The customer I originally talked about decided to put the 974 on his 9600. The 2-1/8 cylinders had a lot of trouble lifting the header so I installed the 2-3/8 cylinders and it worked fine. The back end of the combine was VERY light, basically unsafe to drive. He had the rear wheels ballasted with calcium and it was adequate to hold it down. Having rear wheel assist would help a lot because of the weight of the cam lobe motors.
I just did a preseason check on the machine and the final drive oils were a little dark with a slight hint of silver in it. The oil was fresh before '08 harvest. So I would say anyone running a setup like this, for sure change drive oils every year.
This particular 9600 had a Sunnybrook cylinder, PF prethresher plate, Deere beater speed up kit, and a 20% power chip. The 974 was an excellent match to the capacity of the machine but he did plug the beater several times so I installed a PF beater this year with a 60% speed up kit.
The dial-a-matic height control does not work well on the 974. The jump from one position to another is too great. I installed the Headsight height control kit so that the new style potentiometer sensor can be used. This worked very well due to the infinite adjustability.
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