Last year while cleaning out the shed I came across some old JD 1209/1219 sickles and I had an idea. I already knew that JD sickle sections had the same key dimensions as AC sections. But, when I started looking at the backing bar on the old sickles it seemed similar as well. After some measuring I found it had the same cross sectional size. Furthermore AGCO seems to have recently discontinued sickle bars for the AC haybines so the idea was born to convert a JD sickle to an AC sickle.

For my trial run I started with a near new Fleet Farm (JD) sickle that had a bad head, but all the pictures you will see are of the second bar I made with a brand new bar from JD. I would have liked to save the money and buy another Fleet Farm bar but Fleet Farm did not carry a riveted over-serrated bar. In case you are curious I ended up changing all the sections on the Fleet Farm bar to over-serrated after converting it.

For those who know, or as the pictures show, JD bars have a 1 1/2 section on the end of the sickle while AC has a 1/2 section and the rivet holes do not line up between the two on the backing bar.

First line up both bars so the first full section from the non-drive end line up, then flip the bars over and you will get an idea of what needs to be cut off the JD bars.

Then, take the JD 1 1/2 end section, place the AC 1/2 section on top and mark the JD section to cut it down. After doing this put the AC section back on top and mark the JD section for a new second rivet hole.

The drive end of the backer bar needs to be simply cut to length and no more needs to be done.

The last step is to rivet the 1/2 section on the non-drive end of the backer bar and rivet your salvaged AC drive head on the JD bar along with the sections removed while taking the JD head off.

In my case I simply wanted extra sickles on hand so if I break a section I can just switch bars in the field rather than try and replace the section with the bar in the machine or drive home and pull the bar. Because of this I needed extra AC heads. AGCO does still service that part but it is a bit pricey, I was able to get one from a salvage yard for half the price. I just blasted and repainted it before installing it in the sickle bar.  Below should be the link to my album, to see all the pictures.  Hopefully this will be of use to someone.

 

When it comes to removing riveted sections I just place the backing bar on the long edge of the anvil with sections pointing down hanging over the long side of the anvil.  Then just take a few good swings at the back edge of the section and shear the rivets right off, then punch what's left out of the backing bar.  It does get a little more tricky by the drive head since not much of the section back sticks out past the head.  About the best method I have found for removing the entire drive head is grinding the heads of the rivets flush on the bottom of the sickle.  Then, drive a chisel or prybar in between the head and sections one at a time and it will pry apart.  If you are just replacing one section held under the drive head sometimes the only way is to grind the rivet flush and drill just under the rivet size and drive out the remains.