56 corn planter

I'm going to look at a 56 international corn planter
Saturday it's a 4 row but it doesn't have any boxes
on the front (maybe fertilzer) not sure. What should
I look out for on these planters not to fimilar with
these. And it has markers on it

Oh boy, it's been a long time since I had the 58, which is about like a 56. I put many thousands of acres through it and it was a six row narrow.

What comes to mind is wear of bevel gears and the hex shafts. The hex center of the bevel gears wears and the teeth wear thin. I had a few hex shafts on the row units twist off at a cotter pin hole so check those shafts going back to the units for cracks at the holes the cotter pins go through at, if my memory serves me right, the bevel gears. I think there's a cotter and a few shims at the bevel gears. If the planter has been properly serviced those cotter pins and shims will be caked in grease. It's pretty hard to check the clutch, but the clutch mating surfaces should be square and not worn rounded. If worn rounded the clutch will separate and slip/chatter under load planting heavy populations like planting beans. Probably every moving part will a little loose and worn but those old girls can still plant pretty well when they're worn.

Need plates? I have over a hundred of them. Jim

we ran a 6 row 56 planter for 8 years. while it was an improvement over the jd 494a it still had some weak areas. the closing system didn't allow for good seed to soil contact. the markers are weak. have to have a lot of plates. the knockout wheel didn't always work well. I highly recommend skipping this planter and look for a jd 7000. much better planter and tons of parts are still available through the dealer or shoup. not sure of parts availability for this planter. we finally started getting great corn stands when I bought a jd 7200. a cheap planter can cost you a lot of money.

jmho
good luck!

Duane

No fertilizer is good. There aren't many of those left where the fertilizer system isn't all rotted away.

The seed drive system is pretty much bulletproof.

Look at the disk openers for the seed, both the diameter of the disks and the condition of the bearings. We would have a bearing go bad about every year.

Another part that would break frequently is the packer wheel. Could be just the fact that we were trying to plant in cobblestones at times, but we'd lose a packer wheel every couple of years.

Watch the seed boxes if you narrow up a 4-row to much less than 36". The transport wheels will throw rocks up and break the seed boxes.

As others have said they are not the best planter in the world compared to more modern units, but they were the cat's galoshes back in their day. They'll still put in a few acres of sweet corn, and do an acceptable job at it.

A JD7000 would be a better choice if you want to plant a lot of acres, and you want laser-accurate seed placement, but you're going to pay a lot more for one. An IH 56 should cost you <$500, but a JD7000 will start at $2500 and go up from there. Depends on what you're going to do with it.

I'll 'third' the motion for getting a 7000. I replaced the 58 with a 7000 and wished I would have done it many years sooner. Jim

I bought a 4 row a few years back to replace a JD. $300., narrowed the rows. One of the least expensive and economical investments I ever made. Glad I did.

I want to narrow it to 30 inch rows I
did it with my 2 row IH planter

That's a pretty old planter. If you like IH maybe look for a Cyclo 800 plate planter. Saw a nice one sell in Ohio a couple months back for $800 and that was ebay where the stuff runs high.

(quoted from post at 07:05:12 02/04/14) . . . the closing system didn't allow for good seed to soil contact. . . .

Click to expand...

hat is frequently a sign of worn out runners. The leading edge of the runners should extend lower than the seed drop portion of the runner. If the one you are looking at isn't a runner type, this doesn't apply, but worn out disk openers may cause similar problems (no experience with them!).

mkirsch,

So...it was the cat"s galoshes, huh? Never heard that one.

I"ve used some machines that were the "Cat"s meow"? They were that good!
LA in WI

(quoted from post at 08:12:14 02/04/14) I want to narrow it to 30 inch rows I
did it with my 2 row IH planter

Click to expand...

It can be done, but it is pretty tight when you get there.

You need the rectangular seed hoppers for the outer row units. The round hoppers will rub on the transport wheels at 30".

There are two holes in the arm that holds the row unit. You will want to put 3/8x3" bolts in each of these holes to block rocks from being kicked up into the outer seed hoppers, as I mentioned earlier. Check the bolts frequently. If one is bent, broken, or missing, replace it IMMEDIATELY, or you will loose a hopper full of seed.

(quoted from post at 11:11:43 02/04/14) mkirsch,

So...it was the cat"s galoshes, huh? Never heard that one.

I"ve used some machines that were the "Cat"s meow"? They were that good!
LA in WI

Click to expand...

You've never heard the story of "Puss in Boots?"

Are the brackets for 30" wheel spacing on the round tube on a 56? On the 58 I had there were transport wheel brackets for both 38" and 30" rows. I changed it back and forth
Several times during the first years I had it. 4-38" Rows for corn and 6-30" rows for beans. We had our crops custom harvested and combines with 6 row 30" corn heads were hard to get.

Like what was mentioned before it's a dependable planter but if you plant many acres for a living the 7000 Deere will pay for itself. Jim

The planted I'm getting is free and I'm
only going to do about 7 acres a year with
it

Can't beat that. If you do need plates I have some hanging in the barn and it's possible I might have the size you need. Jim

While a lot of the 56 planters had steel fertilizer boxes, the later ones used fiberglass boxes. My 56 has the fiberglass ones, and they are still in great shape. The augers are toast, but they can be pretty easily replaced.

I concur on the seed opener disks sometimes wearing out the bearings. I need to replace the bearings on a couple of my opener disks. Then again, the soil around where the planter was used is like the Rocky Road to Dublin.

what did you narrow the rows to? is it hard?