Combines Anyone what to make changesIJ

[gleanermanitoba]

I am with you 100% on the unloader idea, I'm not sure as to everyone else, but we have the 12" unloader and always keep a spare belt with us we seem to blow one a year and do not run the auger covers all the way open, takes a long time to unload, around 3 minutes. Our biggest issue is with straw chop and spread, we have the fine cut chopper but still its not what we want and its a pain to work on up there with 2 wrenches and sharp blades and nowhere for your hands. We have done many of Dan's upgrades including steep helicals, triangle filler and feeder floor and all have helped smooth the machines out tremendously while adding capacity. What we are now finding is rotor loss in wheat, wondering if we are now moving material too effeciently and not enough seperation room.(no bison yet, stadard rotor with all forward bars and extended discharge) My ideas are to go a larger diameter rotor and with the new unloader system you could add 12-14" to the length of the rotor and run it under the unload auger and use all this area for discharge, this would more than double your chopper area. I dont know if it would work but what about an impeler system that moved the straw down and to the center of the machine then mount an external chopper similar that on the Masseys for a better chop and spread. I would also like to see the elevator feeding augers with a clean out door on the underside.

 

[big_orange]

Raise the straw spreader up enough so it doesn't interfer with chaff spread, reposition the hydralic tank(like it used to be) so you can get to the batteries. Bigger opening on the fan screen, so you can get in to adjust rock door.Ditto on the unloading auger. Spit the straw spreader belt in 2, and put an extra pulley in the middle for more speed options.

 

[NDDan]

I believe it was within the year that unloader belt become a white color (makes me think kevlar). Sounds to me unloader is maybe pulling harder than normal. Check flighting near universal joint. We like to extend it to within 1_2" of bushing support bracket. We also taper the edges of bushing support bracket to allow crop to flow by better. Make sure flighting in swinging auger extends beyond tube toward universal joint (some have been smashed flush with tube during shipping). This is all in effort to reduce dead area in universal area. Reducing this dead area can make all the difference and is especially evident in edible beans. Seldom have I seen a belt conveyer for beans like are quite common on turret machines. Also if you happen to have Stewart Steel extention installed you need to look at gap from flighting to universal joint. The square drive shaft for auger should just barely if at all be visable. I found a two inch gap on extentions made for the 14" systems. That 2" is alot of dead area and should be fixed. Don't know if 12" unloader system extentions have the same problem or not. You'll have to fill me in a little more on how you have cage setup. Did you go with full steep pitch thresher helicals or economy version with a couple medium length steep helicalIJ Did you remove everyother wire from seperator grate, raise any wires, and is it a '97 or newer machine with adjustable grateIJ We did a little proto testing of cage door with larger opening for corn last fall. It worked at reducing corn loss to a very low level. I'm calling this a corn door and can very likely be used in many crops as long as cylinder is set up to flow straw well. I'd be nervous about this door if you don't have sweeps. Anyway someday we'll give it a try in some small grain crops. It's hard to watch even a tiny amount of this crop being lost anymore. I'm with you on larger capacity cage plans but a higher capacity clean grain for the high yielding corn ranks about highest on wish list now.

 

[gleanermanitoba]

We have the economy steep pitch helicals, all forward bars, the concave is factory, no wires removed or raised, 4 filler plates, 1 machine is 96 and one an 02 with adjustable grate, our problem with this one is we lost our triangle filler once and ended up bolting the second one through to the adgustable grate making it non adjustable as we had never used it before, this could be changed if needed. We did bolt a reverse bar into the seperator grate and it appeared to help, the dryer the crop, the better the seperation.

 

[Hibred]

We like the unloading auger, ours has the 14" auger, its fairly fast, simple and little to go wrong in comparison to a turret in our opinion. I'd like to see a totally different center design chopper too, one that will spread more evenly and wider and a little better chaff spreader too. Even with the CDF rotor we still get grain loss. Now my really big beef is the flexhead, while Gleaner has now gone to the Schumacher Pro Drive they still need to have a different skid shoe, something that will allow us to shave the ground better. I feel the hydraulic system is a little lacking too, if you are cutting and try and raise the reel while the auto header height is working it seems to be lacking in hydraulic capacity. These are a few things i have on my wish list for Gleaner to fix and or change, come on Gleaner get going.

 

[Brian]

I'd like more room to access concave (right side). Maybe add a bolt-in panel to the right of the door. I have no experience with precision ag products from AGCO, that said, I wish they would have went with Agleader vs Dickey John hardware. Much like the move Kinze made with Agleader for the new V series planters-brillant! I like to see AGCO do the same for combines etc... Do the air conditioners work in the 5 series cabsIJ Would be nice if they worked like the pre-2 series cabs. Tighter turning radius with RWA when tires set to match 30" rows. Maybe that has been solved with long shoe versionsIJ How about more price competitiveIJ

 

[NDDan]

Well I'd say your economy steep pitch has only created a more uniform spread of material over concave. This should be good and is just one step better than just the triangle filler over corner of feeder. This does dump more material on right side of seperator grate but I believe this is better than over feeder, trap door, and concave a second time. Do make sure that you have trimed back normal pitch helicals to prevent a pinch point between steep and normal pitch helicals. I believe the heavy loading on right side of seperator grate is evened out quickly with the use of rotor sweeps. Economy steep helicals and rotor sweeps for eight bar rotors have been bare minimum mods to any machine threw the lot for years. You would allready have high wide wire rear half of thresher concave on your machines. I would highly suggest you convert seperator grate to more closely match high wide wire. This will help keep seperator grate completely clean under load so you will get the benifit of gravity and centrifical force. Definitly make adjustable grate adjustable again and use it to control any possible loss. I believe the stationary rasp on your older machine will get as close as posible to benifits of the adjustable grate design. Most machines around hear have never had adjustable grate adjusted and are doing fine but for the fine tuners it will work to reduce losses if present. You can allways reinstall reverse bars if you think they will help but I would only try that as a very last resort.