John Deere chopper

We have a JD model 35 chopper. We have been working this past weekend filling bags with corn silage. We run a two row wide head on the chopper, pulled with our 4020.

Relatively new to chopping corn (last year was our first year)

Now for the questions.....

The chopper is doing a fine job, cutting real nice....but, kinda slow going in good corn, 1st gear is as fast as the chopper head/feed rolls can take the corn. Tractor has plenty of power, but try second, or some spots of the field 1st is to much......

What is a model of a chopper that has more capacity? The chopper is a good machine, but the corn head is WORE OUT, and the chopper needs some attention as well....been thinking of totally going through them both....but wondered if I should find a bigger model....then go through it...

Opinions appreciated, thanks

HP for a bigger chopper would not be a concern....have a 4440 that runs the bagger now...don't really need that much HP on the bagger.

That chopper should eat corn faster then the 4020 can pull it it must need new feed roles. Make sure that it don't have a sheered pin in the bottom feed role where the knuckle hooks to the shaft then the top 1 would do all of the work and make for slow feeding.

I'd pick up a 3970 before I went dumping money into a 35 to make it work. The heads are roughly the same anyway. I think the only difference is that the 3970 requires a jaw clutch to be on the head's drive shaft and the old heads don't have that but can be adapted. Around here were can buy 3940-3970 class harvesters for 500-1500 and often find the heads for 200-500 in workable condition. So start collecting...
As far as your present problem goes... make sure you've got the filler bars removed from the front feed roll flutes. Also make sure the rubbers in the gathering chains are sync'd or they tend to not feed so good. Personally I'd say if you have broken shear pins in the feed roll drive... it's NOT going to feed at all. At least the later machines would not.

Rod

Are you wanting to stay with Deere or go to a New Holland or CaseIH or something?

I had a 3800 that I pulled with a 4040 and didn't have much better luck than you're having,so in a Deere I'd move up to a 3970 or some such thing.

I went from the 3800 to a CaseIH 781. Had a little more capacity but I still wasn't happy with it. I've got an 881 now. That's got all the capacity I need now with the 135 horse White 2-135.

To replace the 35, would be JD models 3940 or 3950.

What length of cut are you running. Must be on the shortest to take that much power. If you can use a longer length of cut, change the sprocket(s) for feed roll drive.

Also the fan/blower might be adjustable for speed. High speed is usually not needed for corn. Slowing it down saves power.

the best thing I have to say about my model 35 is that it's GONE. your money is better spent on a more modern machine. I went to a new Holland 790 and it's a much more capable machine with a huge production run which should guarantee parts for many years.

Will check the feed roll drives. We are chopping a fine cut. I did notice one of the springs holding the top feed roll down was broke, so I will be fixing that. It just seems the machine should eat more.

I have chopped 100"s of acers with a 35 and a 4020 and in my experience it is lack of horsepower that slows you down not chopper capacity.I think you need to go over your cornhead make sure the cutoff knives are adjusted and sharp(like to set mine up to cut paper)make sure gathering belts are good and in time.You need to make sure both feed roll springs are hooked and all feed rolls are working.With a two row you probaly want to use the small side of the large feedroll drive sprocket.(If the harvester had a one row head it will more than likely have the little sprocket which is to fine a cut,we run the large side of big sprocket)Sharpen your knives sharp and set the shear bar as close as possible.If your shearbar is wore down and rounded it will pull hard.Do not forget that there is a bolt in the middle of the shear bar that must be loosened before adjusting it.We did custom work for years with a 4020 and a 35 with no problems.Now if you want to go newer look at a 3940 or 50 to pull with 4020 if you want to use 4440 a 3960-3970 might be better.The Deere harvester pulls much easier than NH or Gehl and has less parts.The NH 824 cornhead is better than a Deere and there are adapters to put them on a Deere.A friend and his brother each have one and would not go back to a Deere head.We still have our 35 but now use a 3940 behind our 4520 mainly because we like the small knives and knife sharpener and quicker adjust shear bar especially in hay.

I would not put much money in the JD 35 and old header. You can spend not that much and jump up to a JD 3960-3970 and have a lot more capacity. If you do not want Iron-Guard then go with a 3960 chopper. They have the dura knife cutter head just not iron guard. I have seen real nice ones barely go for $2500. You can look around and find them cheaper than that. Good tow row wide corn heads are not bring much, $300-450 will usually buy you a pretty good Yellow. A later green head will bring $1500-2000.

I would put the JD 4440 on the chopper and the JD 4020 on the bagger.

Last year we picked up a NH 892 for $700 w/ a pickup head, and then found a 880 2 row wide head for another $500. The head is in fairly rough shape, but we replaced a Fox 3000 so it was still a step up.

We run it with an Oliver 1855 (dynoed 105 on the PTO) and the chopper can handle much more than the 18 so it NEVER plugged in corn last year. The 880 head did a much better than our fox ever did with down corn. Last year we had a 15 acre field, and most of it I could only chop in one direction. The chopper and head we figure paid for itself in that field alone.

This spring I picked up another 892 for $200 because the guy was going to scrap it out. He was having electrical troubles which I'm sure I can either fix or lock out (metalert issues) for now and make that one run again as well.

If you have time, keep your eyes open. The right deal will find you, you just need to keep looking.

The NH is much easier to sharpen and set the knives/shear bar over the Fox, and in return it ran easier because it was much easier to keep the knives sharp. I could go a little bit faster as well. Last year we had some corn over 12' and I could still go in 1st over/2nd under.

We started out looking for a 790, but then this one came up and we jumped on it. Glad we did

Donovan from Wisconsin

If you really want to speed things up go get an old New Idea Uni. They can be had pretty cheap and will out chop all the machines listed by the other commenters. We used to chop with a 3 row head, and would keep 2 drivers on 3 wagons busy. We chopped the poorest corn too. One was an old 702 diesel and then a 708 with the same Perkins as the Massey combines had. T354 138 HP the 702 had a V-6 Detroit at only about 100hp. The 767 chopper had the sharpener mounted on the chopper so knives were easily kept sharp. I used to keep the shear bar tight enough it ticked as it went around by hand.