Going Back a Few Years....New Idea Equipment

I have 2 706 diesel and an 800 and a 702 power units. Plus two shellers , 760 chopper,picker , 2 710 Combines.

last summer after years of abuse I tore up the gearbox on dads old New Idea 5' mower shredder. Bottom baring and seal went out. Maybe unfixable. I would be interested in finding a direct replacement gearbox or a complete good used New Idea 5'mower shredder.
   PM me if you can help. A 5' mower is about right for my Massy 1260

I recently acquired a NI 270 cut-ditioner for haying. It's an earlier chain driven flail cupped rotor with an clutch over-ride situated after it's gearbox. I'm impressed by it. On tight corners, I shutoff tractor's pto. The cut-ditioner immediately stops it's pto shaft thus saving it's yokes & bearings. The flail rotor continues to spin from its own inertia until tractor's pto is re-engaged. Works great!
I also acquired a NI 404 5 wheel rake. It does a great job too. I love its simplicity. 

Edited by AC7060IL - 29 Jul 2018 at 9:39pm

Something like this one?
Uni 708 hydro with a Perkins T6 354 Turbo (138 hp)
With the 4N corn head, it only cost me $1500 more than a good 2N pull type picker.

jwal10 wrote: I bought a New Idea 5 wheel hay rake new in 1976 from Lehman Bros. They used to be a MM dealer west of Amity Oregon. They had a lot of MM. A bunch of the old MM Uni-farmers with all kind of equipment mounted. A Manure spreader, a baler, forage chopper and combines....James

Was that at an intersection on HWY 18 that is signed as Bellevue? I used to drive past whenever heading to the coast from Mac. I never bothered to turn my head and look, though.

I KNOW FOR A FACT THAT NEW IDEA BUILT THE CASE IH 3309 DISC MOWER CONDITIONER AND CASE IH HAY RAKES AT THE SAME TIME PERIOD! We have 5209 New Idea discbines and 2 406 hay rakes hydraulic drive 86 and 96 Case IH numbers and buy parts at Case NH dealer because the parts were cheaper! Norm Swinfords book has a New Idea Uni System in it I think in power unit section for 3500A engine Black and White picture! We also have 1 701 292 chevy gas, 2 702 401 GM v6 gas, and one with 401 block diesel, 2 708 T6 354 Perkins, and 1 801 w/3500A in it Uni Systems! Also 839 husking bed with 846N 6 row corn head to pick corn!

We have a New Idea double frame corn planter like this one.  It was made by Kinze for New Idea and is nothing but a double frame Kinze painted orange.  In fact there is blue paint under the orange.  The guy we got it from bought it new from the New Idea dealer sometime in the early 90s.

Edited by VAfarmboy - 30 Jul 2018 at 2:46pm

There was overlap between CaseIH and New Idea. I am not sure who made what but I think they each made stuff for one another. New Idea had a forage harvester,haybine and square baler that were IH. IH had the New Idea 484-483 round baler and the 5209 discbine that New Idea built. New Idea sold the IH 1190 haybine and a rake that was IH as well.New Idea pickers were not near as good as people think as they shelled way to much corn on the ground. They did a great job of husking and left you with the prettiest crib of corn but if you look close the bottom two inches of corn are missing and are out in the field. The new corn varieties make it even worse. There was a reason that AC won the national corn picking contests in the 60's as the plates over the rolls saved the most corn. My grandfather had an AC picker and the landlord made him sell it as he did not want to see cribs of corn that still had some husks on them. Grandfather tried to tell him that he had more corn to feed as it was in the crib and not the field but they farmed on halves so the AC picker was sold. As far as the Uni-system anything that does everyting does nothing right. They were a great picker but the combine and chopper left a lot to be desired. Dad had a Uni with a Deere 4 row corn head and that machine could really pick some corn in a day. I also picked a lot of corn with a two row mounted NewIdea picker on a series II D15. Tom