal where you could get burned so bad and have a load in something that a dealership wouldn't give you a song or dance for in trade. Might try to find something older in the hour range close to that or a few more. You will still get the same threshing ability between a 93 model and a 97 model in my opinion but have less invested and can take the money to put in parts. Still get the creature comforts of the cab and all that makes a maximizer desirable to some of us but without the constant worry of whether or not the engine is going to fall through on the concaves from heat stressed steal. Don't mean to burst your bubble but I'd probably just leave it lay in my opinion. Good luck on your decision......There are so many maximizer combines out there put your name on a list somewhere looking for a certain year with a certain hour range and had harvested only certain crops and see what you get back for bites.....might just surprise you.....dealers are getting tired of looking at all these green yard ornaments. They would much rather have the cash in thier pocket even if it means sacrificing a profit.....better to survive meagerly than hold out and end up loosing it all. Good luck Friend HTH......Deerebines
