A pile of parts and a lot of spare time could produce interesting results.
Johnny Cash sang about a Psycho-Billy Cadillac he built in his song, “One Piece at a Time.” That raises an interesting question: Could a farmer build his own combine from over-the-counter parts?
A visit to partscatalog.deere.com reveals 99% of all the parts on a John Deere 9770STS are available at dealerships, including a remanufactured 9.0-liter Tier III Deere engine for $43,730. A ProDrive transmission lists for $25,005.
Expect to pay around $40,000 for the rotor, concaves, sieves and associated frames and components. A deluxe seat and air ride suspension retails for around $9,026 (comfort isn’t cheap).
Add all the other pieces and parts, from a $953 rotor drive belt to a $2,221 ECU, toss in a thousand or so nuts and bolts and the total bill for parts for a homemade combine exceeds $500,000.
Notice all the items listed are “bolt-on” parts. The main frame and bare cab of a 9770STS John Deere combine are “factory only.” The only option for a do-it-yourself combine builder would be to get a used frame and cab from a salvage yard.
“We don’t have any totally bare frames sitting around, but we’ve got some that have been stripped down pretty close to the bare frame,” says Aaron Wade, salesman with Colfax Tractor Parts. “Depending on how many parts are still on it, it would probably be at least $5,000 for the basic frame.”
PART BY PART
Used parts might be an alternative when building a combine one piece at a time, says Kevin Wieman with Wieman Land and Auction.
“Good used parts typically sell for around 50% of dealership prices,” he says. “The more wear a part shows, the cheaper the price, so you could reduce the price of a rebuilt combine quite a bit by picking and choosing used parts.”
“It would be tough to match up all the parts,” warns Derrick Rohe with Worthington Ag Parts, “Sometimes a difference of only a couple digits in serial numbers is the difference between a circuit board or gearcase that will or won’t work with the rest of the machine.”
So, it’s theoretically possible to build a Psycho-Billy Cadillac combine one piece at a time, but it would cost as much or more as a new machine. The question is, what model year would it be?
“Well, it’s an oh-eight, oh-nine, twenty-ten, twenty-eleven, twenty-twelve corn-eatin,’ self-propelled monster machine…”
Dan Anderson uses his hands-on experience with farm machinery repairs, field operations and technology to share practical tricks and fixes.
