Antique IH Grain Drill

[RedRock]

Owner says it just needs grease and WD40 to put this International Harvester Grain drill back in service. No idea exactly how old it is but any info you guys have on the likelyhood of restoring this antique would be appreciated. Would be my first restoration ever attempted but for the price, even if I'm just left with a couple of antique wheels, seems worth the asking price.

 

[JoeinTX]

Doesn't sound impossible at all. The gearing on these older drills wasn't that tightly fit or intricate to begin with. If there's any rust or corrosion a little oil or grease should help ease it out and the more you work the moving parts they should shape up.

Are the wheels free moving?

 

[flusher]

Owner says it just needs grease and WD40 to put this International Harvester Grain drill back in service. No idea exactly how old it is but any info you guys have on the likelyhood of restoring this antique would be appreciated. Would be my first restoration ever attempted but for the price, even if I'm just left with a couple of antique wheels, seems worth the asking price.

That drill looks like a rust bucket. I'd hesitate to take on that project.

Several years ago I restored two Minneapolis Moline P3-6 grain drills (10 ft wide, 20 hoes, single disc openers, dual grass boxes with the large seed/fertilizer box).

Here's what they looked like when I got them (paid $275 for the pair)



I used parts from both drills to make one good unit. The donor unit ended up as a lawn ornament.



I added a hydraulic ram to the working unit to lift the openers when turning the drill.



And use it to plant Kanota oats on my 6-acre hayfield.

 

[JoeinTX]

Flusher, your two old MM drills look just about like the two old JD drills I use every year to sow.

They've spent their entire 60-odd years outside and get used about one week a year. For a period of that time, maybe 20-30 years ago, they sat unused for many seasons until my dad resurrected them in the early 1980s. Unlike yours, they do have modern conveniences like rubber tires, however.

Every year it's: grease and oil the moving parts, gouge and clean the feeders and chutes, make sure everything still semi-meshes once the gears are engaged, and let 'er rip. They don't fail and probably won't in my lifetime.

Sandusky's old drill is a project but I wouldn't shy away from it all especially assuming, as he mentioned, that he can have it for peanuts.

 

[flusher]

Flusher, your two old MM drills look just about like the two old JD drills I use every year to sow.

They've spent their entire 60-odd years outside and get used about one week a year. For a period of that time, maybe 20-30 years ago, they sat unused for many seasons until my dad resurrected them in the early 1980s. Unlike yours, they do have modern conveniences like rubber tires, however.

Every year it's: grease and oil the moving parts, gouge and clean the feeders and chutes, make sure everything still semi-meshes once the gears are engaged, and let 'er rip. They don't fail and probably won't in my lifetime.

Sandusky's old drill is a project but I wouldn't shy away from it all especially assuming, as he mentioned, that he can have it for peanuts.

Glad to hear that other folks are into restoring and using old iron. My drill outdoors also, covered with a plastic tarp. I coated the galvanized parts with cold galvanize spray paint which is holding up pretty well after about 3 years. I spray the feed cups with diesel whenever I remember to do it and keep the drive gears lubed. Not much to keeping the drill functional. I used to hitch it to the drawbar but changed to a ball hitch arrangement attached to the 3pt hitch so I can easily raise and lower the hitch on the drill.

 

[RedRock]

That drill looks like a rust bucket. I'd hesitate to take on that project.....

Well, I found out the price is so low because the owner has no way to pick it up and put it on my trailer. Not sure how well it would survive the bouncy trailer ride half way across Texas anyway. I think I was enamored with the idea at first but all things considered, you're right, it's not really practical. I'd be out several hundred dollars just getting it from A to B.

 

[flusher]

Well, I found out the price is so low because the owner has no way to pick it up and put it on my trailer. Not sure how well it would survive the bouncy trailer ride half way across Texas anyway. I think I was enamored with the idea at first but all things considered, you're right, it's not really practical. I'd be out several hundred dollars just getting it from A to B.

Good decision.

I was fortunate in that the drills I bought were at a neighbor's place about 1.5 miles away. Just hooked them to the hitch on my F150, pulled the drills out of the weeds in the corral where they were stashed, and slowly drove the back roads to my place.