Gav836

Now thats a great combine, the whole TF series were good combines for their time. Used to work for someone who ran a TF42 on 17ft bed, which just leapt along on the acres, he's still running it now 7 years later, says theres no point in changing it even though it's about 23 years old. A baling contractor i know says quite often now they can't tell the difference between the rotary straw and walker straw. In fact this year the wheat was so fit that our 460 smashed the straw to pieces!!

Heres another one for you, it'll soon be cheaper to buy a new one!! http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SIKU-MASSEY-FERGUSSON-8280-FOR-SPARES-OR-REPAIR_W0QQitemZ6994385306QQcategoryZ117196QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I think you're confusing them with Massey's there..... :

Those silo's look great. What are they made out of? Is it central heating flu liner?

That was the response i had off my previous girlfriend too. All i'd done while i was seeing her was to collide with another combine resulting in loss of straw chopper (well he did park in my blindspot behind me where i couldn't see the fool!), she wasn't too keen after that for some reason. Those rear view cameras are greta bits of kit, i bought one and fitted it as the boss wouldn't, i can now see what the cars are up to behind me and what the header is doing when i'm towing it which is brilliant and has made tight squeezes betweeen parked cars much easier

Just need to persuade the girlfriend to come for a ride, none of my previous ones have wanted to

if only that were true. A rain on command feature would be nice. I wonder if it's an optional extra........ ? :D

we wouldn't entertain a massey, too many problem ones locally. one farmer had a new one on demo with a chap from the factory, so his neighbour took a vintage 780 special there for a photo. the new one broke down but the 780 which hadn't been used for years kept plodding along much to the bemusement of the demonstrater chappy!! I always tell anyone who wants a ride that they can come for one if they want to, helps to pass the time if you someone to talk to

You still have to put the dis awners in manually and adjust the wind ducts manually, but other than that most of it can be done from the cab. The 500 series along with most new combines all have climate control on them too

Our lexion is computer cotrolled, you tell it what you are cutting and it sets the combine up for you. it can be fine tuned on the move from the cab. it tells you acres worked/average yield/total yield/moisture/corrected tonnage after moisture correction for whatever it is to be stored at. Great bit of kit until you get a fault or mickey or roland find the wires and chew at them!!

Our 460 has the Claas 3D sieves on it which helps to cut the losses as the sieves level out seperate to the combine, keeps them fairly level but the losses do increase slightly, i get 2 big black flashing triangles on the screen instead of 2 slightly black but mostly white ones!

they just don't seem to consider hilly terrain when they design a new combine. Are all German fields flat, cos it certainly seems like it at times!! we have one hill that i can only cut downhill or at 45 degrees and then its a struggle, couldn't get the 16 ton trailer up it on the 836 and it was only half full!! Theres a story behind the NH and the 580. Claas didn't have a fan belt on the shelf when a knackered pulley chewed ours up so the boss threw his rattle out of his pram and rang the head of parts at Claas uk followed by our sales rep and told them he's getting a NH out on demo as he'd had enough of poor parts back up. Not 2 days later the rep flagged him down on the road and said you can have a 580 for a day so we couldn't refuse. In the mean time we'd booked the NH already so we had one on the friday and one on the saturday. We would probably always have a Claas but it pays to look around as its the most expensive and important investment to make machinary wise

i know what you're saying there, they make the Renault 836 sound nice too. Problem this year was just as i got in the bottom of one with the 460 plus nearly full tank the winter barley hit 3.5 ton acre and she really struggled to get out again, the extra 30hp the evo's got would make all the difference

there's a contractor here who's gone from 3 480's down to 2 and now to 1 580 on about 4500 acres, everyone thinks they are nuts!! Our only critism of our 460 is it needs a bit more hp which it gott on the later evolution models. It sometimes struggles in the bomb craters (thers a WW2 airfield in the village, now disused) in some fields and with the hills about the estate.

We cleared up 110 acres with the 2 combines in 6 hours, but that was on 3 fields. With the NH and 460 we managed 160 acres in 8 hours which was really impressive. Also keeps the trailer drivers busy! Would have probably been more in wheat but we had them on Spring barley. Our 460 is knocking down around 1700-1800 acres a year which is more than Claas rate it for, so it does well for a 1997 machine, and can usually do 60-70 acres a day occasionally more, depending on conditions.

I haven't tried the CR yet but the 580 was certainly a much better combine than the AFX, alot easier to drive, not so much to fiddle with really. The AFX you had to get out and dusty on to adjust straw flow, i'd pick the 580 over that anyday. Tell me about it, we nearly told the boss to f*** off as he was annoying us too much and the more he interfered the longer it took!!

one shaft is worn but the bearing was still good, haven't worked out how a good bearing can wear a new shaft that we fitted last year yet, but put another bearing on so it's running on 2 and it cut another 500 acres then no problems. 3 of the bearings were fitted due to a fitting fault on a new accelerator drum, no -ones fault, the fitter and myself didn't know a shaft could slip a bit in pinch bolts! ? between 4 and 8 hrs everytime it went though, last time was a front wheel off job!! ?

no not really, we had a run on bearings this year, mostly new ones failing again

thats what we really wanted to try instead of the AFX but there wasn't one available. Heard a few horror stories about them locally, bent headers and one spontaneously combusting in the rotor area!

Well the output was more on the 580 but the 880's cab was way ahead on comfort levels, the Claas cab is a bit outdated now, hasn't really altered much since our 1997 460. But it's not a fair comparison between the two combines because the 880 is a straw walker machine and the 580 is a rotary combine, really needs to be compared with a CR model which we should be trying in 2006 :)

one showing the two combines along with the countryside

another one with our 460 in as well

heres a few of a Case AFX8010 we had for a day

I thought that it was a brilliant combine, it was running rings around our 460 which is the Claas equivelant except the 880 was a bit more powerful and a 30 foot cut. The 880 was much more comfortable to drive as well and also could cut spring barley 2kph quicker than the 460. I'd rather have it anyday

another of the same