I guess today was my unlucky day... I saw a guy I knew and happened to mention I was looking for an old corn picker, ended up going over to his place to look at a John Deere 101 Quik-Tach in his shed. Turned out he had this one, plus 2 more "parts pickers". The only bad thing is the wagon elevators are less than perfect and been sitting outside but all the brackets, etc are there & the "good" picker looks fairly easy to get running. I ended up having to buy all 3 to get the one I wanted, but pricewise got a decent deal. The other good part is they are within 20 miles from home, so hopefully I can get them dragged back here in the next couple of weeks....
-- Edited by treekiller on Tuesday 17th of September 2013 03:30:42 PM
Funny how that happens. A few years back, I decided we were going to "retire" our worn-out NI mounted picker and started looking for a decent NI 324/327. I let a few folks know, one thing led to another, and before it was over, the fourth one showed up in my driveway one evening before I got home from work. Seriously. I was running out of shed space, so I finally had to lock the driveway gates...
UPDATE:
The trip to go get it with my JD 1020 utility was pretty much a fiasco, needed the old 2-cylinder to properly mount & pull it. Came home yesterday and there it was sitting in my yard mounted on the sellers 1952 B!
I found a few more things that I didn't see when it was sitting in his shed, nothing that can't probably be patched. I've gotten it turning(with persuasion), but not quite where I'm willing to hook up the power shaft yet. Most every fitting took grease and I've went thru about a quart & a half of WD40 so far, but I think with lots of TLC it will function again. Now I just need to rescue the parts pickers...
Sounds manageable. We went through gallons of used oil to break ours loose and keep them free. So far we have found nothing that a welder, redneck engineering, and the occasional busted knuckle won't fix. Those parts pickers will be a godsend in the long run.
