[manires]

hi yall, I recently bought a jd 4400 , It comes with a 36 inch wide lo tin 444, was wonderin if I can modify the 444 to five rows at 30 inch and most of all if you think the little machine can deal with the extra row, if any of you have any experience with this sort of stuff or have seen it anywhere, please let me know and help me out with your knowledge and experience. Thanks.

 

[tbone95]

That just seems like it would be a major project. I wouldn't worry about the machine handling it, depending on conditions. Yeah, it's not made for it, but you could go. But the mechanical part of getting 5 rows out of 4 seems like a nightmare. I think you'd be money ahead, not to mention time, to trade the 444 on a 443. 444's aren't very popular, so you probably won't get much. Might be better to use it for parts. Sorry, just my thoughts. Good luck. If you tackle it, please share, that would be cool

 

[markat425]

I agree with Tbone, I'd keep it for parts. The snouts alone (the front part)are $300 at Deere, cheaper elsewhere. Not to mention the gearboxes.

 

[manires]

Thanks for the input, sorry I forgot to mention that I also have laying around a jd 343, and hence the idea of converting the 444 to 5 rows. Not to mention the the other idea which is tto cut the 444 in half and splicing the resulting parts onto the 343 sides and I would be getting a 7 row hybrid to fit onto the 7720 that we have already. I´ll keep you all posted when I have something rolling.

 

[cthoma11]

it can be done and it isnt that big of a deal . i did it all you need is 1 more row unit which you have and the 30"tin for the snouts . my cousin did it before me and cut his tin with a jigsaw and advised me to go ahead and buy the tin out of a junkyard.this is how you do it take the outside snouts off move the outside row units out 3" each then move the next 2 to 30" and add the new row to the middle there is one more thing you need it is a shaft to drive the middle row it can come from the junkyard also.put the tin back on go after having already done this 1 time i could do it again in 1 day .i cut around 100 acres a year with a 4420 and this head and have no problems the only thing is i have a 4 row planter and usually i plant 20 headland rows and then go back and forth .the driving thing for me on this deal was $1100 worth of parts to do this conversion or $3500 for another head and i didnt think my head would sell cause no one around me is on wide rows any more

 

[cthoma11]

one other thing i have cut 200+ bushel corn more than once with this setup and the combine will take it you may have too slow down but i can take that when i am harvesting good corn.

 

[tbone95]

Good thing I didn't say impossible, 'cuz somebody has done just about everything.

I had a lot of my 443 apart this fall, still seems hard to visualize doing this in a day. I'm not dissing you, cthoma, I know I sure couldn't do it in a day with my abilities and facilities.

manires, if you do this, pleas post some photos of before and after. I'm not going to do this to mine, but I think it would be a cool project to follow!

good luck

 

[cthoma11]

farmers can be very ingenius an enginering masters when money is involved

 

[105diesel]

Deere built 543 corn heads, 5-row 30", and your 4400 can't count and doesn't know how many rows the cornhead has--all it knows is the amount of crop input. Unless you're shelling 200+ bushel corn, a 4400 should handle it just fine. might have to slow down a tad with the extra row. Ran a 643 on a 95 in 185-bushel corn, had to go kind of slow, but it would handle it.