sorry for the bad quality I took it with my camera phone. it was also from quite a ways away but you get the idea. this combine has sat there since last milo harvest ('05) but has turned directions.
The Ford 642 was actually a Claas combine branded Ford and sold in the US. It was the largest combine of its day, bigger than the Deere 7700 and White 8700.
guy I used to farm for had a fairly nice 642 in the shed, i see they've recently parted it out. Not a whole lot of demand for them here. I kinda doubt it was bigger than a 7700 as our 915 IH used to eat its lunch. Granted this machine only had about a 13-15' head on it...
Alex, maybe you can just go get it for little or nothing. That would make an excellent restoration project for you and parts are still around, although just not everywhere you look. Besides, what better way is there for spending your harvest run earnings?
Okay, I had thought from our previous discussions about it, you may have been interested in restoring it. Still, I would hardly call the Ford 642 just scrap.
Two years ago I visited with the family that owns this machine. They actually have another one and an M2 or L2 Gleaner also. Supposedly the guy that bought both combines purchased them for 500 or 600 bucks. They told me it was cheaper to limp these along and save the money on a nicer machine. And, if one died.......well your picture tells that story. I have pics of both combines from that particular combine cruise. I will have to post them.
There is another ford combine running northwest of Otis out in the sticks.
Well someone nearby should take an interest in saving the old machine. Fords [Claas] were really unique in many ways. They have the only cabs I can actually fully stand up in. Their "Uni-Trol" was also the first joystick to be used on a combine. I'm sure there were other great innovations, too, because Claas was no dunce when it came to engineering and building combines, even 40 years ago.
They were to a point. It's just that Ford was by far, better-known for their tractors, rather than combines or miscellaneous equipment. Ford did, at least, get the Claas combines into North America, just as Sperry-NH brought in the Claysons [Claeys] starting in 1966.
Another note about New Holland. They were a HUGE LEADER in hay and forage, but their combines were never any major player until 1980, with the second generation of the new, American-made Twin Rotors. The original TR 70 paved the way from 1975-1989 and was the first American-made NH combine! To this day, any conventionals [Twin Flows or TX] are still imported from their native Belgium. The conv's are more of a Canadian thing, now., or at least they were.
Hey JJB, quick, go use your artistic talent and airbrush some pretty calendar girls all over that old 642. Someone will SURELY take her home and save her over THAT!!!
There is another one of these blue Claas combines a ways west of Great Bend at an old farm stead. I could always see it on the north side of highway 56. It does not have a cab.
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