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Latest Combine Grain Hauler
If you've been reading FARM SHOW for long, you know we've tracked down a number of innovative farmers who've turned old combines into tractor loaders, self-propelled sprayers, and self-propelled grain carts. Each one is unique and different in its own way.
  Recently, a farmer with his own combine conversion tracked us down. We were manning our exhibit at the Farm Progress Show in Iowa last fall when Lois Vaessen stopped by to tell us he had something we might like to see. He said he'd been inspired by other FARM SHOW innovators to turn an old IH combine into a self-propelled auger wagon.
  Vaessen bought a "junked" IH 815 combine for $500 and proceeded to strip it down to the frame, selling several hundred dollars worth of parts off the machine in the process. He reversed the drive on the machine, mounting the cab and the original V-8 engine on the rear end and installing a custom-built grain cart over the drive wheels. He built the 400 bu. grain box himself out of 22 ga. sheet metal, modeling it after a commercial-built cart. He took the metal to a local mill to bend it.
  One of the most difficult chores was reversing the drive axle and rerouting all the controls. All the original cables were long enough to reach. He flipped the drive axle over to run in the opposite direction. The combine is hydrostatically-driven.
  Vaessen put a big 14-in. dia. auger on the cart for fast unloading. It swings out into position hydraulically and has extra reach. Vaessen says he has more invested in the auger than anything else on the machine.
  "I started converting the combine last July and was done by harvest. It worked fine last fall except for a problem with the auger drive, which I need to fix," he says, noting that the auger's driven by the separator drive. He uses the reel control to open and shut a slide gate on the box.
  Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Louis J. Vaessen, 1925 Maytown Rd., Sublette, Ill. 61367 (ph 815 849-5533).


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2000 - Volume #24, Issue #1