A SOS tranny rebuilder....

[Robert_in_NY]

The farmer who owns the Gregorie has around 400 acres that he farms, the Korvan owner has a couple hundred acres of grapes. But he has a lot of land and as he sells off a chunk he invest it instead of paying a lot of tax. Another farmer is parteners with another farmer and they harvest together. They have around 300 acres of grapes combined and demoed a NH/Braud before buying a Gregorie. The farmer who had the Int. CR and traded for the Korvan has around 350 acres. All of them mainly raise Concords with some wine varieties recently planted. The wineries here usually buy their juice from my friends pressing plant. The bigger wineries are out towards the Finger Lakes and I think a lot of them press their own grapes as a lot of wine varieties get trucked to the Finger Lake region of NY. I know my friend who has the pressing plant trucks juices all over the US and is constantly expanding.

The my friend who owns the Korvan just bought two Gondola's and 6 20' boxes for his flatbeds. Now two tender operators can keep up with the Korvan and have time to check the bin on the truck, move semi's around or just take a break. The Gondolas and bins have really sped things up for harvesting. Plus the operators are in cab tractors now instead of open stations so they are more comfortable and out of the weather. The bad side is only one of the plants here is set up to accept the 20' bins but it is one of the largest plants.

I really do wish I can find my other pictures but they must be on a disc at my house in town. Hopefully Monday I can stop and look for the disc as it is bothering me.

 

[Kaliburz]

I bought the operation out early last year. Came w/ the CR harvester, 2 Farm Hand 3-4 ton grape gondolas, 2 semi trucks & trailers and 4 bulk bins (old fiberglass- 8 ton cap.). Most of the equipment is older then me....

From the history of the equipment, the fiberglass tanks and trailers supposable came from 'back east'. I'm guessing the Tri-state area. Most everyone here runs bulk tanks. There are a few that still use wooden bins w/ plastic liners. Some even had stainless steel bins made!

Here's a link of what most folks have around here:
http://www.bluelinemfg.com/internet 2/internet.JPG

That is a 10 ton tank.

This year, I doubled up my trailer and was hauling about 29-30ton each night. They're small trailers, only 27 feet long. With the converter I bought, it's about 63 feet and I have enough axles to be legal to 105,500....

Oh, by the way, I'm a Welch grower- Concord and Niagara grapes. I'm about 40 min away from the local Welch plant in WA.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

Those are the type of bins my friend just changed to. However, the local plants are not set up for them. The Welch plant is so depending on where the loads are going is which setup they run. Hopefully the other plants will update their receiving areas.

I don't think you are much younger then I am as I am only 29 and these guys on here think I am a younging still

What did you do to double up your trailers? Did you buy a dollie to pull tandem?

Our contract is with Cliffstar which is a juice company. We also have Carriage House here which is a food processing plant and they make juice, jams and jellies. Welch use to be real big in Westfield but with the other grape growing regions getting bigger they scaled back here some. They have a large plant in PA still that takes a lot of the grapes grown here. The main varieties are Concord with Niagara a distant second. We are looking to buy some more vineyards and depending how much we want to spend are able to buy around 200 acres from a farmer wanting to retire. We have to look the vineyards over better but they have not been taken care of the last few years and need a lot of work. Last year they only managed 2 ton to the acre because they won't spend the time and money to take care of them properly. We averaged 5.5 ton and all we did was fertilize and spray as we didn't have the time to trim the grapes with as late as it was when the deal was finalized. Our sugar was 16.76 so we were rather happy with that vineyard considering the shape it was in.

There is a custom harverster who runs 2 pull behind Korvans and 3-4 Gondolas. He is usually quite busy. A lot of the farmers who have their own harvesters will take on small side jobs if they can schedule things into their schedule.

Right now all I have for grapes is our tractors, weed sprayer, crop sprayer and our brush chopper. On one hand it is nice to not have a lot of other equipment to take care of but if we continue expanding then it will make more sense to add more equipment.

 

[Kaliburz]

Oh heck.... I am OLDER! Not by much..... 31

There are a few places for sale here. One place we picked is 80 acres grapes (about 100 in land total). All contracted with Welch & for sale for $480,000- including the contract and a small house- old house, built 1920. No equipment included, just the land. Half his place is good production, the other half is ...... non existant (it's in drip irrigation and wasn't watered much). The low section brings his average down, but we ended up picking a truck load (29 tons) out of 10-12 rows (1/4 mile long rows, 10 foot spacings) in one section. Another place is about 90 acres land, 70 acres or so in grapes- also Welch contract, going for 400,000 (or was it 500,000). Newer plantings. I don't recall the running average for tonnage.

Yes, I picked up converter dollie. (I poured through the state handbook for combinations, weights, bridge law, etc.) Looks like it was a 'home grown' unit. Tandem axle, sliding 5th wheel and adjustable tung. Looks like it started life out as the sliding axle assembly off of a refer. trailer. Most folks run 22ton between 2 or 3 tanks, depending on size on a min. 40 footer trailer. Some push the 30-32 ton with a 40ft and 24ft combo. I kind of love having two small trailers since I can take corners really easy.

I recognize the Cliffstar name. One of the Welch/National Grape newsletter showed what the cash market price for grapes were this year in your area compared to last year and here out west. Its nice to have a few places buying grapes. Here, there isn't that many "major" players. Most require contract (Smuckers for example.) If I recall, your region was over $200 a ton while here, it was $180-190

Mind if I ask how much custom harvesters charge per ton in your area? Here, they're between $35-40 per ton (with about a 4-5 ton min.- after that it goes to the per acre charge.) What was the diesel prices for you folks this year? Off road was running $2.50 I think when I bought 600gal late spring. On road was between $2.80-3.24 this year.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

I don't know what the custom rates are around here. My friend harvest for me and he has never gave me a bill, of course we do a lot of work for him and don't give him a bill either so I think he is trying to teach us a lesson

When we recently priced off road fuel it was around $2.29 a gallon about 2 months ago. I think on road diesel is about $3.60/gallon now. We were shocked at the off road price when we were quoted it and filled one of our tanks. We were going to have the second tank filled but were trying to decide about moving it first and then I got hurt and we haven't thought about it until now. I don't know how much fuel I am going to use this year.

The farm land I mentioned we were told they want to start out at $2500/acre and go from there. For the shape of the vineyard and the type of ground it is not worth more then $1500/acre as it will require a lot to bring it up and with fertilizer prices constantly going up as well as fuel the worse the vineyard is the more it matters. Our neighbor sold his vineyard off that was around 100 acres on good ground for over $3000/acre. They averaged 5-8 ton per acre this year as the low spots had higher averages then the high spots. We did not have much rain at all this year and it hurt most of the crops. Normally they would have averaged 8-12 ton on that field. Of course now a lot of people are buying vineyards and ripping the grapes out to put houses in so the prices may go up soon. Out go the grapes, in goes the double wide :-/

Oh yeah, we get more money for out grapes because they are better then yours ;-)

 

[Robert_in_NY]

I finally found an article I wrote and posted pictures to online and while you have to be a member of the magazine to read the article I can steal my own pictures back

The pictures are small as Jay downsized them for the article but they are of my friends Pic-Ryte. The one with the Pic-Ryte badge is another friends cab version that he bought new in 2002.

If I recall correctly, I was told that Pic-Ryte bought Chysolm Ryder which was the basis for their harvesters. This may not be true though as I am only trying to recall what I have been told by another individual.

I also asked my friend about CR junkyards and he said he has never heard of one. He doesn't even think there are very many CR's parked behind any barns anymore as people have been buying them up and fixing them all up to put back into service since new machines cost around $250k.

As for parts he didn't really say there was any one particular place to get them but he did think you shouldn't have any trouble getting parts where you are because there were a lot of CR's shipped over there so someone local should be supplying parts.

As for the axle problems he said they all had issues with the axle but it was easy to repair so he didn't even seem bothered by it.

 

[Kaliburz]

Thanks for the pics and the info! That PR kind of looks like a CR 800. If the engine is slug on the left side, right above the rear tire, then I'm sure it's practically the same. Is this the article you wrote:
novgrape

Popped up when Googleing Pic-Ryte. OH, looks like Pic-Ryte was built locally. Too bad they went TU and closed shop. I suppose if a Pic-Ryte became available or a Chisolm-Ryder 800, either would be nice.

Here is a pic of a CR800, but I'm sure you have plenty around there, but just incase....
Used Harvesters

Oh, this web page says that CR was bought by them.....
McConnell - Marc Tractor Series

I'm sure that if the Pic-Ryte is based on a prototype CR made, it what I see would be the next logical step in 'evolution' of the design.

Yes, there are a lot of CR's here. So, the rear axle snapping off is a common issue. So far, the only solution is one place who has a replacement made and sells for $1500 each.

I'm wondering if anyone in your area makes replacement axle stubs. Mainly the lower axle where the rear tire bolts to. Or has found a way to 'upgrade' to something heavier so they don't snap.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

That is my article, it was back when I was learning a lot still and my friend asked me to write an article about grape harvesting for his website. Gary Burmaster is building a nice winery and my father is doing the finish work inside right now (I would be helping except for this whole broke back thing ). He is the one who told me about the CR and Pic-Ryte connection.

My one friend has an CR800 and the Gregorie I pictured that is owned by another friend was bought from the dealer you posted the CR800's picture from.

I don't know what happened to Pic-Ryte as the picture in the article that shows the beaters is from a new Pic-Ryte that was bought in 2002 or 2003 as I can't remember but it was a new machine. Now all I see are Korvans and Gregories being bought here.

I do not know of anyone making any upgrade kits for the rear axle or anything of that nature. The guys just make due if something happens.

I am surprised my article came up like that as you were suppose to be a member in order to access articles. Maybe Jay was so impressed with my amazing writing and pictures he decided to open that article up for everyone to see in hopes of getting more members to sign up

 

[Kaliburz]

Well, I guess I'll ask the harvester repair guy I usually go to about Pic-Ryte. It seems odd that I haven't seen any around here... unless people painted them Chisholm-Ryder blue.

As I said, I'm gonna keep this old beast of mine going for as long as I can. And since the 'tractor portion' is pretty much 'new', I'm sure the rest of her can be brought up to snuff.

But you are right, with price of 'new' harvesters starting at $150,000 (well, Korvan was suppose to start in that range ten years ago), the old machines seem very tempting for someone to rebuild. Especially if they can do the work themselves.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

 

[Robert_in_NY]

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

You too