# John Deere 1209 / 1219 difference



## FC Koegelenberg (May 22, 2013)

Good day from South Africa. What is the difference between a John Deere 1209 and a 1219 mower conditioner? I know the 1219 is the newer model. Is there anything to look out for when buying one. Any tips for operation? Any comments in general on the above models will be appreciated. We are looking to purchase one to use along with our MF 925 haybine. Thank you.

FC Koegelenberg


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## hillside hay (Feb 4, 2013)

We always had trouble with the cutterbar breaking near the pitman arm. Got real good at swapping them out. Lol That was on the 1209 we went to discbine after that.


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## longmeadow farm (Jun 26, 2009)

The 1219 was built from 1983 to 1994, so the 1209 probably goes back to the early 70s. I'm not an expert on the differences, but I would assume considerable changes were made. I owned a 1219 with stub/non-clog guards which made for easy cutting in down or heavy legume crops. The cutterbar needed the double knife on each end to prevent plugging and/or for just a good cut. The registration (guards to knife) is very important and on a well used machine of the vintage we are talking about getting proper registration across the cutterbar is difficult. You may have to place your "worn" guards on one side and newer ones on the other... and quite a few may have to just thrown away. The left side of the knife doesn't have any hold downs..or what ever you call them and "floats up & down and back and forth to some degree and can be prone to breakage in a number of circumstances. The left side also doesn't cut as cleanly as I would have liked, because of the design.. but it worked. I never used mine faster than 4mph and it worked OK. The right rear wheel is positioned too far in and too close to the rollers, resulting in material buildup if the windrow baffle is set to wide swath position... especially in early AM wet conditions. I resorted to cutting after the dew is off and it performed ok. The machine(1219) was not designed to cut heavy legume hay that is not free of dew. But even wet grass "bunched" up against the left rear wheel... from time to time and second/third cutting was a problem if the dew was on. The 1219 was a reliable machine ..but I thought I died and went to heaven when ..years ago.. I switched to a discbine ..actually it was a NI 5209..nice well balanced machine. My newer disc based machines are even better.


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## No Rain (Dec 31, 2013)

There was an early and late version of the 1209 haybine. The early version has a different style cover over the gear box, the pitman arm is different (if you replace this arm it is updated with the later vsersion), and there are 2 hydrualic lift cylinder to raise and lower the machine.

There is only one real difference between the late version of the 1209 and the 1219. The 1219 has five bats on the pickup reel instead of the 4 bats on the late 1209. There may of been a few more difference, but they are very minor.

I have used my JD 1209 for the past 25 years and it has been a sound machine, very reliable, and very little problems. As previously stated that I have also had the cutter bar brake numerouse times by the pitman arm. I found that my father replaced the gaurds and installed the wrong style gaurd next to the pitman arm, this caused binding on the cutter bar and ultimatly braking the cutter bar.


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