Steel wheel wheat drill

Has anybody ever tried to change out the hub and put rubber tires in place of the steel wheels. Is it possible ? I bought a old real clean Vanbrunt steel wheel drill and would like to change it over to put regular tires on it. Or should I just leave the steel wheels on ?

Might be hard to find rubber tires as tall as the metal rims, also the metal rims on it have bushings not bearing so it was not made for high speed going down a road. I would just use it as is or I have seen were someone welded a 3 pt hitch set up for one and cut the tongue off that would be great to able to pick it up off the steel wheels enough to transport it. I have one with wooden wheel wish they were steel. Good luck with it.

It is worth $200 more on the steel than the 36" rubber that was an option. And those tires now if you would have the wheels are a few hundred dollars each.

Some farmers preferred steel wheels because the rubber (low wheel) left tracks that would be visible and were considered to promote washing.

I bought a new McCormick MF low rubber wheel and after selling it I bought an old high steel wheel JD Van Brunt used and the JD was a much better drill. The McCormick was a fluted feed and the JD was one that the setting was by selecting the speeds on a cone shaped cog wheel It was much more precise and resisted stopping up from trash in the seed.

I wore the McCormick out doing custom work and sold it and joined the army. Later bought the old JD and still have it in the barn.

Your JD drill had the double run metering system. It was an option on the MF drill and I have that configuration. Fluted feed was less expensive to produce but also more prone to damage seed and does not meter seed as accurately. I've got a JD 520 that was built in the 80's which has double run but they are rare. Don't believe anyone makes a double run version today

I grew up with the McCormick fluted feed system and that was an easy to change from wheat to oats to beans drill, could easly do it in 20 minuts and still have skin on my hands. When the fertilizer box rusted thru found a John Deere FB that had been used verry little. That thing would take a half day to change over and my hands were all bleeding from the stuppid design, hated that thing. After Dad was gone I found a McCormick to restore and use but before it got done I had to quit farming. Sold both several years ago to a dealer and he still has them. Both low rubber. The only drills that are selling are the Oliver wood box steel wheel drills and they are easy to change over but most never get changed off the oats setting and the oats are harvested for grain in most casses. And I could never see where the flutted feed did any dammage to the seed, cropps got worse when went to the Deere drill. I can see why the doubble run would not be made today and not because of price.

Leroy
What was the first model JD drill that was fluted-feed? Was it the model B or was there an earlier model? I remember back in the late 60's selling parts for a Model EE but I can't remember if fluted-feed was available on them or just double-run. I do remember the parts catalog for a model EE was in a thick catalog that also contained other implements. The parts catalog for a EE is hiding on JDparts as I can't locate it.

The only JD drill I had was that FB that about made me want to tear it apart and junk it, I hated it that bad.

According to the "FB" parts catalog & my memory the FB drill only came in fluted feed seed delivery which could be set on each side of the grain box by moving the lever(parts key #32). That's not hard to set if the feed wheels aren't frozen. Putting the seed doors up if they had been lowered for cleaning in correct position could be a pita.

Half a day to change over? From oats to beans would require that the hinged doors be flipped to uncover the large seed side of the double run and cover the small seed side. Requires about five minutes. Then you might need to reset the gate levers and if required might take another 5-10 minutes. Reset the transmission to the seeding rate another 3-5 minutes and you are good to go. In contrast a fluted feed requires that you shift the shaft driving the flutes and change the gate levers. I just don't see the fluted feed being all that quicker. Perhaps ten minutes. Do agree that with hard seed such as wheat or oats difference in seed damage isn't a major issue. However with large seed particularly soybeans, I seen many farmers complain of excessive seed damage with the fluted feed; some claimed near 40%. I never saw that much damage but it was easy to determine there was more damaged bean seed with the fluted feed drill as compared to the double run. Also prevailing opinion is that the double run speed spacing is also better than the fluted feed. My experience supports this observation. Again not a great issue with wheat or oats but certainly an issue with beans and for the few who would dare try, corn. Fluted feed has such a poor record with beans that many have opted to convert it over to the SR belt system which not only helps seed spacing but is also easier to set accurate seeding rates. We had a steel wheel, wooden box Oliver drill with double run and single disk openers for primarily wheat and oats. It did sow some beans but that was before my time.

Never worked in purchasing but had a few years in design and from that experience I can manage a fairly good cost comparison/analysis of competing designs. The double run has twice the seed wheels, hinged covers to close one side of the feed wheels, and twice the number of lever controlled gates. But the true stake thru the heart for the double run is the need for a transmission. Older drills use a disk with bumps in a circles at different radii. You set the "follower" on the bump circle that provides the desired drive rate. A crude but effective transmission. My JD is much more elegant. An oil bath gear box has external levers that are used to move the internal spur gears. Choose the desired seeding and set the two levers so the correct gears are engaged. I would conservatively estimate the double run manufacturing costs are more than twice that of the fluted feed version. I've seen design changes made to save 25 cents, so not at all surprised that the superior double run was eventually discarded for the lower cost fluted feed.

Those feed doors are what was the problem and the position for wheat would not work for soybeans and still needed a different position for oats.