The Classic Machinery Network

We started the Spring Barley harvest yesterday.....22 year old Massey 865 running like a clock, herewith some pictures from today.....started around 2:00pm finished 9:45pm in the dark, moistures were below 15% all the time, got down as low as 13.2%....
If you look carefully, you can see a "Starks Harvesters" sticker on the Combine Windscreen, for those of you who remember, Starks Harvesters (Dale Starks) featured in the "Yellow Trail from Texas" documentary made by the BBC about custom harvesters in the US. My Brother In-Law, whose machine this is worked for several years with Dale on the US Harvest in the late 70's and early 80's. Dale ran 5 or 6 Massey 760 combines at that time. The 865 is a direct descendant from the 760 and basically the same.

Grain carting courtesy of Ford / New Holland 8260 ( 11 years old) and TM140 (less that 1 year old). These two machines are virtually identical...

John, you probably know already but that prog. is out on DVD now

Hi Jeremy, yep, I did know,in fact I was watching it a few nights ago. The driver of this 865 is mentioned on the DVD cover as providing some of the still shots for the DVD.

Thanks John for the photos-no I don't have one just an interest in combines,we have mostly New Holland in this area plus a few JD and Claas.

Neil

hi john,
i'm thinking about getting an 865, have you had any problems with yours at all? anything else i should know about them? we've run an 760 for the past 5 years absolutely fine.
sam

agric sam wrote:hi john,
i'm thinking about getting an 865, have you had any problems with yours at all? anything else i should know about them? we've run an 760 for the past 5 years absolutely fine.
sam

The 865 belongs to my brother in-law, he is the expert. As I'm sure you know, the 865 is basically a more modern version of the 760, but more or less identical with most of the parts interchangeable. I'd recommend you try and get a powerflow table as they are a lot better than the normal ones. We've been using the 865 for a few years now with no problems of any consequence. Brother in-law has worked on Massey 760/865s since the late 70s and wouldn't have anything else !

I'm not sure what the parts availability is like for these old horses now, maybe you can advise, John......I'd say that essentially it's what they would term an 'historical product', it was not really what you'd call a main-stream combine for the U.K. market back then so unlikely you'll find majority of parts off the shelf.....Massey bits were never renown for being cheap, add to which if you have a long lead time on a unique part, say the straw walker crank which heard was a bit suss (friend of a friend ran a 755 a few years back) - it may leave you parked up just when you really need to be cutting corn.

RichardJW~ wrote:I'm not sure what the parts availability is like for these old horses now, maybe you can advise, John......I'd say that essentially it's what they would term an 'historical product', it was not really what you'd call a main-stream combine for the U.K. market back then so unlikely you'll find majority of parts off the shelf.....Massey bits were never renown for being cheap, add to which if you have a long lead time on a unique part, say the straw walker crank which heard was a bit suss (friend of a friend ran a 755 a few years back) - it may leave you parked up just when you really need to be cutting corn.

Yes, Richard is right. We have many spares acquired over the years, and a complete parts machine. Also a fellow enthusiast has 6 of them (865s that is), plus quantities of spares. I suspect it would be very difficult to get new spares from MF (or AGCO, I guess they are now). These machines were far more popular in USA and Canada (the latter is where they were made) than in the UK. Nevertheless, they are a well built and easy to work on machine with relatively few problems (the latter due in no small amount to the long history going back to the 760 allowing design problems to be elliminated).

I own a massey 755 combine with powerflow header, been trying to find out a bit about it, can't seem to really find much, only 750's,760's,865's but never really a mention of 755, can anyone here tell me a bit about it?

Andyj wrote:I own a massey 755 combine with powerflow header, been trying to find out a bit about it, can't seem to really find much, only 750's,760's,865's but never really a mention of 755, can anyone here tell me a bit about it?

Hi Andy,
Whereabouts are you located ?
Is your 755 in running order, do you use it regularly ?
What width is the powerflow table ?
Lot's of questions to a question I know, however, whilst I myself don't know enough to answer your question, I think I 'know a man who can'
John.