My dad and I spent the weekend putting the NI 319 mounted picker on our IH 656. The picker has set in the shed for at least the past 15 years. We feel pretty good about remembering how to put the under carriage on, mounting and moving the husking bed, mounting the sheller unit on and finally tonight getting the gathering unit on. We only had a couple of things that stumped us for awhile and only one pinched finger!! Now tomorrow we can grease it up and lube the chains so we can hear it run, crossing my fingers that nothing is stuck or frozen!
It would be great to take it out to the field for a test drive but too much rain the past few days in southeast Minnesota to do that. I will have to wait until later this week or weekend for that, as long as picker is working. It could use a good bath to wash off any build up of stuff from sitting in the shed. I will try to post some pictures in the near future of the tractor and picker.
The guys who rent out the farm plant 38" rows with a brand new Kinzie planter and have given us the green light to go out and pick/shell some of their corn.
Thank you to my dad for helping and putting up with this crazy idea! Thank you to you guys on the Corn Picking Forum for all of the stories, pictures, and ideas that inspired me to get the picker on and hopefully out in the field soon!!