John Deere 105 combine pics

Here are a few pics of our 105 diesel shelling corn with Deere 444 corn head with factory poly snoots. Tom

Great pictures......the last two look like toys.

You have some very nice vintage equipment. I really like that last picture, looks like a beautiful piece of land to farm!

The 55 ,95 and 105 were the work horse of America, when i was in high school and still could be, like he is proving,i had a 106 and still got a 105 gas! Did you take them pictures with a drone?

This last picture is a wall hanger. Great American scene!

Great pictures! You have a really nice looking 105! Thanks for posting.

Just wondering what is the reason for having 3 different crops in small fields?

Contour strip cropping is used for erosion control on hillsides. Common practice in the hills of SW WI. Strips are laid out following the contour of the ground and alternate crops limit the amount of
exposure to erosion during the crop cycle. The pics are deceiving in that the land looks fairly flat but in reality it is steep enough to utilize contours. You do end up with some very odd shaped strips at
the edge of the field sometimes as is shown in the pics. Very nice pics of the combine and surrounding area. Look at satellite maps of SW WI and you will see a lot of contour farming being used.

Awsome pictures!Beautiful country. IMHO,those x5 series combines were the best combine built by anyone.I Run a 55'corn special'(313),and a 95/443.That last picture is post card quality.

Cliff gave a great explanation of hills and contours.Of the 200 acres of cropland our biggest field is 10 acres. Tom

They are drone pics. There is a fellow here in WI that takes pics for Big Tractor Power on Youtube. He came down and filmed the 105 and also some of picking corn with the 300 pulltype picker. Tom

That's kind of like we do with our furrow irrigated fields. The rows have to follow the direction of water flow.So you sometimes get some small and odd shaped fields.

Tom, was there two differant varieties of corn seeded on the field ?

(quoted from post at 10:57:03 11/12/20) Cliff gave a great explanation of hills and contours.Of the 200 acres of cropland our biggest field is 10 acres. Tom

Click to expand...

The pictures don't show that much slope. Beautiful photos. Thank you.

I had both a 55 and a 105.

They were good old basic workhorses. No frills or high tech, but they got the job done.

I remember once I was working on a custom job with the 55. There was a guy with an equivalent IH combine working for the same guy, and sometimes we overlapped into the same fields. The landowner asked how could he tally up what I cut?

Everything I cut, the landowner hauled to the elevator with my truck and equipment, so I told him to add up the bushels he hauled with my equipment and divide it by his average yield and I'd accept that as the number of acres I cut. Assuming he figured it right, I got paid for half again as many acres as the guy with the IH machine.

Contour farming video . We do kot get enough moisture to worry about erosion
Contour farming video

Your pictures really bring back the memories, mostly good memories. When the 105 first came out the naysayers were saying that monster combine could not be utilized here in Iowa because the corn could not be hauled away fast enough. Very few Iowa farmers had trucks back then. A 200 bushel barge wagon was considered big at that time. A four row combine was considered big.

Look at the last picture and look at the road. Roly-poly.

Nice pictures and nice looking combine. A fellow could let his imagination roam and think he was back in 1969 (other than the 40 series corn head which was an improvement) harvesting his corn.

great pictures! i always liked the looks of those series combines,
and to have a diesel 105, with a new style feeder house and corn head,
well that would be top of the line!

thanks for posting these pictures!

Nice pics. One of the best combines ever made. Around there anyway of all the combines made in the 60s, the 105 was the only one guys were still using in the late 90s. A testament to their durability and a company that backed them up.

My main combines for 45 years have been JI Case. Up until 4 years ago I used a Case 1660 for wheat, a different 1660 for beans and a 1665 with 6 row Case head for corn.

Wow....That is a nice looking machine.

Tom--Good looking ol 105--brings back memories. Dad had one in the 70's--only it was a 105 EB--gas--hydro--no quick tach feeder house. Ran a 635 corn head--really heavy--seems like we were always stuck--23.1x26 tires. He traded for a new 7700 in 1977--WOW--died and went to heaven--GOOD LUCK---Tee



Dad on the ground--Me on the ladder--early 70's

Tee I had a 635 head on a 105 EB only mine was not hydro. I dont know why I put up with that heavy noisy power robbing dinosaur head for 19 years. The extra fuel needed to power the head and the high priced parts would have paid for an intermediate feeder house and part of a 643 head.

I was fresh out of the Navy and was not farming my own but worked in town and helped my Dad alot. If I remember I spent about as much time under the cornhead as I did in the cab--weren't the snapping rolls driven by a 100 ft. roller chain and roll pins that always were sheared off? The Good Old Days--Thanks---Tee

I would love to have one of those but I've only ever seen one and its been long scrapped. I would like to know where you get parts and how you kept them going? I have a next door neighbor who is also a distant relative of mine ran a JD 105, MF Super 92, and a Case 1160 all together with his father back in the day. He had to sell the Case in the late 70s because the support and parts supply dried up. However, up to the 90s he could walk into any JD store around here and come out with what he needed for a 105 which is why it was the last combine to go of the three. Traded it off for a 1688 around 1992. Not be blunt but the only place I've seen guys running real Case combines is on the internet. And it seems like its only guys like Case nutty and John Saelie ex case dealers that could keep them going. Thats why I asked about parts. My 600 right now has a blow clean grain elevator and because its a Case there aren't any others around here to rob parts off of. So there is sits.

I just need to add my picture of the 105 we used until about 8-9 years ago. 105 corn special, diesel, hydro.

Can always get bearing and most belts. The Unusual belts can be got from Jaydeebelts.com. Replaced the bottom of the grain tank and the clean and return augers on all three with 20 ga. stainless steel sheeting. Have rebuilt the lower and upper ends of the clean grain elevators with ss also. Have had cast iron shaker parts break and remade them with steel. Not really much trouble with the machines and my ex-wife and I ran two over a lot of small grain, sunflowers and corn acres doing custom work.

What about high wear items like the concave/rasp bars, feeder house chains, beater grates.

Great looking pictures, Tom. The combine looks great, as do the fields. Now I have to find 105 pictures on the hard drive...

Good to see you Sunday!

I had a 435 on my 95 and I think it used 80 feet of drive chain. Big difference when it was switched to the late style feederhouse and 444. Tom

Nice pictures.

Rasp bars and such from Abilene Machine (don't know if they are in business and have those parts now) . Feeder house chain from Cartney bearing in Watertown SD and bolt my bars back on. Think it is CA-550 feeder chain. Concaves still seem to be in fair shape and thresh small grain beans and corn just fine. Seems there was a Lowen (sp) or such that we got bars from also.

Thanks. Brings back memories. 25 years ago I thought I was going to get into the wheat crop business. Bought an overly used JD 95 and did primarily hydraulic cylinders restoration. After completing that, I felt that there was not a hydraulic cylinder that I couldn't rebuild as it had seemingly every type of "how to get it apart" there was. The movers and shakers were good enough, the engine responded to some cleanup but otherwise was ok, not pristine but ok, belts and tires ok. Got it in working order and was ready to go.

Got my first field to cut....whoopee....I have arrived......yeah right. Things were going pretty good and I unloaded the hopper several times. Desided to leave the chute out as it had a chain binder and chain (PO rigging) holding it in the dump position and was a pain to move back and forth. Come upon a larger than what you find in your yard, utility pole and execute the 24' header neatly around the pole complimenting my self on getting it right my first time with that experience.

Next thing you know, a couple of seconds later..........WHAM!!!!!!!!! Daaaaaa! The unloading chute that used to be attached to the combine was no longer attached. Son-in-law came with me pulling the header on a trailer so he was available. Finished the field by him holding a piece of 2'x16' (give or take) corrugated sheet in a U shape so I could unload into the customer's barn.

Epitaph: This field was adjacent to a main road in the area. Local came by as I finished working and stopped. In short, he bought the combine (for a song....good riddance) in the field as it sat. He repaired it and used it for quite a few years before he bought a 9000 series.

Parts are around but not like they used to be since a few years back when scrap prices sent thousands of them to china,, as for concaves,, I weld them up and hard surface them before they are shot,, I have three for the 42" machines all ready to go,, also have new rub bars on hand,, but to be honest I have only changed two sets of rub bars in over 50 years of running these machines,, I do not cut the acres I used to either,, int he 90's I was cutting 1200-2000 acres a year with them,, now 250 or so average in grains this due to the fact I now have to haul grain 150 miles one way to sell any more,, in the last five years of running I have changed out two original belts,, and will be pulling my main variable pulley off the 1660 as I can hear they are getting a bit of noise in them,, I have also bought 10' of #80 chain to replace on the 1660 main combine drive,, not bad to get 32xx hrs out of the factory one, I think,, so far I have never had to replace a single feeder house chain,, I do have several good used ones for all three sizes SP machines I have though if I do need to,, one thing I do need to replace on a couple headers is the reel boards,, the 600 and 1660 I run are both original there also,, on my CASE fb page I have guys all of the world still running CASE machines and there are more running here yet than is generally known, I know one man who runs three 660's to cut all his crops yet,, all have scour cleans on them and have been well taken care of,, Case only held a 7% market share of combine sales in 1969,, the bean counters decided to go with being the Big Power Specialist starting in 1970 was the reason combines were dropped at the end of the 1970 production year,, as far as I found the last new machine in stock was sold in 1974, they did build the 960 over seas along with the 330 baler in to the mid 70's but USA production stopped in December of 1970, Case guaranteed any parts for them until 1980,, we had no problem getting parts to that date,, then it was a hit and miss,, I bought out several old Case dealers parts stock but thankfully I have used very few items from my parts supply, me being in small grain production I am sure keeps wear down on my machine over other areas as does the dry climate,, we never once as dealer took a second chair to any brand combine, if you could get the product over the cutter bar we could save it,, and produce a sample and grain quality no other ones could follow,, not saying there was not other really good machines out there at all just saying what i seen on the demos and later with me running various brands for custom cutters here over the years,,