When farmer Leigh Baker suffered a triple heart bypass, he knew he had to find a new project to help him recover.

So on his Wild Horse Plains farm, 75 kilometres north of Adelaide, Mr Baker began restoring the 1930 Sunshine Auto Header in his shed.

He bought it for $250 in the late 1970s from his grandfather, who bought it in 1950.

Leigh Baker has a passion for collecting and restoring vintage farm equipment.  (ABC North & West: Isabella Kelly)

"I put it in our shed, and then I dragged it out approximately 30 to 40 years later when I had a triple bypass," Mr Baker said.

"I lost all motive in life, and I thought, 'Well, I'll do something.'"

After removing a "wheelbarrow load of rat manure", the header required little work.

"I bought a new set of plugs and got my cousin to make a new exhaust, and we towed it probably 10 metres, and it started," Mr Baker said.

"It has got an instruction book; I should have read that first, I suppose."

The 1930 header made its way to Leigh Baker's family farm in 1950.  (ABC North & West: Isabella Kelly)

That was about four years ago, and it has sat in a shed until being put to work this harvest.

"It ran quite well, actually," Mr Baker said.

"It did get fairly hot. I suppose we're not used to sitting so close to the motor — nowadays we're just used to sitting in an air-conditioned cab.

"I suppose we don't know how easy we have it."

The first of its kind

A 1929 advertisement said the 12-foot comb front header could harvest 40 acres (16 hectares) in a day.

Modern equivalents advertise an ability of 12 hectares per hour.

The machinery was revolutionary in its time, as the first commercial harvester that did not need towing.

A 1922 publicity brochure for an older version of the Sunshine Header Harvester.  (Supplied: Museums Victoria)

Running the harvester for about an hour got Mr Baker a few bags of grain, but efficiency was not the point.

"All I wanted was a photo of the new ones next to the old one so I could put it on the wall," he said.