Combines TR85 spotted

[wickej]

We have run a TR85 for 10 years now. It has been a reliable machine, even though it had been treated fairly rough it's first few years. It had been run in corn for 1500 hrs. We rebuilt the concaves, added new bars, and replaced the bottom ends of the elevators, as the corn had worn things something fierce. It has the CAT engine. No lack of power, but they tend to use some oil. I have personally fed in a slug of weeds and had the rotor pull down to 150-200 rpm, and the engine pulled it through. Impressed me. If the machine is in good shape, you will not be disappointed. We use ours mostly in wheat and grain sorghum. We are sold on TRs Just my 2 cents worth.

 

[TwinRotor]

Thanks for you reply. The grain tank bushels are about 190IJ Have you had trouble with air the conditioning system or other reacuring problemsIJ

 

[wickej]

Grain tank is at 180 bushels. We run 18'grain boxes on single axle trucks, so it works fine to dump 2 full combine loads and have a full truck. One minus: We have had some problems with the unloading auger. Seems the cylinder does not want to push the auger out at times, and does not hold on the way down. We just lower slowly, and do fine with it. This, however is one problem I would like to solve. Must be a bad o-ring or something in the cylinder. Any ideas for this one would be appreciated. Another plus: The monitor system for shaft speed, full bin, etc., is very reliable. This old machine sits out most of the winter, and the monitor system still works fine. We have had some problems with the AC, though it tends to be mostly from leaks. We usually have it recharged and get along fine. Not any more problem than any other AC system I have been around. I ran a neighbors 8820 for two days this year, while my 15 yr old son ran the 85. Made me wish I was in the 85, as the neighbors AC did not work at all (not good in the black Deere cab). Meanwhile the AC in our 85 was working great. I lost a few pounds in that Deere, as the temp was around 100-105 those 2 days. My 66 year old father owns the machine, but I have run it every year since we got it (I work off the farm, and use my "vacation" to help out at harvest). It is an '81, which we got in approx '88-'89.

 

[Bundy]

Hi Twin Rotor, I think the early TR85's 3208 Cat's were around the 180hp range. later models and the series 2's had it tweaked up a bit higher then that. With the hungry boards (bin extensions) up we use to work on around 5 tonne of wheat to a binfull. (Whatever that works out to in bushells) Our only big complaint with the TR was there ability to handle green material. In cereal crops or completely dry plant material you will not get a better sample so easily out of a machine. But when harvesting Mung Beans, Sorghum, etc,which hasn't been decicated or sprayed out, keep a close eye on your rotors cages as they will plug up..... even with the inner wires removed. later models with the S-cube rotors may not have this problem. like wise you may be able to get different cages to handle the material over there too, all I had was the standard cages. Be carefull if unloading on the run or into limited storage area's as our old girl did more then couple of shear pins on the unloading auger. If possible, never stop the auger full of grain, and if you have to, ease the unloading leaver slowly at low rev's when clearing it. Also it's not such a flash idea to fold down the auger full of grain also, tends to make it a bit hard for the ram to push it back up with the grain in it. As I said before, in cereals, you will not get a easier machine to set and run and give you a good sample all day long. I if I had to be critical, I'd say the limiting factor to our machine was that we "sometimes" couldn't get enough air up it. We now have a '96 model JD9500 which is a long way ahead in terms of driver confort and ease of serivce over the old TR, but as far as sample quality in cereals, I don't think we've gotten advanced to much at all. O for a TR seperator inside a 9500 chassis! (Yes I know about the CTS, but I mean the whole kit kaboodal,stone trap, shaker table, beater and all.)I just hope New Holland doesn't price itself out of the reach of farmers with thier new TR or "CR" they're releasing soon. Just my 2 bob worth, hope it helps. Cheers Bundy.

 

[TwinRotor]

All the controls for the rotor clutch, unloading auger, and the header clutch are those to the left of the seatIJ Also does the auto header height still work goodIJ Thanks your replys.

 

[wickej]

Yes, they are all to the left. Our machine does not have auto header height. I have run a TR97 that had it, but due to variations in crop height that year, never got to try it out much. It also had the Terrain Tracer, which with a 30' head I found to be a great option. We are in an area with alot of terraces for erosion control. The Terrain Tracer made it much easier to cut out the sides of the terraces with the 30' head.