What little I know about corn pickers, I know that the mounted pickers are HEAVY. And there are lots of stories out there about tractors breaking rear axles with a picker on them. Was there a make of picker that was worse for breaking axles than others? Which brand tended to be heavier, IH, New Idea, John Deere, other??
Which did the better job picking? Was the IH 234 the only one to ever use stripper plates over the snapping rolls?
Which one was easiest to mount? (Again I am guessing the 234 had the edge here too)
As far as the title of your thread I would go with the 234 IH picker due to the stripper plates. I've been wanting both a Deere 237 and the IH but so-so yields and mediocre prices means waiting another year. I also would not mind a Deere 300 and maybe a 323 and 325 NI pickers.
I can't speak to the JD mounted pickers, but I can speak to the IH 234 or NI 319. Both are good pickers. Both are easier to put on than earlier models. My dad went from a IH 2MH to a NI 319. That picker was a major upgrade for us. The 319 was a better picker in terms of mounting, husking, less shelling, and having the husking bed and sheller units were handy. About 5 years ago, I bought an IH 234. Hands down the easiest picker to put on, in my experience. According to my dad, he says the 234 picks just a little better than the NI 319 did. Of course, so much of that depends on the plants per acre, hybrids of corn, and dryness at the time of picking. If you are concerned about axles breaking, makes sure you have a bigger tractor. Most mounted pickers were designed for those tractors in the late 1940s-1960s, the time era for mounted pickers. Looking at the specs for the 234 and 319 they are very similar in weight, the IH is slightly heavier. Under the 2MH, we had a Farmall M. Working the NI 319 was a Farmall 656. Under my IH 234 is a Farmall 706. Never had any worries about axles breaking with these combinations of pickers-tractors. You can have larger tractors under these pickers but they will require extensions in the front of the middle divider. You can have smaller tractors but you run into maybe horsepower issues or lack of speed range. It all depends on your pocketbook and what you can comfortably afford. If you are in no hurry, shop around for the right tractor. I had the my 234 months before I bought the 706.
I can't imagine that axle breakage is too much of an issue unless you start running something on the order of a Farmall H or John Deere B. I was told that either of those tractors were really meant for a one row machine. I would think any 50 PTO HP tractor or larger would be fine to carry a 2 row picker.
I think axle breakage on bigger tractors was more due to trying to drag a loaded big wagon through the mud than the picker itself. Had neighbors back in the 80s that pulled tandem-axle 16-foot Badger silage boxes behind their pickers for high-moisture ear corn that they ran through a grinder-blower at the silo. Had an M-M tractor with a New Idea mounted picker and a 324 pull type. Mounted was later replaced with a uni-picker. All had the elevators sped up to fill the wagon all the way to the back. When it got wet, the problems started. Must've been 6 tons of corn in those wagons . . . .
What kind of MM did you have under a picker? My neighbor had a ZB. I've seen a 302 if i recall correctly with a mounted super picker at a sale lot. My neighbor with the ZB was the only mounted picker i remember seeing around this are that i actually seen run, I was born in 1960. A farmer i later worked for had a F 20 with a mounted picker on it but cant remember the model .I did get to ride with a neighbor who had a MF 180 and the super picker sheller on it.I know who bought the tractor but dont know what happened to the picker. There was one guy in the next town over who had the first mf 65 tricycle with the old mounted NI and trailor husking bed and was picking corn. I kept watch for it to sell in the local farm paper and never did but the farm is gone now and i think the barn too.I remember one person somewhere sometime talking about a broken axle.Could be another reason there was a lot of guys who had pulltype pickers in this area.
The John Deere "A" was the only tractor I ever heard that had to have the axles replaced, Deere provided hardened axles for them when they introduced the 227. They are usually identified by a "V" or other mark on the end of the axle. My 1951 "A" has them, and you can still see the marks on the frame from where the picker mounts attached. It also has a water pump which they didn't come out with until 1952, but was put on many earlier tractors(usually ones that had a mounted picker).
